openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: claude-cli harness regression on 2026.4.21+ (related to locked #61093) — workaround: claude-max-api-proxy [1 comments, 2 participants]

Filing as a new issue because #61093 is locked. Posting here so the workaround is searchable for anyone hitting the same regression — bobbercheng noted it was still broken on 2026.4.5; I am hitting it on 2026.4.21 → 2026.4.24.

Hit this on OpenClaw 2026.4.21 → 2026.4.24 on Ubuntu 24.04, Node 24.14.1, Claude Max subscription via OAuth (no API key configured).

Repro: fresh npm install -g openclaw@latest, OAuth via openclaw onboard --auth-choice claude-cli, set primary model to claude-cli/claude-opus-4-7, send a message.

Symptom: "claude-cli harness not registered" → dispatch falls back to API key routing → fails because no API key. Cooldown then doubles per failure (5min → 4hr → 24hr cap), so the bot stays silent for hours after the first miss.

Workaround that fully resolves it: wrap claude CLI as a subprocess via an OpenAI-compatible HTTP shim, point OpenClaw at it as an openai-completions provider. Anthropic explicitly sanctions claude -p subprocess use (HN 47844269) so this is not policy-gated.

git clone https://github.com/wende/claude-max-api-proxy
cd claude-max-api-proxy && npm install && npm run build

Daemonize via a systemd user unit (Type=simple, ExecStart=node dist/server/standalone.js, port 3456) with linger enabled.

OpenClaw config:

openclaw config set models.providers.claude-max-proxy.baseUrl "http://127.0.0.1:3456/v1"
openclaw config set models.providers.claude-max-proxy.api "openai-completions"
openclaw config set agents.defaults.model.primary "claude-max-proxy/claude-opus-4-6"
openclaw config set agents.defaults.subagents.model.primary "claude-max-proxy/claude-sonnet-4-6"

Add a systemd drop-in so the gateway waits for the proxy:

# ~/.config/systemd/user/openclaw-gateway.service.d/proxy-dependency.conf
[Unit]
After=claude-max-proxy.service
Wants=claude-max-proxy.service

End-to-end verified: Telegram → openclaw → proxy → claude CLI → response.

Two gotchas worth documenting:

1. baseUrl MUST end in /v1 — the OpenAI SDK appends /chat/completions directly. Without /v1 you get 404 on every POST.
2. The proxys MODEL_MAP collapses model IDs to aliases (opus / sonnet / haiku), and the claude CLI then resolves to whatever Anthropics current model for that tier is. So claude-opus-4-6 in OpenClaw config actually executes as the latest Opus (4-7 at time of writing). /status shows the configured ID, not the executed one.

Adjacent bug worth flagging while youre in here: OpenClaw npm updates wipe per-extension node_modules/ (related: #62071, #61686, #33723, #61787). Workaround is an ExecStartPre script that runs targeted npm install against each dist/extensions/*/package.json. Happy to share that too.