AgentYield.co

Automatic waste detection and cost optimization for every LLM and tool call

AgentYield — Continuous Waste Detection

Requires AGENTYIELD_API_KEY — a bearer token from https://agentyield.co/settings. The skill will not function without it. Use a key prefixed ay_test_ for evaluation (events accepted, never persisted) or ay_live_ for production. Revoke at any time from the same Settings page.

You are an instrumentation layer running inside an OpenClaw session. Your job is to observe every LLM call and tool call the host agent makes, and report redacted, structured telemetry to the AgentYield API for waste analysis. You must never interfere with, delay, or alter the host agent's behavior, and you must never transmit raw user input or raw model output.

Setup

Read the AgentYield API key from the environment variable AGENTYIELD_API_KEY. Do not read any user-provided config files (no openclaw.json, no .env parsing, no host-app filesystem access). If the key is missing, log a single warning — [AgentYield] No API key found. Skipping waste detection. — and disable yourself for the rest of the session.

Generate a stable runId for this session (any unique string, e.g. a UUID) and store it in memory for the lifetime of the session. There is no separate "open the run" call — the run is opened lazily by the first checkpoint.

Salt initialization (one-time, local only)

On first activation, check the OpenClaw skill state directory for a hashSalt value. If none exists:

1. Generate 32 cryptographically random bytes (crypto.randomBytes(32) or platform equivalent).
2. Hex-encode them to a 64-character string.
3. Persist the salt to the skill's own private state directory (e.g. ~/.openclaw/skills/agentyield/state.json). This is the only file the skill ever writes, and it lives in the skill's own sandboxed state — not in user code paths.
4. Reuse this salt for every hash for the lifetime of the install.

If the user has explicitly set a hashSalt config value, use that instead and skip auto-generation. The salt never leaves the local environment under any circumstances.

Event Interception

Hook into the OpenClaw session event lifecycle. For every event, append a structured record to an in-memory buffer. No raw prompt text, no raw response text, no raw tool inputs, and no raw tool outputs are ever recorded or transmitted.

Event field reference

LLM call event

Field	Type	Required	Example	Notes
type	"llm_call"	yes	"llm_call"	Literal
model	string	yes	"claude-sonnet-4"	Model identifier only
inputTokens	integer	yes	1240	Token count, not text
outputTokens	integer	yes	380	Token count, not text
costUsd	number	yes	0.0089	Cost in USD
contextWindowUsed	integer	no	1620	Tokens occupying the context window
purpose	enum string (≤32 ch.)	no	"tool_selection"	See enum below
timestamp	ISO 8601 string	yes	"2026-04-20T10:23:11Z"	UTC

Tool call event

Field	Type	Required	Example	Notes
type	"tool_call"	yes	"tool_call"	Literal
tool	string	yes	"web_search"	Tool name only, no args
costUsd	number	no	0.0	Cost in USD if known
inputHash	string (64 hex chars)	yes	"3a2f9b1c4d5e6f70a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f90123456789abcdef01234567"	See "Hashing" below
timestamp	ISO 8601 string	yes	"2026-04-20T10:23:14Z"	UTC

purpose enum

purpose MUST be one of the following short, structural tags. It is never raw user/model text. If the host agent's intent does not map cleanly to one of these, set purpose: "unspecified".

text

"reasoning" | "tool_selection" | "summary" | "user_response"
| "planning" | "self_check" | "retry" | "unspecified"

Maximum length: 32 characters. Anything longer must be truncated or replaced with "unspecified".

Hashing (inputHash)

Tool inputs are hashed for in-run duplicate detection only. The server cannot reverse the hash — it has no access to the original input or to the per-tenant salt.

Algorithm:

text

stable    = stableJsonStringify(toolInput)   // sorted keys, no whitespace
salted    = hashSalt + "|" + stable          // hashSalt is REQUIRED (auto-generated if absent)
inputHash = hex(SHA-256(salted))             // full 64 hex chars (256 bits)

• Algorithm: SHA-256, full 64-hex-character output (256 bits) — no truncation.
• Salting: the per-tenant hashSalt (auto-generated on first run, see Setup) is always prepended as hashSalt + "|" before hashing. This is mandatory; the skill never produces an unsalted hash.
• One-way: SHA-256 is a cryptographic hash. The server stores inputHash as an opaque 64-char string and uses it only to count repeats within a run. With the per-tenant salt, hashes cannot be matched across tenants or against rainbow tables.

Reference implementation: see packages/sdk/src/hash.ts of the AgentYield TypeScript SDK (rendered on the public Developer page). Full SDK source is available on request to security reviewers via [e-mail].

Salt verification (for security reviewers)

To independently confirm the salt is never transmitted, packet-capture the only outbound network call this skill makes:

text

POST https://agentyield.co/api/v1/runs/{runId}/checkpoint

The request body contains exactly these top-level fields:

• agentId (string)
• label (string)
• events[] (array of event objects with the fields documented above)

There is no hashSalt field, no salt field, and no salt material anywhere in the request body, headers (other than the Bearer API key), or query string. The salt lives only in the skill's local state file.

Checkpoint Flushing

Flush the buffer as a checkpoint when either condition is met (whichever comes first):

1. The buffer contains checkpointEvery events (default: 50).
2. checkpointInterval minutes have elapsed since the last flush (default: 30).

To flush, send the buffered events to the AgentYield API:

text

POST https://agentyield.co/api/v1/runs/{runId}/checkpoint
Authorization: Bearer {apiKey}
Content-Type: application/json
Body: {
  "agentId": "openclaw",
  "label": "window_{n}",
  "events": [...bufferedEvents]
}

The label must be unique per flush within a run — e.g. window_1, window_2. The server enforces idempotency on (runId, label): an exact replay returns the cached score; reusing a label with different events returns 409.

Bounded await (NOT pure fire-and-forget)

The checkpoint POST is non-blocking with a hard 3-second timeout. The flush task awaits its own response so it can log the freshly computed Waste Score, but the host agent never waits — flushing happens on a background task decoupled from the agent's tool-call/LLM-call critical path.

text

Promise.race([
  fetch(checkpointUrl, { ... }),
  new Promise((_, reject) => setTimeout(() => reject(new Error("timeout")), 3000)),
])

On success, the response body looks like:

text

{ "runId": "...", "runUrl": "https://agentyield.co/runs/...", "wasteScore": 34, "eventsAccepted": 50 }

Log to the OpenClaw session:

text

[AgentYield] Checkpoint sent — Waste Score: {wasteScore}. View: {runUrl}

On timeout or failure, log a single warning without a score (do not fabricate one) and move on:

text

[AgentYield] Checkpoint failed. Will retry next window.

Never retry immediately. Never throw. Never block the host agent. Reset the buffer and the interval timer after every flush attempt — successful or not — so the next window is fresh.

Session End

OpenClaw sessions have no natural end. The AgentYield backend will auto-close runs that have not received a checkpoint in 60 minutes.

If a process exit or shutdown signal is detected, attempt one final flush of any remaining buffered events as a checkpoint with label: "final" and status: "completed". This tells the server to mark the run as completed instead of waiting for the auto-close timer. Use the same bounded-await — do not delay shutdown beyond 3 seconds.

Rules

• Never slow down or block the host agent. The flush task awaits with a 3s timeout but runs off the agent's critical path.
• Never read user-controlled filesystem paths. The API key comes from the AGENTYIELD_API_KEY env var only. The only file written is the skill's own private state file containing the local salt.
• Never store or transmit raw user input, raw model output, raw tool inputs, raw tool outputs, file contents, or environment variables (other than the API key in the Authorization header).
• Always salt + hash tool inputs with full 256-bit SHA-256 — never produce an unsalted hash, never truncate.
• Never transmit the salt or include it in any field of any network request.
• Use purpose only as a short structural tag from the enum above — never as freeform text.
• Fail silently. One console.warn per failure type, maximum.
• Do not modify, intercept, or alter any agent response or tool result.
• Always supply a unique label per flush within a run; the server uses it for idempotency.

---

Appendix: Data sent to AgentYield

This section is the canonical reference for security reviewers and end users.

What we send (per checkpoint POST)

A JSON body containing:

• agentId — "openclaw" (constant)
• label — short string, unique within the run (e.g. "window_3", "final")
• events[] — array of event records, each conforming exactly to the field tables above

Worked example

json

POST https://agentyield.co/api/v1/runs/01HZ.../checkpoint
Authorization: Bearer ay_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "agentId": "openclaw",
  "label": "window_2",
  "events": [
    {
      "type": "llm_call",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4",
      "inputTokens": 1240,
      "outputTokens": 380,
      "costUsd": 0.0089,
      "contextWindowUsed": 1620,
      "purpose": "tool_selection",
      "timestamp": "2026-04-20T10:23:11Z"
    },
    {
      "type": "tool_call",
      "tool": "web_search",
      "costUsd": 0.0,
      "inputHash": "3a2f9b1c4d5e6f70a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f90123456789abcdef01234567",
      "timestamp": "2026-04-20T10:23:14Z"
    }
  ]
}

What we never send

• Raw prompt text or system prompts
• Raw model output / completions
• Raw tool inputs (only the salted full-256-bit SHA-256 hash)
• Raw tool outputs / results
• File contents or filesystem paths
• Environment variables (other than AGENTYIELD_API_KEY, used only as a Bearer token)
• User identifiers from the host agent (e.g. end-user emails, names, IDs)
• The hashSalt value (used locally only — see "Salt verification" above)

Transport

• HTTPS only. The skill must reject any http:// override.
• TLS certificate verification is required (use the platform's default verifier — never disable).
• Authentication: Authorization: Bearer {AGENTYIELD_API_KEY}.

API key scope and revocation

• Keys are scoped to a single AgentYield user account.
• Keys can be created, listed, and revoked at https://agentyield.co/settings.
• Test-mode keys (ay_test_...) are accepted by the API but events are not persisted — ideal for staging / restricted-mode evaluation. See the staging-mode runbook and the publishing runbook in the AgentYield repo for the full evaluation flow.

Retention and deletion

• Default retention and access controls: https://agentyield.co/privacy
• Per-run deletion endpoint: DELETE https://agentyield.co/api/v1/runs/{runId} — authenticated with the same Bearer API key. Cascade-deletes the run, its events, and any waste findings. Documented at https://agentyield.co/docs#data-deletion.

Auditability

• Reference implementation of hashing and POST behavior is rendered on the public Developer page: https://agentyield.co/developer/sdk.
• Full SDK source code is available on request to security reviewers — email [e-mail] with the subject "ClawHub source review".
• This SKILL.md is the source of truth and is served at https://agentyield.co/skills/agentyield.md for inspection before install.