Bug

channels.modelByChannel is documented in the configuration reference and defined in the Zod schema (ChannelModelByChannelSchema in ChannelsSchema), but gets rejected at startup and via openclaw config set with:

channels.modelByChannel: unknown channel id: modelByChannel

Steps to Reproduce

1. Add to openclaw.json:

{
  "channels": {
    "modelByChannel": {
      "discord": {
        "123456789012345678": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Run openclaw gateway restart or openclaw config set channels.modelByChannel ...
3. Gateway fails to start / config set returns validation error

Analysis

The Zod schema in the compiled source (config-DJkRS0fq.js) correctly defines:

const ChannelsSchema = z.object({
  defaults: ...,
  modelByChannel: ChannelModelByChannelSchema,  // ✅ defined
  whatsapp: ...,
  discord: ...,
  // ...
}).passthrough().optional();

And the runtime code in subagent-registry-Bdm_X-N1.js reads it:

const modelByChannel = params.cfg.channels?.modelByChannel;

The prompt-select-styled module also explicitly skips it:

if (channelId === "defaults" || channelId === "modelByChannel") continue;

But there appears to be a separate validation pass (likely in the config set CLI or startup channel iteration) that treats every key under channels as a channel ID and rejects modelByChannel as unknown.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.2.21-2
• OS: macOS 15.7.4 (arm64)
• Node: v25.5.0

Expected Behavior

channels.modelByChannel should be accepted by both the CLI config commands and gateway startup, matching the docs and Zod schema.