Bug type

Behavior bug

Summary

Running openclaw doctor --fix as root (e.g. via SSH on a systemd-managed gateway with Environment=HOME=/home/node) creates /root/.openclaw/openclaw.json with only gateway.auth + wizard + meta. This minimal config silently takes precedence over the actual config at /home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json, breaking tools.elevated and other sections that are missing from the root copy.

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure OpenClaw with tools.elevated.enabled: true at /home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json
2. Run gateway via systemd: User=root, Environment=HOME=/home/node — elevated works fine
3. SSH into the host as root
4. Run openclaw doctor --fix (without HOME override — defaults to /root)
5. Doctor creates /root/.openclaw/openclaw.json (392 bytes)
6. Restart gateway
7. All elevated exec commands fail

Expected behavior

doctor --fix should either:

• Detect the running gateway's config path and use it
• Warn that it's about to create a config at a different location than the running gateway
• Respect OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH / OPENCLAW_HOME from the systemd environment

Actual behavior

Doctor silently creates a minimal config at /root/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "gateway": {
    "auth": { "mode": "token", "token": "..." }
  },
  "wizard": { ... },
  "meta": { ... }
}

No tools.elevated, no agents, no channels. The gateway then loads this config (or merges it), and elevated breaks:

[tools] exec failed: elevated is not available right now (runtime=direct)
Failing gates: enabled (tools.elevated.enabled / agents.list[].tools.elevated.enabled)

Doctor itself even detects the anomaly but doesn't prevent it:

Config observe anomaly: /root/.openclaw/openclaw.json (size-drop-vs-last-good:940->392, gateway-mode-missing-vs-last-good)

Workaround

Set OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH explicitly when running doctor as root:

OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH=/home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json openclaw doctor --fix

This prevents the rogue config from being created. Verified working on v2026.4.5.

Proposed fix

The lowest-conflict fix would be a guard in doctor-config-preflight.ts that detects a running gateway and warns if config paths diverge:

⚠ A gateway is running with config at /home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json
  but doctor is about to write to /root/.openclaw/openclaw.json
  Use OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH=/home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json to match.

This is ~10 lines of additive code in one file, no changes to existing path resolution logic, no new CLI flags. Avoids conflicts with #56671.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.5 (3e72c03)
• OS: Amazon Linux 2023 (EC2 x86_64)
• Install method: npm install -g openclaw
• Node: v22.22.1

Impact

High. Silent breakage of elevated tool permissions on any systemd-managed deployment where an admin runs openclaw doctor via SSH. No error at doctor time — appears successful. Gateway looks healthy. The failure only surfaces when a user triggers an elevated command, making it very hard to diagnose.

Related

• #52339 — OPENCLAW_CONFIG_DIR defaults causing write failures (same root cause, different symptom)
• #58090 — doctor wipes session.resetByType config (doctor overwriting user config pattern)
• #56671 — config clobbering deduplication (related config integrity work)