How to use the Iron Proxy Gateway Installer agent skill

What the add-iron-proxy skill makes the agent do

An agent skill is a folder of instructions and scripts that an AI agent can load when a task matches it. This skill sets up Iron Proxy, a gateway that sits between a NanoClaw agent and the internet. Once installed, outgoing agent requests pass through the proxy.

The proxy checks an allowlist and asks a person to approve requests before they are forwarded. It injects credentials from the Iron Control console, so agents do not see those credentials directly. The skill also adds agent guidance files so the agent knows how to work within this gateway.

What you need before installing

The skill is aimed at developers who already run NanoClaw and are comfortable with Docker. Setup starts several containers and can take several minutes, so it is not a quick plug-in.

• Docker, which pulls the pinned Iron Control and PostgreSQL images and builds the proxy locally
• pnpm, which installs the bridge dependencies
• A running NanoClaw installation
• Network access to fetch pinned public source and images
• No GitHub account or API key is required, according to the skill's files

Install the skill from the ZIP or the Claude apps

Download the add-iron-proxy ZIP from this page. Then choose one of two routes. For a personal setup, unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/. For a single project, unzip it into that project's .claude/skills/ folder. Either way, the skill's scripts end up under a path named add-iron-proxy inside the skills folder.

If you use the Claude apps, you can upload the skill instead. Open Settings, go to Capabilities, then Skills, and upload it there.

Run the setup to install Iron Proxy and Iron Control

From the NanoClaw project root, run the setup script with the console option. Setup pulls the pinned Iron Control and database images, starts them on a dedicated Docker network, creates a local operator account, and registers this copy's proxy through Iron's API.

Credentials and encryption keys are stored in owner-only files under data/session-materials/iron-control/. The database has no published port, and neither the console credentials nor the database are mounted into agents. The console port is published only on 127.0.0.1, and the default is 10257. You can change it with NANOCLAW_IRON_CONTROL_PORT in .env before running setup.

• Setup streams stage names and elapsed-time updates while it runs
• Source downloads stop after two minutes, the image build after twenty minutes, and console startup after six minutes
• Setup never opens a Git credential prompt
• The internal proxy port defaults to 8080 and is set with NANOCLAW_IRON_PROXY_PORT in .env. Re-run setup and restart NanoClaw after changing it

Trigger the skill with natural requests

You do not need to name the skill exactly. The skill's description says it applies when you are selecting the Iron gateway, adding its management UI, configuring credentials and grants, or restoring the proxy, approval bridge, and agent guidance. Plain requests that match those tasks should load it.

Be specific about the goal. Name the gateway, the console, or the credential you want to set up, so the agent can tell this task apart from ordinary coding work.

• Set up Iron Proxy for NanoClaw and add the Iron Control console.
• Add the Iron gateway management UI to this NanoClaw install.
• Configure a credential and grant for the Iron proxy.
• Restore the Iron proxy, approval bridge, and agent guidance after a change.

Safety notes before you rely on it

This skill changes how the agent handles network traffic and credentials, and it can block agent traffic if it is set up wrongly. Review the installer scripts before running them, as the skill runs scripts and uses the network.

One setting needs particular care. When NANOCLAW_GATEWAY_UNCREDENTIALED_READS is set to true in .env, some GET or HEAD requests skip the approval card. The skill's documentation says this carries a data-leak trade-off, described in docs/gateway-seam.md. Read that file before enabling it.

To remove the gateway, run the removal option of the same setup script. The skill's REMOVE.md says this stops the proxy and console services for this copy, and that NanoClaw's uninstall flow removes this copy's gateway material with its other data.