Deploy Mission Control — AI Agent Orchestration Dashboard — to Your Own Server

Managing AI agents without a dashboard means SSHing into servers, tailing logs, and hoping nothing's gone wrong. Mission Control by crshdn gives you a proper command center — real-time event streaming, task assignment, and multi-agent coordination via OpenClaw Gateway, all in a clean Next.js interface.

With HowToDeploy, the entire stack is running in minutes with no server configuration required.

Why Mission Control?

• Real-time streaming — agent activity and task updates streamed via WebSocket as they happen
• OpenClaw Gateway integration — connects directly to your OpenClaw Gateway for coordinated multi-agent workflows
• Multi-machine support — run the dashboard on one server and your agents on another (works with Tailscale for remote setups)
• Security-first — bearer token auth, HMAC webhook verification, and path traversal protection built in
• Zero external dependencies — runs on SQLite with no PostgreSQL or Redis needed
• Custom domain + SSL — serve your dashboard on your own domain with automatic HTTPS

Prerequisites

Before you start, you'll need:

• A HowToDeploy account (sign up free)
• A cloud provider API key (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, Linode, or AWS)
• A running OpenClaw Gateway instance (or plan to set one up alongside)

Step 1: Connect your cloud provider

Go to Settings → Cloud Providers and paste your API key.

Tip: Mission Control runs comfortably on a 1GB RAM / 1 CPU server — it's lightweight by design, with SQLite handling all storage locally.

Step 2: Deploy Mission Control

Head to the Dashboard and find Mission Control in the app catalog under the Mission Control category. Click the card to open the deploy form.

Fill in two fields:

• OpenClaw Gateway URL — the URL of your running OpenClaw Gateway instance (e.g. http://your-gateway-server:3000)
• Auth Token — a long random secret string used to secure the dashboard API

Server size, region, and SQLite are all pre-configured. Click Deploy.

Step 3: Configure your AI provider (optional)

If you want agents to use a specific AI provider, expand Advanced Settings and add:

• AI Provider — anthropic, openai, google, or openrouter
• AI Provider API Key — your API key for the chosen provider

Without this, agents will use whichever provider is configured in your OpenClaw Gateway.

Step 4: Add a custom domain (optional)

Want your dashboard at agents.yourcompany.com? Enter your domain in Advanced Settings.

After deployment, point an A record for your domain to the server IP, click Verify DNS, and Caddy issues the SSL certificate automatically.

Step 5: Connect to your OpenClaw Gateway

Once the dashboard is live, open it in your browser and verify the Gateway connection status. If Mission Control can reach your OpenClaw Gateway, you'll see your registered agents listed immediately.

From here you can:

1. View agents — see each agent's status, current task, and recent activity
2. Assign tasks — create tasks and assign them to specific agents or let the gateway route them
3. Monitor streams — watch real-time event streams as agents work through their queues
4. Coordinate workflows — set up multi-agent pipelines where one agent's output feeds the next

What's included

Every Mission Control deployment includes:

• Next.js — the application server running the dashboard UI and API
• SQLite — embedded database for tasks, agents, and event history (no setup required)
• WebSocket — persistent connection to your OpenClaw Gateway for live streaming
• Caddy — automatic HTTPS with Let's Encrypt (when using a custom domain)

Pricing

You pay your cloud provider directly for the server (typically $4-6/month for the recommended 1GB spec). HowToDeploy charges a small monthly management fee for monitoring and support.

Start with a 7-day free trial — no credit card required.

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Ready to take control of your AI agents? Deploy Mission Control now →