Bug type

Behavior bug (incorrect output/state without crash)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

The gateway config tool rejects changes to the documented agents.defaults.subagents.thinking path even though the schema exposes it and the subagents documentation says it can be used to set default subagent thinking. The hard-coded gateway mutation allowlist includes agents.defaults.thinkingDefault and agents.list[].thinkingDefault, but not agents.defaults.subagents.thinking, so config.patch fails before applying the documented setting.

Steps to reproduce

1. Use OpenClaw 2026.4.29.
2. Confirm the documented path exists: gateway config.schema.lookup for agents.defaults.subagents.thinking returns a string schema.
3. Attempt to patch the documented setting: gateway config.patch with { "agents": { "defaults": { "subagents": { "thinking": "medium" } } } }.
4. Observe that the patch is rejected before applying.

Expected behavior

config.patch should allow updating agents.defaults.subagents.thinking, or the documentation/schema should not present that path as a supported configurable default.

Actual behavior

config.patch rejects the documented path with: gateway config.patch cannot change protected config paths: agents.defaults.subagents.thinking.

OpenClaw version

OpenClaw 2026.4.29 (a448042)

Operating system

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Install method

pnpm

Model

Not provider-specific; reproduced while using a GPT-5.5 default model configuration.

Provider / routing chain

Not provider-specific. This occurs in the gateway config tool before model/provider routing.

Additional provider/model setup details

N/A

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

Evidence from installed docs/source and live tool behavior:

- `docs/tools/subagents.md` documents: "Thinking: inherits the caller unless you set `agents.defaults.subagents.thinking` ..."
- `config.schema.lookup` for `agents.defaults.subagents.thinking` returns `{ "type": "string" }`.
- Installed gateway-tool source in 2026.4.29 has a hard-coded mutation allowlist containing `agents.defaults.thinkingDefault` and `agents.list[].thinkingDefault`, but not `agents.defaults.subagents.thinking`.
- The enforcement code rejects changed paths outside that allowlist with `gateway config.patch cannot change protected config paths: ...`.
- Live repro error: `gateway config.patch cannot change protected config paths: agents.defaults.subagents.thinking`.

Impact and severity

Low to moderate. Runtime does not crash, but users cannot use the first-class safe config mutation tool to change a documented subagent thinking default. The workaround is to avoid the documented path, set per-agent/global thinkingDefault where applicable, pass explicit thinking on spawn, or manually edit config outside the safe gateway tool, which is undesirable.

Additional information

This appears to be a mismatch between documented/schema-supported config and the gateway config mutation allowlist. A likely fix is to add the documented subagent thinking default paths, such as agents.defaults.subagents.thinking and possibly agents.list[].subagents.thinking, to the allowlist if they are intended to be mutable through config.patch.