openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Feature]: freeride switch should preview and confirm before overwriting manually configured fallback chain [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

freeride switch silently overwrites manually configured fallback chain without preview or confirmation

Problem to solve

When running freeride switch to add a model to the fallback chain, freeride silently rewrites the entire fallback list — replacing the manually configured chain with an auto-generated free-tier selection, without any preview or confirmation step.

The change happens inside an active session. After the session compacts, the agent has no memory of the original configuration. Recovery requires manually inspecting the raw session history file.

Proposed solution

Before overwriting an existing fallback configuration, freeride switch should:

1. Display the current fallback list
2. Show what it intends to replace it with
3. Require explicit confirmation before writing

Example:

Current fallback chain:

1. minimax-m2.7 (1M)
2. gemini-3-flash (1M)

freeride will replace this with:

1. model-a (free)
2. model-b (free)

Confirm? [y/N]

Alternatives considered

Manually backing up openclaw.json before running freeride commands — workable but easy to forget.

Impact

Affected: Any user who runs freeride switch on a manually configured fallback chain Severity: High — silently destroys a carefully configured setup with no recovery path short of inspecting raw session files Frequency: Every time freeride switch is used when a custom fallback chain already exists Consequence: Fallback chain reverts to free-tier models; downstream tasks silently degrade in quality (small-window models receive truncated context without error signal); configuration loss is permanent after compaction

Evidence/examples

Reproduced on OpenClaw 2026.3.13 (commit 61d171a), WSL2 / Ubuntu 24.04.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Manually configure a fallback chain in openclaw.json with 3+ large-context models
2. Run freeride switch <model-name> to add a single model
3. Observe: entire fallback list is replaced, not appended

After the session compacts, /context detail shows no record of the original chain.

Additional information

Related: the same silent-overwrite risk exists any time freeride modifies config inside a live session that will later compact. A general principle of "preview before write" for freeride config operations would address this class of issue.