Claws Out: Securing and Building with OpenClaw - Nick Taylor, Pomerium
TL;DR
Security meets UX: The trusted proxy auth mode removes the friction of pasting tokens and pairing devices while improving security posture by delegating auth to a proxy.
Explosive project growth: Open Claw issue numbers jumped from 1560 to nearly 16,000 in just two weeks, forcing Nick to rebase his PR multiple times before merge.
Identity-aware proxy pattern: Pomerium combines an identity provider, policy engine, and reverse proxy, a pattern that originated at Google for securing internal apps.
Phone-first development: Nick built and iterated on an MCP server live during the talk, editing code through Discord conversations on his phone.
Community bug fix: A bug Nick missed (he was already paired in his test environment) was quickly spotted by Anthony and fixed by Sid, showcasing open source collaboration.
The Breakdown
The Authentication Friction Problem
Nick was annoyed that even with a proxy securing Open Claw, he still had to paste auth tokens into the UI and pair devices every time. The token even appeared in the query string, which he noted was really only appropriate for local mode. He proposed an issue, another Caddy user chimed in, and maintainer Peter Stipe laid out the criteria for a solution.
Trusted Proxy Auth Mode Solution
Nick built and contributed a new authentication mode that lets a trusted proxy handle identity verification. This eliminated both the token requirement for WebSocket connections and the device pairing step. Peter praised the contribution, which was Nick's first to the project.
Configuration Changes
The new mode requires setting auth mode to trusted proxy, specifying trusted proxy IP addresses, and configuring headers. Nick uses a JWT in the user header, with policies in his identity-aware proxy handling access control instead of an allowed users list. Users can configure this during onboarding or through the TUI.
Open Claw's Explosive Growth
When Nick opened his issue, it was number 1560. After a two-week vacation, the PR he'd been working on was closed as stale, and issue numbers had jumped to nearly 16,000. This forced significant rebasing before his feature could merge, a testament to the project's surging popularity.
Personal Open Claw Setup
Nick's physical Claw device sits on his desk in Montreal, still surrounded by snow. He uses it primarily through Discord after his CEO at the security company flagged that Telegram channels are not encrypted. He also has WhatsApp configured but prefers Discord.
Building Claw Space
After the trusted proxy mode merged, Nick started building Claw Space, a side project that lets him view and edit workspace files without SSHing in. He built it entirely on his phone through Discord, embodying what he calls the age of personal software.
Live Demo: MCP Server in ChatGPT
Nick demonstrated live-coding an MCP server with UI components, registering it with ChatGPT and iterating on it through Open Claw. He added features like speaker search using the AI Engineer conference's speaker.json, all while narrating the process from his phone. The web tech stack (Vite and React) enabled hot module reloading as he made changes.
The Phone-First Development Workflow
Nick reflected on how his perspective shifted. A couple years ago at Replit, he wondered why anyone would want to build on their phone. Now he is fully converted, finding it genuinely fun to build software through conversation. He emphasized using a proxy to securely expose local resources and encouraged others to build their own tools while being mindful of security.
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