openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Discord channel stays disabled with no warning unless `plugins.entries.discord.enabled` is set

Summary

OpenClaw requires two independent enables to activate a channel plugin:

1. channels.discord.enabled: true (channel-level)
2. plugins.entries.discord.enabled: true (plugin-registry)

Channel-level enable alone is not sufficient. Without the plugin-registry enable, Discord reports installed, not configured, disabled forever. openclaw config validate passes, the gateway starts cleanly, and there are no Discord-related log lines — the failure is completely silent.

Steps to reproduce

1. Write a minimal config with channel-level Discord enabled but no plugins.entries:

{
  "gateway": {
    "auth": {
      "token": { "source": "env", "id": "OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN" }
    }
  },
  "channels": {
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "name": "Test Discord",
      "token": {
        "source": "env",
        "provider": "default",
        "id": "DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

1. openclaw config validate — passes.

2. Restart the gateway (systemctl --user restart openclaw-gateway on native install).

3. openclaw channels list --all --plain — Discord shows disabled.

4. openclaw channels logs --channel discord --lines 100 — no Discord plugin output.

5. Add the plugin-registry enable and restart:

"plugins": {
  "entries": {
    "discord": { "enabled": true }
  }
}

1. openclaw channels list --all --plain — Discord shows configured and enabled.

Expected vs actual

Suggested fixes (any one):

• Treat channels.<x>.enabled: true as implicit plugins.entries.<x>.enabled: true when unset.
• Emit startup WARN when a channel is enabled but the plugin registry entry is disabled/missing.
• Fail fast with an explicit operator-facing error.

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.5.12 (reproduced on native install; first observed on 2026.5.7)
• Ubuntu 24.04, NUC1 native (systemctl --user gateway)
• @openclaw/discord aligned via npm install @openclaw/discord@latest + openclaw doctor --fix

Workaround (AoAOS)

openclaw/setup-native.sh step 7 writes both enables in an atomic Python rewrite of ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json. Operator notes: docs/runbook/discord-migration-notes.md.

Local doc

docs/upstream-bugs/plugins-entries-explicit-enable-required.md (setup-native Bug #4; highest priority per AOAOS-27)