BlueBubbles Healthcheck Skill

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when: - iMessages aren't being delivered to/from OpenClaw - After restarting the OpenClaw gateway - User reports "messages not coming through" - Periodic healthcheck (can be added to HEARTBEAT.md) - Debugging BlueBubbles ↔ OpenClaw connectivity

What It Does

Diagnoses and auto-heals the webhook connection between BlueBubbles and OpenClaw. This is a common failure mode: after gateway restarts, BlueBubbles can lose its webhook or enter backoff state.

Diagnostic checks: 1. BlueBubbles server reachable 2. Webhook registered pointing to OpenClaw 3. OpenClaw gateway endpoint responding 4. Recent webhook delivery activity

Auto-healing: - Restarts OpenClaw gateway if endpoint is down - Deletes stale webhooks and re-registers fresh - Verifies fix after healing

How to Use

Quick Check (Read-Only)

BB_URL="http://127.0.0.1:1234" 
BB_PASSWORD="your-password" 
~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/bluebubbles-healthcheck/scripts/diagnose.sh

Interpret the output: - All ✅ = healthy, no action needed - Any ❌ = issue detected, consider running heal

Auto-Heal

BB_URL="http://127.0.0.1:1234" 
BB_PASSWORD="your-password" 
~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/bluebubbles-healthcheck/scripts/heal.sh

This will: 1. Run diagnostics 2. Identify what's broken 3. Attempt to fix it (gateway restart, webhook reset) 4. Re-run diagnostics to verify

Dry Run (See What Would Happen)

BB_URL="http://127.0.0.1:1234" 
BB_PASSWORD="your-password" 
~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/bluebubbles-healthcheck/scripts/heal.sh --dry-run

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
BB_URL	Yes	http://127.0.0.1:1234	BlueBubbles server URL
BB_PASSWORD	Yes	—	BlueBubbles API password
OPENCLAW_WEBHOOK_URL	No	http://127.0.0.1:18789/bluebubbles-webhook	OpenClaw webhook endpoint

You can also pass these as args: --bb-url, --password, --webhook-url

Agent Decision Flow

User reports iMessage issue
         ↓
    Run diagnose.sh
         ↓
    ┌────┴────┐
    │ All ✅? │
    └────┬────┘
    Yes  │  No
    ↓    │  ↓
 Report  │  Run heal.sh
 healthy │      ↓
         │  ┌───┴───┐
         │  │Fixed? │
         │  └───┬───┘
         │  Yes │ No
         │  ↓   │ ↓
         │Report│ Escalate to user:
         │fixed │ - BB app not running?
         │      │ - Network issue?
         └──────┴─ Manual intervention needed

Common Failure Patterns

Pattern 1: Gateway restart broke webhooks

Symptoms: Messages stop after openclaw gateway restart Fix: heal.sh will reset webhook

Pattern 2: BlueBubbles in backoff

Symptoms: Webhook exists but BB stopped trying to deliver Fix: heal.sh deletes and re-registers webhook (clears backoff state)

Pattern 3: Gateway not running

Symptoms: Check 3 fails (port 18789 not listening) Fix: heal.sh runs openclaw gateway restart

Pattern 4: BlueBubbles.app not running

Symptoms: Check 1 fails (HTTP 000) Fix: Manual — user must start BlueBubbles.app on the Mac

Files

skills/bluebubbles-healthcheck/
├── SKILL.md           ← You are here
├── README.md          ← GitHub docs
└── scripts/
    ├── diagnose.sh    ← Read-only diagnostics (exit 0 = healthy)
    ├── heal.sh        ← Auto-heal orchestrator
    └── reset-webhook.sh ← Atomic webhook delete+re-register

Security Notes

Why does the webhook URL contain the password?

reset-webhook.sh registers a webhook URL like:

http://127.0.0.1:18789/bluebubbles-webhook?password=...

This is a BlueBubbles → OpenClaw authentication constraint, not arbitrary exposure. When BlueBubbles fires webhook events, it calls this URL. OpenClaw's BB plugin uses ?password= to verify the incoming callback is from a trusted source. There is no other mechanism in the current BB↔OpenClaw integration for authenticating inbound webhook calls.

Mitigations already in place: - Both services run on 127.0.0.1 (localhost only — never exposed externally) - The password is masked in all log output by the script - The URL is only stored inside BlueBubbles' local config (not transmitted off-device)

What you should know before installing: - BB_PASSWORD will be stored inside BlueBubbles' webhook config on disk - Only use on machines where both BB and OpenClaw run locally and are trusted - Do not point BB_URL at a remote BlueBubbles instance

Required binaries

Binary	Used by	Notes
curl	All scripts	HTTP calls to BB API
python3	diagnose.sh, reset-webhook.sh	JSON parsing
nc	diagnose.sh, heal.sh	Port check on 18789
openclaw	heal.sh	Gateway restart (gracefully skipped if not found)

All of these are standard on macOS except openclaw — this skill is part of the OpenClaw ecosystem and expects the openclaw CLI to be available.

Adding to Heartbeat

To run periodic healthchecks, add to HEARTBEAT.md:

## BlueBubbles Health
Every 4 hours, run the BlueBubbles healthcheck skill.
If any checks fail, run heal and report results.