2026 OpenClaw Frontend Practice:
Netlify Deploy Hook → Remote Mac Smoke, Dead-Link Patrol & Build Summary Callback

Netlify already proves your build compiles; customers still see routing mistakes, stale edge caches, and WebKit-only failures minutes later. A Deploy Hook is the smallest contract the platform gives you to say “something finished—go react.” Feeding that signal into a 7×24 remote Mac means Safari-class browsers, stable screen sessions, and automation that does not die when someone closes a laptop lid.

OpenClaw shines when the runner can orchestrate Playwright, curl, and small Node utilities on one POSIX host. Treat the hook as enqueue work, not as run 40 minutes of tests inline: acknowledge quickly, fork durable work, and stream structured logs so on-call can diff failures across deploy IDs without opening twelve dashboards.

Netlify completes a build and optionally pings your Build hook URL (HTTP POST). That request should hit an ingress you control: OpenClaw gateway, a tiny Cloudflare Worker, or nginx on the Mac with TLS. The ingress validates a shared secret, enqueues OPENCLAW_RUN_ID, and shells into ~/runners/netlify-post-deploy.sh (or a Node equivalent).

The runner resolves DEPLOY_PRIME_URL—either the production hostname or a deploy preview from Netlify’s API using $NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN plus DEPLOY_ID. It then executes three phases in order: (A) warm-up probe, (B) smoke + link graph, (C) build summary POST. Each phase writes JSON lines to .openclaw/reports/deploy_hook.ndjson so you can ship logs to S3 or attach the tail to CI without granting Netlify access to GitHub.

Copy the skeleton below into your repo as scripts/netlify/openclaw-post-deploy.sh, mark it executable, and point Netlify’s hook (or a GitHub Action curl) at the ingress that triggers it. The same file runs on a developer Mac for dry-runs and on the rented remote Mac in production.

1. Export context: export GIT_SHA="${COMMIT_REF:-$(git rev-parse HEAD)}", export NETLIFY_DEPLOY_ID="${DEPLOY_ID:-unknown}", export OPENCLAW_RUN_ID="$(uuidgen)", and map DEPLOY_URL from the hook JSON body or Netlify CLI output.
2. Warm-up with retries: loop curl -fsS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' "$DEPLOY_URL/healthz" (or a lightweight document) until 200 or a deadline; sleep with exponential backoff capped at 30 seconds so 429 storms do not hammer the edge.
3. Smoke tests: npx playwright test tests/smoke --project=webkit --project=chromium against DEPLOY_URL; keep the suite under ten minutes so the hook caller never times out if you accidentally run it synchronously.
4. Dead-link patrol: crawl internal anchors discovered from /sitemap.xml or a curated route list; record url, final_status, redirect_chain, and content_type. Fail the stage if any required route returns 404 or loops.
5. Build summary JSON: merge timings from Playwright and the crawler into .openclaw/reports/build_summary.json with schema: "build_summary/v1", git_sha, netlify_deploy_id, smoke_ms, link_scan_ms, failed_cases[], and exit_code.
6. Callback: POST the JSON to your PR webhook or Slack-compatible endpoint with headers Authorization: Bearer $OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN and Idempotency-Key: ${GIT_SHA}:${NETLIFY_DEPLOY_ID}:summary so duplicate hook deliveries do not spam threads.

When you need richer UX assertions before this chain, reuse the Lighthouse + link + a11y checklist linked in the introduction; keep the post-deploy hook focused on fast regression signals customers will notice first.

Every line emitted to NDJSON should include the same keys so dashboards and humans agree:

• ▸ts ISO-8601, level, openclaw_run_id, git_sha, netlify_deploy_id, phase (warmup | smoke | links | callback).
• ▸attempt (1-based), http_status or curl_exit, duration_ms, url (redact tokens), error_class (dns, tls, timeout, assert).
• ▸playwright_project when relevant, plus trace_path pointers instead of pasting secrets.

Retry policy: retry idempotent GET warm-ups on 429, 502, 503, and connection resets with jittered exponential backoff (for example base 2s, factor 1.8, max six attempts). Do not blindly retry mutating smoke flows; rerun the suite only after confirming the deploy ID changed or caches purged.

Mirror numeric deltas into the build-metrics → PR-summary patterns from the introduction so product managers see duration regressions next to narrative failures.