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Active computer presence tells the Gateway which connected macOS node received the most recent physical mouse or keyboard input. OpenClaw uses that signal to mark one Mac as active, give the agent a stable active-node hint, and route node connection alerts to the computer where you are most likely present. This is separate from system presence, which is the live roster of Gateway clients, and from durable node.presence.alive beacons, which record when a mobile node last woke without treating it as connected.

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Requirements

  • The OpenClaw macOS app is paired and connected in node mode.
  • Settings -> Permissions -> Active computer detection is enabled. It is off by default.
  • Accessibility permission is granted to the signed OpenClaw app.
  • For connection alerts, Notifications permission is also granted and the Mac node exposes system.notify.
Activity reporting is currently implemented by the native macOS node. iOS, Android, watchOS, and headless node hosts can report connection or background last-seen state, but they do not compete for the active-computer designation.

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Check the active computer

  1. In the macOS app, open Settings -> Permissions, enable Active computer detection, and grant Accessibility in macOS System Settings.
  2. Confirm the Mac node is connected:
  3. Move the mouse or press a key on that Mac, then run:
The freshest eligible Mac is marked active. Status output shows its last-input age; describe exposes active, lastActiveAtMs, and presenceUpdatedAtMs. Activity is intentionally coalesced, so the display may take up to about 15 seconds to reflect another input after a recent report.

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How activity becomes presence

The macOS reporter samples the HID system idle clock every two seconds. It reports once when a node connection becomes ready, then reports newer physical activity no more than once every 15 seconds. While idle, it sends a keepalive every three minutes. Idle duration is capped at 30 days so a very old sample cannot drift forward and incorrectly become the newest computer. Disabling Active computer detection stops sampling and sends an authenticated clear event over the current node connection. The Gateway immediately removes that Mac’s retained activity timestamps and recomputes the active computer; other node capabilities and in-flight work stay connected. If the connected Gateway predates this clear action, the Mac node reconnects once so disconnect cleanup can remove the retained activity instead. The Gateway accepts activity only when all of these are true:
  • the event belongs to the current authenticated connection for that node id;
  • the node has effective accessibility: true permission;
  • the payload contains a bounded integer idleSeconds value.
The Gateway subtracts idleSeconds from its own observation time to derive lastActiveAtMs. It never trusts a node-supplied wall-clock timestamp. Among connected eligible Macs, the newest lastActiveAtMs wins; a tie uses the most recent presence update. Presence is process-local and connection-bound. Disconnecting the current session, replacing it with another session using the same node id, or revoking Accessibility clears that node’s activity state and recomputes the active Mac.

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Privacy and model context

Activity sharing is off by default and is separate from the Accessibility grant used for UI automation. OpenClaw sends idle duration, not input content. It does not send key values, mouse coordinates, application names, window titles, or raw input events. The macOS reporter reads the hardware HID state, so synthetic computer-control events do not make an automated Mac appear to be the computer you physically used. Continuous activity does not create model-facing system events. The dynamic runtime line contains only the authenticated node id:
Exact timestamps and node-controlled display names stay out of the prompt to avoid prompt injection and cache churn. When the agent needs current details, the nodes tool can read node.list or node.describe instead.

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How connection alerts are routed

After a node finishes its first successful Gateway handshake after approval, OpenClaw waits 750 milliseconds so the connecting Mac can submit its first activity sample. It then tries the connected notification-capable Mac with the freshest activity.
  • If primary delivery succeeds, no other Mac receives the alert.
  • If no active Mac is available or primary delivery fails, OpenClaw waits five seconds and tries every remaining connected Mac that exposes system.notify.
  • Later reconnects are silent. The Gateway records the successful connection in pairing metadata, so a Gateway restart does not replay alerts for every previously connected node.
Alerts are bound to the authenticated node identity. A replacement session for the same node takes over its pending first-connection alert; if that node is no longer connected when delivery runs, the alert is canceled.

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Troubleshooting

For TCC recovery, see macOS permissions. For node connection and command failures, see Node troubleshooting.