name: portainer
description: Control Docker containers and stacks via Portainer API. List containers, start/stop/restart, view logs, and redeploy stacks from git.
metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"🐳","requires":{"bins":["curl","jq"],"env":["PORTAINER_API_KEY"]},"primaryEnv":"PORTAINER_API_KEY"}}

🐳 Portainer Skill

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    ║                                                           ║
    ║   🐳  P O R T A I N E R   C O N T R O L   C L I  🐳      ║
    ║                                                           ║
    ║       Manage Docker containers via Portainer API          ║
    ║            Start, stop, deploy, redeploy                  ║
    ║                                                           ║
    ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

"Docker containers? I'll handle them from my lily pad." 🐸

📖 What Does This Skill Do?

The Portainer Skill gives you control over your Docker infrastructure through Portainer's REST API. Manage containers, stacks, and deployments without touching the web UI.

Features:
- 📊 Status — Check Portainer server status
- 🖥️ Endpoints — List all Docker environments
- 📦 Containers — List, start, stop, restart containers
- 📚 Stacks — List and manage Docker Compose stacks
- 🔄 Redeploy — Pull from git and redeploy stacks
- 📜 Logs — View container logs

⚙️ Requirements

Setup

1. Get API Token from Portainer:
2. Log into Portainer web UI
3. Click username → My Account
4. Scroll to "Access tokens" → Add access token

5. Copy the token (you won't see it again!)

6. Configure credentials:
   bash # Add to ~/.clawdbot/.env PORTAINER_URL=https://your-portainer-server:9443 PORTAINER_API_KEY=ptr_your_token_here

7. Ready! 🚀

🛠️ Commands

status — Check Portainer Server

./portainer.sh status

Output:

Portainer v2.27.3

endpoints — List Environments

./portainer.sh endpoints

Output:

3: portainer (local) - ✓ online
4: production (remote) - ✓ online

containers — List Containers

# List containers on default endpoint (4)
./portainer.sh containers

# List containers on specific endpoint
./portainer.sh containers 3

Output:

steinbergerraum-web-1    running    Up 2 days
cora-web-1               running    Up 6 weeks
minecraft                running    Up 6 weeks (healthy)

stacks — List All Stacks

./portainer.sh stacks

Output:

25: steinbergerraum - ✓ active
33: cora - ✓ active
35: minecraft - ✓ active
4: pulse-website - ✗ inactive

stack-info — Stack Details

./portainer.sh stack-info 25

Output:

{
  "Id": 25,
  "Name": "steinbergerraum",
  "Status": 1,
  "EndpointId": 4,
  "GitConfig": "https://github.com/user/repo",
  "UpdateDate": "2026-01-25T08:44:56Z"
}

redeploy — Pull & Redeploy Stack 🔄

./portainer.sh redeploy 25

Output:

✓ Stack 'steinbergerraum' redeployed successfully

This will:
1. Pull latest code from git
2. Rebuild containers if needed
3. Restart the stack

start / stop / restart — Container Control

# Start a container
./portainer.sh start steinbergerraum-web-1

# Stop a container
./portainer.sh stop steinbergerraum-web-1

# Restart a container
./portainer.sh restart steinbergerraum-web-1

# Specify endpoint (default: 4)
./portainer.sh restart steinbergerraum-web-1 4

Output:

✓ Container 'steinbergerraum-web-1' restarted

logs — View Container Logs

# Last 100 lines (default)
./portainer.sh logs steinbergerraum-web-1

# Last 50 lines
./portainer.sh logs steinbergerraum-web-1 4 50

🎯 Example Workflows

🚀 "Deploy Website Update"

# After merging PR
./portainer.sh redeploy 25
./portainer.sh logs steinbergerraum-web-1 4 20

🔧 "Debug Container"

./portainer.sh containers
./portainer.sh logs cora-web-1
./portainer.sh restart cora-web-1

📊 "System Overview"

./portainer.sh status
./portainer.sh endpoints
./portainer.sh containers
./portainer.sh stacks

🔧 Troubleshooting

❌ "Authentication required / Repository not found"

Problem: Stack redeploy fails with git auth error

Solution: The stack needs repositoryGitCredentialID parameter. The script handles this automatically by reading from the existing stack config.

❌ "Container not found"

Problem: Container name doesn't match

Solution: Use exact name from ./portainer.sh containers:
- Include the full name: steinbergerraum-web-1 not steinbergerraum
- Names are case-sensitive

❌ "PORTAINER_URL and PORTAINER_API_KEY must be set"

Problem: Credentials not configured

Solution:

# Add to ~/.clawdbot/.env
echo "PORTAINER_URL=https://your-server:9443" >> ~/.clawdbot/.env
echo "PORTAINER_API_KEY=ptr_your_token" >> ~/.clawdbot/.env

🔗 Integration with Clawd

"Redeploy the website"
→ ./portainer.sh redeploy 25

"Show me running containers"
→ ./portainer.sh containers

"Restart the Minecraft server"
→ ./portainer.sh restart minecraft

"What stacks do we have?"
→ ./portainer.sh stacks

📜 Changelog

🐸 Credits

  @..@
 (----)
( >__< )   "Containers are just fancy lily pads
 ^^  ^^     for your code to hop around!"

Author: Andy Steinberger (with help from his Clawdbot Owen the Frog 🐸)
Powered by: Portainer API
Part of: Clawdbot Skills Collection