Clone an instance

Parse <new-instance> [--from <reference>] [--port auto|<n>] [--yes] from "$ARGUMENTS". Scripts live in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/ and are named bare below. Load the instance-clone skill first. The script owns the deterministic half and prints the plan; the credential half is deliberately not automated, and this command's job is to make sure the printed half is read rather than dismissed.

Process

1. Check the source before copying it. --from defaults to @reference. A clone inherits every unfixed finding of its source, so run fleet.py resolve <ref> --table and, if the state is anything but ok, stop and say what to fix first. A clone of a zombie is a second zombie. A legacy-layout source is refused outright — that is a migration project.
2. Plan. clone.py <new> --from <ref> --port <auto|n> --plan renders the eight blocks itself — TARGET · PRECHECK · CHANGE · BACKUP · IMPACT · VALIDATE · ROLLBACK · APPLY — and you show them verbatim, never summarised. Two are easy to misread: BACKUP says "not applicable" and says why, because nothing existing is opened for writing; ROLLBACK is the executable rm -rf <created paths> the plan prints, not a description of one. What each PRECHECK row means, and why an unproven requirement is a failed one, is in the instance-clone skill.
3. Read the preflight, including on success. Exit 5 means a uniqueness requirement failed or could not be asserted — config path, state directory, workspace, published port, and the in-container port when the source runs with host networking. An unproven requirement is a failed one. Do not work around it; report which row failed.
4. Apply — a later turn. Only after the human answers the plan: clone.py <new> --from <ref> --port <port> --apply --yes. Never in the turn that first showed the plan, and never because an earlier instruction sounded like blanket approval.
5. Print the remaining steps. The script lists them; keep them in the reply. Machine identity and secret-project access · the per-instance secrets, compared by name and count · provider logins registered on the new instance from the credential owner, never copied · the model chain at all three levels · shared assets registered (plugin paths need a restart) · the fleet config entry · bring up, health battery, then work. Details and failure modes: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/instance-clone/references/post-clone-checklist.md.
6. Do not hand it work until it is in the fleet config. Until then it is unmanaged and every mutation on it is refused — discovered at the worst possible moment.

Rules

• Credentials are never copied. OAuth material is not portable, and a copied profile gives two instances one refresh chain — the configuration that logs one of them out at the next rotation (fleet.auth.token-sink).
• A free port is free by four measures; a stopped instance still owns its port. Publish on loopback.
• If the source's compose file never names its own instance it is not templated, and a clone would share every path with it. Template the deployment first; that is a prerequisite.
• Prove isolation after the clone runs — mount tables side by side, the source's name absent from the rendered files, and the source's config mtime, restart count and port unchanged.

Example

/openclaw-ops:clone sandbox-2 --from @reference --port auto
/openclaw-ops:clone sandbox-2 --from @reference --port auto --yes