openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix config.patch on agents.defaults.model.primary triggers gateway restart despite hot-reload docs [1 comments, 2 participants]

Bug type

Behavior bug / config reload regression

Summary

config.patch for agents.defaults.model.primary should be hot-applied without restarting the gateway, according to the configuration reload docs. In practice, patching only this path through the gateway API causes the gateway reload watcher to diff unrelated runtime/materialized fields (plugins.entries.*.config, plugins.entries.memory-core, commands, messages) and then restart the gateway.

This was reproduced without OpenClaw Console in the path. The request was made directly with openclaw gateway call config.patch; gateway logs show actor=cli, not a console client.

Docs reference: https://docs.openclaw.ai/zh-CN/gateway/configuration#%E5%93%AA%E4%BA%9B%E4%BC%9A%E7%83%AD%E5%BA%94%E7%94%A8%EF%BC%8C%E5%93%AA%E4%BA%9B%E9%9C%80%E8%A6%81%E9%87%8D%E5%90%AF

Version / environment

• OpenClaw: OpenClaw 2026.4.26 (be8c246)
• Node: v25.9.0
• OS: macOS 26.4.1
• Gateway: local loopback on ws://127.0.0.1:18789

Reproduction

1. Ensure the gateway is running and RPC is healthy:

openclaw gateway status --json

1. Get the current config hash:

openclaw gateway call config.get --params '{}' \
  | sed '1d' \
  | jq -r '.hash'

1. Patch only the default model path:

openclaw gateway call config.patch --params '{
  "raw":"{\"agents\":{\"defaults\":{\"model\":{\"primary\":\"openai/gpt-5.4\"}}}}",
  "baseHash":"<hash from config.get>"
}'

I also reproduced while restoring the value back to openai/gpt-5.5.

Expected behavior

Only agents.defaults.model.primary should be considered changed, and the gateway should hot-apply the model change without restarting.

Actual behavior

The direct config.patch handler initially computes the correct minimal changed path:

[gateway] config.patch write actor=cli ... changedPaths=agents.defaults.model.primary restartReason=config.patch

Immediately after the config file write, the reload watcher re-diffs and reports unrelated runtime/materialized paths:

[reload] config change detected; evaluating reload (agents.defaults.model.primary, agents.defaults.maxConcurrent, agents.defaults.subagents, plugins.entries.deepseek.config, plugins.entries.openai.config, plugins.entries.memory-core, commands, messages)
[reload] config change requires gateway restart (plugins.entries.deepseek.config, plugins.entries.openai.config, plugins.entries.memory-core, commands)
[gateway] signal SIGUSR1 received
[gateway] received SIGUSR1; restarting

When restoring the value, the CLI call itself observed the restart close:

Gateway call failed: Error: gateway closed (1012): service restart
Gateway target: ws://127.0.0.1:18789
Source: local loopback
Config: /Users/nle/.openclaw/openclaw.json
Bind: loopback

The config audit confirms the write was performed by the gateway process itself:

{
  "source": "config-io",
  "event": "config.write",
  "argv": [
    "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/node/25.9.0_2/bin/node",
    "/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/index.js",
    "gateway",
    "--port",
    "18789"
  ],
  "result": "rename"
}

Notes / suspected cause

This looks like the gateway config reload watcher is recomputing changed paths after the file write using a different compare shape than the config.patch handler. The direct patch diff is correct (agents.defaults.model.primary only), but the follow-up reload diff appears to include runtime/materialized fields such as plugin config, commands, and messages, which then forces a restart.

This is distinct from a client sending an oversized patch or full resolved config: the reproduction uses a minimal patch and goes directly through openclaw gateway call config.patch.