The fan on your server kicks into high gear. The machine is sluggish. You know something is consuming resources—but you're not at your desk. You have a vague suspicion it's the OpenClaw agent you launched earlier, but you have no way to confirm it.
Without remote visibility, the only options are bad ones: drive home, remote-desktop into a machine that's too slow to respond, or just wait and hope whatever is happening resolves itself.
The Problem: Resource Spikes Without Context
OpenClaw is a capable system, but it can be demanding:
- A task that requires generating many large files can spike disk I/O and CPU simultaneously.
- A memory leak in a long-running session can cause RAM consumption to grow over hours.
- A runaway sub-process spawned by a tool call might survive even if the agent itself stalls.
The frustrating part is that these resource spikes don't generate obvious errors. The agent might still be "running." The logs might look normal. The only symptom is the hardware screaming.
The Solution: ClawBridge Remote Node Diagnostics
ClawBridge's node monitoring panel gives you a live read on your server's health, accessible from your phone—no SSH, no VPN.
1. CPU and Memory at a Glance
Open ClawBridge and check the node status view. You'll see real-time CPU load and memory consumption for the machine running OpenClaw. A spike in both strongly suggests the agent is in the middle of a heavy operation—or something has gone wrong.
2. Cross-reference with Live Thoughts
Once you've confirmed a resource spike, switch to the Live Thoughts feed. Is the agent actively reasoning and making progress? Or is the reasoning feed empty / stalled while CPU is pegged? A stalled reasoning feed combined with high CPU is a strong sign of a runaway sub-process or a hung operation.
3. Restart the Service Remotely
If the agent is clearly stuck and the machine is struggling, go to Mission Control and restart the OpenClaw service. This terminates the agent and any sub-processes it spawned under its process tree. The server should return to normal resource levels within seconds.
4. Emergency Stop Without a Full Restart
If you want to stop the agent but preserve the ClawBridge connection to continue monitoring, use Emergency Stop instead of a full service restart. This kills the agent's process, freeing CPU and RAM, while leaving ClawBridge running so you can observe the recovery.
A Realistic Scenario
You're at a café when your phone buzzes with a notification from another app. Your laptop feels warm and the battery is draining faster than usual—a clue something is running hard. You open ClawBridge, see 100% CPU and growing memory usage, flip to Live Thoughts and find it empty for the last 15 minutes. The agent has stalled but its process hasn't exited. One tap on Emergency Stop, CPU drops to 5%, and you can relax.
ClawBridge is free and open source (MIT License) — install it in seconds, own it forever.
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Your server's health is your business—even when you're not there to check it.