openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix toolProgress config stripped from channels without streaming.mode [1 comments, 2 participants]

Bug

Setting streaming.preview.toolProgress: false on a channel in openclaw.json is silently stripped by the config normalizer if the channel does not already have a streaming.mode key. This causes internal tool execution details (exec commands, curl invocations, tool names) to leak to end users on affected channels.

Reproduction

1. Set channels.whatsapp.streaming.preview.toolProgress to false in openclaw.json
2. Save the file
3. Wait for config auto-reload (~1-2 seconds)
4. Re-read the file - streaming is reset to {}

The same write persists on Telegram because Telegram already has streaming.mode: "partial" declared.

Expected behavior

streaming.preview.toolProgress should be respected on ALL channel types, not only those with a pre-existing streaming.mode. The config normalizer should preserve this key regardless of whether the channel plugin declares streaming support.

Actual behavior

The config watcher/normalizer strips the entire streaming.preview block for channels that don't declare streaming.mode in their plugin schema. Only Telegram (which has mode: "partial") retains the setting.

Impact

Users on WhatsApp, LINE, Sendblue, and Slack see raw tool execution narration like:

Working...
- exec fetch url -> show first 30 lines, curl -s "wttr.in/Lagos?1" 2>/dev/null | head -30
- command fetch url -> show first 30 lines
- tool: exec

This leaks internal commands, file paths, and tool names to end users. Confirmed by 3 separate testers on WhatsApp (GitHub cole-feedback#432).

Workaround

Added patterns to an outbound content gate script that blocks messages containing Working..., curl -s, exec fetch url, tool: exec, etc. This is fragile since model paraphrasing can bypass string matching.

Environment

• OpenClaw v2026.4.22 (checked v2026.4.26 release notes - not fixed there either)
• Affected channels: whatsapp, whatsapp-cloud, slack, line, sendblue
• Working channel: telegram (has streaming.mode: "partial" pre-set)

Suggested fix

The config normalizer should either:

1. Preserve streaming.preview even without streaming.mode, or
2. Default streaming.mode to "partial" when streaming.preview is set, or
3. Allow toolProgress to be set at agents.defaults.streaming.preview.toolProgress as a global default that applies to all channels