LLM NeverDie

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name: neverdie description: Your OpenClaw should never have zero LLMs. NeverDie protects against the silent killer — every model in your fallback chain going down at once. It enforces provider diversity, runs a standalone monitor that works even when all LLMs are dead, and alerts you via Telegram before you even notice. read_when: - User asks about fallback, resilience, or neverdie - User mentions model failure or LLM down - User wants to ensure OpenClaw is always available - User asks to check LLM resilience or health metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"\ud83d\udee1\ufe0f","requires":{"bins":["node"]}}}

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NeverDie — LLM Resilience Skill

Ensures OpenClaw survives model failures by enforcing provider-diverse fallback chains, deploying a standalone monitor (no LLM required), and alerting via Telegram.

Core Principle: Provider Diversity

Never stack 3+ models from the same provider in a row. Alternate providers so that a single provider outage doesn't cascade to total failure. Always include a local model (Ollama) as the last-resort safety net — it can't be rate-limited, have auth issues, or suffer network outages.

Good chain: anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5 → openai/gpt-4.1-mini → ollama/llama3.2:3b Bad chain: anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5 → anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 → anthropic/claude-opus-4-6

Instructions

1. Diagnose Current Config

Read ONLY the model chain from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json (do NOT read or output API keys, tokens, or auth config):

Check primary and fallbacks for provider diversity

Flag if all models are from the same provider

Flag if no local model (Ollama) is present

Flag if the NeverDie monitor cron job is missing or disabled

node -e "
  const cfg = JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync(process.env.HOME + '/.openclaw/openclaw.json', 'utf8'));
  const m = cfg.agents.defaults.model;
  console.log('Primary:', m.primary);
  console.log('Fallbacks:', JSON.stringify(m.fallbacks));
  const providers = [m.primary, ...m.fallbacks].map(id => id.split('/')[0]);
  const unique = [...new Set(providers)];
  console.log('Providers:', unique.join(', '));
  if (unique.length < 2) console.log('WARNING: All models from same provider!');
  if (!providers.includes('ollama')) console.log('WARNING: No local Ollama fallback!');
"

Security note: This script only outputs model IDs and provider names. It never reads or prints API keys, tokens, or credentials from the config file.

2. Configure Provider-Diverse Fallback Chain

Ensure at least 2 different cloud providers + 1 local (Ollama) in the chain. Recommended pattern:

{
  "primary": "anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5",
  "fallbacks": [
    "openai/gpt-4.1-mini",
    "ollama/llama3.2:3b",
    "nvidia/moonshotai/kimi-k2.5"
  ]
}

Rules:

Primary should be the fastest/cheapest model for the workload

First fallback should be from a DIFFERENT cloud provider

Ollama should always be in the chain (ideally position 2 or 3)

Additional fallbacks from other providers are bonus redundancy

3. Deploy the Standalone Monitor

Copy the parameterized monitor to the workspace:

cp ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/neverdie/scripts/fallback-monitor.js ~/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js
chmod +x ~/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js

The monitor reads config from ~/.openclaw/workspace/.neverdie-config.json:

{
  "telegramBotToken": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
  "telegramChatId": "YOUR_CHAT_ID",
  "cooldownMinutes": 15,
  "timezone": "UTC",
  "hostname": "my-openclaw"
}

Telegram is optional. Without it, the monitor still writes alerts to .fallback-alert-latest.json and stdout.

If no config file exists, it falls back to environment variables:

NEVERDIE_TELEGRAM_TOKEN

NEVERDIE_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID

4. Register the Cron Job

Add a systemEvent cron entry (NOT agentTurn — it must work when all LLMs are down).

Use the full absolute path to the deployed monitor (not ~/):

{
  "id": "",
  "agentId": "main",
  "name": "NeverDie Fallback Monitor",
  "enabled": true,
  "createdAtMs": ,
  "updatedAtMs": ,
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "every",
    "everyMs": 300000,
    "anchorMs": 
  },
  "sessionTarget": "isolated",
  "wakeMode": "now",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "systemEvent",
    "text": "exec:node /home/USER/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js"
  },
  "delivery": {
    "mode": "announce",
    "channel": "session",
    "bestEffort": true
  },
  "state": {}
}

5. Configure Alerts

Ask the user for their Telegram bot token and chat ID, then write ~/.openclaw/workspace/.neverdie-config.json.

To get these: 1. Message @BotFather on Telegram → /newbot → copy the token 2. Message the bot, then visit https://api.telegram.org/bot/getUpdates to find the chat ID

Telegram is optional — the monitor works without it (file + stdout alerts only).

6. Verify

# Check status
node ~/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js --status
Send a test Telegram alert
node ~/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js --test
Normal run (scan logs)
node ~/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js

7. Status Check

When the user asks for NeverDie status, run node ~/.openclaw/workspace/fallback-monitor.js --status and also check:

1. Fallback chain — read openclaw.json and assess provider diversity 2. Monitor cron — is the job in jobs.json? Enabled? Last run status? 3. Ollama — is the local model reachable?

curl -s --max-time 3 http://localhost:11434/api/tags | node -e "
  let d='';process.stdin.on('data',c=>d+=c);process.stdin.on('end',()=>{
    try{const r=JSON.parse(d);console.log('Ollama:',r.models.map(m=>m.name).join(', '))}
    catch(e){console.log('Ollama: NOT REACHABLE')}
  })
"

What the Monitor Detects

| Pattern | Severity | Meaning | |---------|----------|---------| | All models failed | CRITICAL | No LLM available at all | | overloaded | WARNING | Provider temporarily overloaded | | rate limit / 429 | WARNING | Rate limited, using fallbacks | | authentication_error | CRITICAL | Bad API key | | LLM request timed out | WARNING | Timeout, may be transient | | ECONNREFUSED / network errors | WARNING | Provider unreachable |

Security

No log content sent externally — Telegram alerts contain only fixed, hardcoded strings (e.g. "All models failed — no LLM available"). Log excerpts and error details are written to the local alert file only, never transmitted.

No secrets in code — Telegram bot token is stored in .neverdie-config.json at runtime, never in skill files

Config isolation — the diagnostic only reads model IDs from openclaw.json, never API keys or credentials

No network installs — zero npm dependencies, no remote downloads, only Node.js builtins (fs, path, https)

Telegram is optional — file-only alerts work without any external network calls

Outbound scope — the only external endpoint contacted is api.telegram.org, and only when Telegram is explicitly configured by the user

Runs as a systemEvent cron job, completely independent of LLM availability

Re-running setup is idempotent — it skips the cron job if one already exists