If you run OpenClaw for more than a few weeks, you will want to see metrics: how many messages processed, API costs over time, response latency, error rates. Here is how I built a dashboard for mine.
The stack
OpenClaw logs → a simple script that parses logs and writes metrics to a SQLite database → Grafana reads from SQLite. Total setup time: about 3 hours. Zero additional cost (Grafana is free for self-hosted).
Metrics I track
Messages per day — Helps me understand usage patterns. I noticed my agent is busiest on Mondays (email backlog from the weekend).
API cost per day — Critical for budgeting. I can see cost spikes immediately instead of waiting for the monthly bill.
Response latency p50/p95 — The median response time is 2.1 seconds. The 95th percentile is 8.4 seconds. The outliers are usually complex tool chains.
Error rate — Currently sitting at 2.3%. Most errors are external API timeouts, not agent failures.
Was it worth building?
For personal use? Probably overkill. For a team or client-facing agent? Absolutely. When something breaks, the dashboard shows you exactly when and what. Without metrics, debugging is guesswork.
Grafana setup docs at Docker’s documentation — the easiest way to run Grafana is as a container.