Sandbox image build includes nemoclaw-blueprint/.venv from local tree (breaks build / risks leaking secrets)

[mercl-lau]

Description

When onboarding builds the sandbox image from a local NemoClaw checkout, the staging step copies the whole nemoclaw-blueprint tree into the Docker build context (cp -r in bin/lib/onboard.js). If a developer (or any local workflow) has created a .venv directory under nemoclaw-blueprint—for example after running Python tooling, pytest, nv run, nv sync—that path is copied along with the rest of the blueprint and ends up in the image via COPY nemoclaw-blueprint/ in the Dockerfile.

That is problematic for two reasons:

Build failures — packaging can choke on or mishandle .venv in ways that don’t affect users who only use the released installer without a local .env.
Security — .venv often holds secrets; it must not be baked into image layers.
End users who never have a local .env under nemoclaw-blueprint may never see this, but the build path should be hygienic regardless.

Reproduction Steps

Repro (typical dev):

1. Clone NemoClaw and work under nemoclaw-blueprint with Python (e.g. uv sync that create nemoclaw-blueprint/.venv).
   Run onboarding so it builds the sandbox image from the local repo (e.g. nemoclaw onboard after curl … | bash or equivalent using this tree).
   Observe build/packaging errors involving .venv, or inspect image/context and see .env included.

Expected: Local-only artifacts (at minimum .env, and ideally .venv / pycache / .pytest_cache) are excluded from the Docker build context when staging nemoclaw-blueprint.

Environment

openClaw: 2026.3.11 (29dc654)
OpenShell: 0.0.14
macOS 26.1 (Apple M4, arm64)
Policy presets applied: pypi, npm
Inference: NVIDIA Cloud API (nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b)

Debug Output

Logs

Checklist

• I confirmed this bug is reproducible
• I searched existing issues and this is not a duplicate

[wscurran]

✨ Thanks for submitting this issue with a detailed explanation, it addresses a bug that could cause issues with the sandbox image build, which could improve the reliability of NemoClaw.

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Possibly related open PRs:
#855 perf: reduce sandbox image build time and size during onboarding,
#776 fix(onboard): exclude .venv and caches from sandbox build context,
#830 fix: harden sandbox image — remove gcc/netcat, add process limits, drop capabilities

[latenighthackathon]

Submitted a fix in PR #1075 — adds .venv, .ruff_cache, .mypy_cache, .env, and other dev artifacts to .dockerignore so they're excluded from the Docker build context even when building outside the onboard wizard.