Managed or external

	External	Managed
Who runs wx serve	You: wx daemon, systemd or Docker	OpenClaw, as a child process
Where it can run	Anywhere the Gateway can reach	Same machine as the Gateway
wx needed on the Gateway host	No	Yes
Gateway stops	Daemon keeps running	Daemon stops
Use it when	You also use the CLI, or run the daemon in Docker	You want one process to manage

External is the default choice. The quick setup uses it.

Managed mode

Stop any other daemon that uses the same data folder, then replace the native block:

"native": {
  "mode": "managed",
  "accountId": "ACCOUNT_ID",
  "dataDir": "/home/you/.local/share/agent-wechat",
  "listen": "127.0.0.1:6174",
  "token": { "source": "env", "provider": "default", "id": "AGENT_WECHAT_TOKEN" },
  "consumerStateDir": "/home/you/.openclaw/agent-wechat"
}

OpenClaw finds wx on PATH, or set executable to its full path. Log in to the account with the CLI before switching to managed mode; the plugin doesn’t log in for you.

Good to know

• Managed mode doesn’t restart a crashed daemon. The Gateway reports the failure; restart the Gateway to recover.
• It won’t take over a port that’s already in use, and it never stops a process it didn’t start.
• The token is passed to the child over a pipe, not as a file, argument or environment variable. A serverConfig used with managed mode must not set tokenFile.
• External mode never stops or logs out the daemon. Stopping the Gateway only closes its connection.
• For a remote daemon, use HTTPS or a tunnel. The daemon only listens on localhost.
• One OpenClaw channel uses one WeChat account.