openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: 2026.4.29 silently drops claude-cli/* entries from agents.defaults.models, breaking every cron with payload.model: "claude-cli/..." [2 comments, 2 participants]

Bug type

Regression (worked before, now fails)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

After updating from 2026.4.27 → 2026.4.29, every cron job with payload.model: "claude-cli/<model>" fails with:

cron payload.model 'claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6' rejected by agents.defaults.models allowlist: claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6

…even though the entry is present in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json under agents.defaults.models. openclaw models confirms claude-cli/* entries are silently filtered out of the configured-models catalog at parse time. anthropic/* and github-copilot/* entries continue to work.

8 of my crons were broken by this in one night. The same crons ran successfully on 2026.4.27.

Steps to reproduce

1. In ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json, add:

   "agents": {
     "defaults": {
       "models": {
         "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6": {},
         "claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6": {}
       },
       "cliBackends": {
         "claude-cli": { "command": "/path/to/claude" }
       }
     }
   }

2. Run openclaw config validate → reports Config valid.
3. Run openclaw models → output reports the catalog. claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6 is missing. anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 is present.
4. Add a cron with payload.model: "claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6" and run it. Job fails with the rejection error above.
5. Change the same cron's payload.model to anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 → passes validation (but loses claude-cli backend behavior, including FS write tools in cron sessions).

Expected behavior

Each claude-cli/<model> entry in agents.defaults.models is added to the cron-validation allowlist. Crons whose payload.model matches an allowlisted claude-cli/<model> key should pass validation and run via the claude-cli backend, as they did on 2026.4.27.

Actual behavior

claude-cli/<model> entries are accepted by openclaw config validate and present in the on-disk JSON, but absent from the in-memory catalog used to build the cron allowlist. Cron payload validation rejects them as not allowed, even though the exact key (provider/model) is in the file. openclaw doctor reports Blocked by allowlist: 0 and gives no signal that the entries were dropped.

OpenClaw version

2026.4.29 (regressed from 2026.4.27, which worked)

Operating system

macos (Darwin 25.3.0)

Install method

npm global (npm install -g openclaw)

Model

Confirmed for: claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-cli/claude-opus-4-7, claude-cli/claude-haiku-4-5. Likely affects all claude-cli/* keys.

Provider / routing chain

claude-cli backend (synthetic plugin-owned auth, command path: ~/.local/bin/claude)

Additional provider/model setup details

• agents.defaults.agentRuntime.id: "claude-cli"
• agents.defaults.cliBackends.claude-cli.command is set and the binary exists
• claude-cli auth profile is healthy (expiring in 7h per openclaw models)

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

openclaw models output (only catalog line shown; note no claude-cli/* entries):

Configured models (17): anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5-20251001, anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6-20260514, anthropic/claude-opus-4-7, anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6, anthropic/claude-opus-4-6, anthropic/claude-opus-4-5, anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5, anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5, github-copilot/claude-opus-4.6, github-copilot/claude-sonnet-4.6, github-copilot/gpt-5, github-copilot/gpt-5.1-codex, github-copilot/gemini-3.1-pro-preview, github-copilot/gpt-5.1-codex-max, github-copilot/gpt-4.1, github-copilot/gpt-4o, github-copilot/gpt-5-mini

The claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-cli/claude-opus-4-7, and claude-cli/claude-haiku-4-5 entries from agents.defaults.models do not appear, despite being valid JSON keys in that map.

openclaw cron runs --id <jobId> — same job, before and after the binary update at 2026-04-30 18:15 PT:

ts=1777556368863 status=ok    provider=claude-cli model=claude-sonnet-4-6  (pre-2026.4.29)
ts=1777642200550 status=error provider=-          err='cron payload.model claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6 rejected by agents.defaults.models allowlist: claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6'  (post-2026.4.29)
ts=1777647673390 status=error provider=-          err=same as above

Source location of the error string: dist/isolated-agent-DPBQL0rZ.js, function formatCronPayloadModelRejection, called when resolveAllowedModelRefFromAliasIndex returns { error: "model not allowed: <key>" } — i.e., the resolved key for the cron payload is not present in the set returned by buildAllowedModelSetWithFallbacks (dist/model-selection-shared-CJbAuPhe.js).

Impact and severity

8 of my production crons broke overnight from a single point release: K-2 Morning Brief, K2 Dashboard Inbox Poller, K2 Inbox AM, Async Context Dump, K2 Memory Maintenance, Memory Dreaming Promotion, Tennis Paper Picks 5pm, K-2 Paper Picks Card (6am), healthcheck:security-audit. Switching them to anthropic/<model> passes validation but loses cron-session FS write tools (Bash/Write/Edit), silently producing degraded output — so the prefix flip is not a viable workaround.

Additional information

openclaw config validate returns Config valid. openclaw doctor reports Blocked by allowlist: 0. Neither surfaces the silent drop, so users will not realize the regression until cron runs start failing, often hours later. A validation warning when entries in agents.defaults.models are not added to the configured catalog would help.