Security Best Practices

Private Key Safety

Never share your .env file. It contains your private keys in plaintext.
Use a dedicated hot wallet. Do not use your main savings account. Fund the Pacman account with only what you're willing to risk.
Back up your keys. Run backup-keys --file to export to ~/Downloads. Store backups offline.
.env is gitignored. If you fork this repo, verify .env is in .gitignore before pushing.

The transfer whitelist is the most critical safety feature in Pacman.

All outbound transfers are blocked unless the recipient is whitelisted in data/settings.json or is one of your own accounts in data/accounts.json.
EVM addresses (0x...) are blocked entirely — only Hedera IDs (0.0.xxx) are accepted.
Run whitelist to view, whitelist add 0.0.xxx to add, whitelist remove 0.0.xxx to remove.
Never fabricate account IDs in examples, tests, or documentation. Agents have sent real money to placeholder accounts.

All enforced via data/governance.json (single source of truth):

Limit	Value	Purpose
Max per swap	$100	Prevents large accidental trades
Max daily volume	$100	Caps total daily exposure
Max slippage	5%	Prevents execution at terrible prices
Min HBAR reserve	5 HBAR	Ensures gas for future transactions
Min robot portfolio	$5	Ensures trade profit exceeds costs

Agents can adjust these only on explicit user command. They are never modified autonomously.

Account	ID	Role	Key Source
Main	0.0.10289160	User trading	`PRIVATE_KEY` in `.env`
Robot	0.0.10379302	Rebalancer daemon	`ROBOT_PRIVATE_KEY` in `.env`
Deprecated	0.0.10301803	Backup only	Never use, never delete

MAIN_OPERATOR_KEY in .env is the Hedera admin key (used for staking, token association).
PRIVATE_KEY is the ECDSA signing key (used for EVM swaps, transfers).
These can be different keys for the same account.

When driven by an AI agent (OpenClaw), these rules apply:

Agents never modify .env, accounts.json, settings.json, or governance.json.
Agents never create accounts, switch accounts, or approve pools without explicit user instruction.
Agents never simulate — all trades are live.
Agents never use V1 as a fallback for V2 routing failures.
Agents never suggest MoonPay when the user has swappable tokens worth >= $1.
If an operation fails, agents report the exact error — they do not guess or attempt workarounds.

RPC endpoint: https://mainnet.hashio.io/api (Hedera JSON-RPC relay)
Mirror Node: https://mainnet-public.mirrornode.hedera.com (read-only, public)
No API keys are sent to third parties except MoonPay (fiat onramp, user-initiated only).
The dashboard API (http://127.0.0.1:8088) requires PACMAN_API_SECRET header and binds to localhost only.

If you discover a security issue, please report it privately rather than opening a public issue. Contact the repository owner directly.