openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix 2026.5.2: security audit recommends tools.exec.strictInlineEval but config schema rejects tools.exec [2 comments, 3 participants]

Summary

openclaw security audit --deep warns that interpreter allowlist entries should set tools.exec.strictInlineEval=true, but adding that exact config key causes the same audit/config validator to print an invalid-config diagnostic: tools.exec: Unrecognized key: "strictInlineEval" / tools.exec rejected under current config shape.

This makes the warning non-actionable for operators on 2026.5.2.

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.5.2 (8b2a6e5)
• macOS 12.7.6 x64
• Node 24.14.0
• Gateway LaunchAgent, loopback 127.0.0.1:18789
• Personal assistant trust model, Telegram multi-account setup

Audit warning

The audit reports:

tools.exec.allowlist_interpreter_without_strict_inline_eval Interpreter allowlist entries are missing strictInlineEval hardening
  Interpreter/runtime allowlist entries were found without strictInlineEval enabled:
- agents.sentinel.allowlist: /usr/bin/find
  Fix: Set tools.exec.strictInlineEval=true (or per-agent tools.exec.strictInlineEval=true) when allowlisting interpreters like python, node, ruby, perl, php, lua, or osascript.

Attempted fix

Added:

"tools": {
  "exec": {
    "strictInlineEval": true
  }
}

Actual result

Subsequent audit/config validation reports the new key as invalid/unrecognized:

Invalid config at ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
- tools.exec: Unrecognized key: "strictInlineEval"

I rolled the local config back because keeping an invalid key is worse than the warning.

Expected

One of these should happen:

1. The schema accepts tools.exec.strictInlineEval as the audit recommends, or
2. The audit gives the currently valid per-agent config path for 2026.5.2, or
3. The warning is suppressed/changed when there is no valid config field available.

Impact

The security audit suggests a hardening action that cannot be applied cleanly on the stable release. Operators either leave the warning unresolved or add invalid config.

No secrets/tokens included.