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Helper Settings

What you configure on the BrainRoad dashboard versus inside the runtime's own interface.

On this page

Two Layers of Settings

Your helper has two kinds of settings, and they live in two different places:

  1. BrainRoad dashboard settings: the platform layer. Name label, API keys, costs, billing, review policies.
  2. Runtime settings: the helper’s own behavior. Personality, channels, sessions, skills, and model preferences live inside OpenClaw’s or Hermes’s own configuration screens, opened from the dashboard.

BrainRoad deliberately does not duplicate the runtime’s settings screens. If a setting is about how the helper thinks or talks, it lives in the runtime; if it is about your account, keys, or the review workflow, it lives in the dashboard.

On the Helper Page

The Helper page (/dashboard) has four tabs under the status card:

  • Profile: the helper’s identity card, showing its name, managed email address, phone number if you have enabled one, and any stored login codes, with warnings when a stored credential is close to expiring.
  • API Keys: add your own model keys. Supported providers include Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, and xAI — see Choosing a Provider for the full list. Until you add one, your helper runs on the included BrainRoad-managed OpenRouter trial key. AI provider usage may be billed separately from your subscription.
  • Costs: what your helper’s model usage is costing.
  • Briefing: a short daily summary of what the helper has been doing.

Renaming: the name on the dashboard follows what the helper called itself during the first conversation. You can change the label from the Helper page header while the helper is running.

Review and Automation Settings

Policies about what the helper may do without you, such as auto-approving Brain notes or trusted email threads, live in the Inbox under its Settings tab, not on the Helper page. See how review works.

Runtime Configuration

Open the runtime’s own interface from the Helper page (“Open OpenClaw chat” / “Open Hermes chat”) to reach its native configuration, channel, session, and skill screens. Advanced users can also use the dashboard Console, a terminal into the helper’s workspace, to edit configuration files directly. OpenClaw’s main configuration file is ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json and reloads automatically for most changes.