Game of Cards (GoC) is an agile work-card
methodology for AI-agent collaborators. This plugin delivers the full GoC
skill, tool, and hook set to OpenClaw in a single install. The goc engine
is bundled inside the npm payload — the only host prerequisite is
python3 (3.10+).
Status: scaffolded against upstream OpenClaw plugin SDK v2026.3.x.
The index.ts entry registers a goc tool + three lifecycle hooks. A
few hook-context API shapes (ctx.projectDir, ctx.notify,
ctx.appendSystemContext, ctx.toolCalls) are flagged as
TODO(verify-context-shape) because they are not explicitly documented
at https://docs.openclaw.ai/plugins/hooks.md; confirm against the
actual SDK types during integration.
Files, advances, decides on, or closes cards in .game-of-cards/deck/. Wraps every goc CLI verb behind one typed function call: verb, args[], optional flags, optional cwd.
14 skills at workspace tier — model reads them as injected system context:
Browse the board: triage view, filtered queues, decision Q&A
next-card
Pick the highest-leverage open card to work on next
create-card
File a new card with frontmatter + DoD scaffold
advance-card
Flip a card's status (open → active → blocked …)
finish-card
Close a card with DoD enforcement + commit
decide-card
Record a decision and lower a human gate
pull-card
Autonomous round: claim → work → close → commit
refine-deck
Hygiene pass — retag stale, prune old parks
audit-deck
Hunt for one undocumented defect or gap
standup
Active cards, blockers, closures since yesterday, decision gates
retrospective
Cluster closed cards by tag, surface recurring failure modes
card-schema
Field reference — enums, canonical tags, DoD format
3 lifecycle hooks — fire automatically:
Event
Hook
Purpose
session_start
active-card reminder
Prints active cards at session boot; silent when none
before_prompt_build
deck-first reminder
Detects work-initiating prompts; appends a deck-first reminder to system context
agent_end
pattern-generalization
After code-mutating turns, prompts the model to consider filing a generalization card. Off by default; enable with hooks.pattern_generalization_check: true in .game-of-cards/config.yaml
Install
Once published to ClawHub:
sh
openclaw skills install game-of-cards
The plugin is also published on npm as game-of-cards.
Prerequisite
python3 (3.10+) on PATH. The plugin invokes the bundled engine via
python3 -m goc.cli from the tool handler — no uv, no pipx, no
separate pipx install game-of-cards step.
Known limitations
Subagents do not see the goc tool (OpenClaw ≤ 2026.5.6)
Spawned subagents cannot call the goc tool even when explicitly listed
in tools.subagents.tools.alsoAllow. The plugin loads, the runtime
registry shows the tool (openclaw plugins inspect game-of-cards --runtime --json reports toolNames: ["goc"]), and main sessions can
call goc — but spawned subagents report goc tool not available.
This is an upstream OpenClaw bug: the plugin tool allowlist for
subagents reads policy.allow but does not include policy.alsoAllow.
Tracked at:
Workaround: until OpenClaw includes the upstream fix, prefer
documenting the limitation rather than restricting subagents'
toolset. Setting tools.subagents.tools.allow: ["goc", ...] is a
final allow-only filter that can accidentally remove standard
subagent tools — only use it as a temporary workaround in narrow
smoke environments where you control the full subagent toolset.
After OpenClaw releases the fix, subagents will see plugin tools
through the documented alsoAllow path with no plugin-side change.
How GoC fits OpenClaw
OpenClaw's plugin architecture is a strong match for the deck pattern:
Tool registration is the OpenClaw-native way to expose a
programmatic capability. The goc tool is a typed function
({ verb, args, flags, cwd }) that the model can call as it would
any other tool — same surface as exec, browser, web_search.
Workspace-tier skills mean GoC activates automatically when
the user's active workspace contains a deck, and silently otherwise.
Lifecycle hooks fire programmatically via api.on() — no
hooks.json config to maintain, no shell-out to Python scripts,
just TypeScript functions in the plugin entry.
Source of truth
This plugin is generated from the top-level goc/ package and the
goc/templates/skills/ directory at the root of
zauberzeug/game-of-cards.
The bundled engine under openclaw-plugin/goc/ is byte-for-byte
synced from goc/ by scripts/sync_plugin_assets.py (run by the
project's pre-commit hook). The skills under openclaw-plugin/skills/
are hand-ported from goc/templates/skills/ with invocation-neutral
edits — they read sensibly under both registered-tool (OpenClaw) and
Bash + PATH (Claude Code) primitives.
