OpenClaw Binding Bug Report

Summary

New bindings entries added while Gateway is running are never applied to message routing, even after full Gateway restart. Messages always fall back to main agent.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: (need to check)
• Gateway mode: local
• Channel: Feishu (WebSocket)
• OS: macOS

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Gateway with existing agents (e.g., main, analyst) and bindings configured
2. Add a new agent (lina) with:
   • agents.list entry
   • bindings entry: { "agentId": "lina", "match": { "channel": "feishu", "accountId": "lina" } }
   • channels.feishu.accounts.lina with valid credentials
3. Restart Gateway (openclaw gateway restart or stop && start)
4. Send message to the new bot via Feishu

Expected Behavior

Message should be routed to agent:lina (session key: agent:lina:feishu:lina:direct:ou_xxx)

Actual Behavior

Message is routed to agent:main (session key: agent:main:feishu:lina:direct:ou_xxx)

Evidence

Session routing wrong:

key: "agent:main:feishu:lina:direct:ou_3ef1a7095ff49dbabc6ef8582501b0c4"
kind: "other"
channel: "unknown"
transcriptPath: "/Users/xuda/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/xxx.jsonl"

Config is correct:

• agents.list includes lina
• bindings includes lina entry (even moved to first position)
• channels.feishu.accounts.lina has valid appId/appSecret

Gateway logs show:

config change detected; evaluating reload (agents.list, tools.agentToAgent.allow, bindings, channels.feishu.accounts.lina)
config hot reload applied (channels.feishu.accounts.lina)

Note: bindings is detected but never "applied". Only the account config gets hot-reloaded.

Existing agents work fine:

analyst, mom, dad, yexiaoyi were all configured before first Gateway startup and route correctly.

What was tried (all failed)

1. gateway restart — binding still not applied
2. gateway stop && sleep 2 && gateway start — still routes to main
3. Delete session cache from main agent — first message still goes to main
4. Move lina binding to first position in bindings array — no effect
5. Remove old "mixed-shape" top-level channel config (moved appId/appSecret into accounts.default) — no effect
6. Completely remove old agent (linabell) and recreate as new (lina) with fresh workspace — no effect

Hypothesis

OpenClaw only loads bindings into the routing table once during initial Gateway startup. Any binding added after first startup is never registered, even across restarts. This may be related to how LaunchAgent/service restarts cache the initial config state.

Related Issues

• Possibly #29666 — Multi-account routing without explicit bindings
• Possibly #12031 — Bindings only work for new sessions

Workaround

None found. Only workaround is to configure all agents+bindings before first Gateway startup, then never add new ones.