Bug type

Regression (worked before, now fails)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

Upgrading to OpenClaw 2026.4.2 caused an existing working gateway install to fail strict config validation, and after config repair the cron store required manual backup restore.

Steps to reproduce

Observed Upgrade Path

1. Start from an existing working OpenClaw gateway install with persisted state in ~/.openclaw/.
2. Upgrade OpenClaw to 2026.4.2.
3. Restart the gateway service.
4. Observe gateway startup failure with strict config validation errors in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json for legacy keys such as:
   • agents.list[*].allowedModels
   • tools.exec.allowlist
5. Remove the rejected config keys and restart the gateway again.
6. Observe cron RPC/status requests fail because ~/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json cannot be parsed.
7. Restore a prior valid cron backup manually to recover service.

Expected behavior

Expected Behavior

• Upgrading an existing working OpenClaw gateway install to 2026.4.2 should not break startup.
• Legacy persisted config keys in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json should be migrated automatically or handled by a supported repair path such as doctor --fix.
• The gateway should either continue to read the existing cron store safely or repair/quarantine a malformed ~/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json automatically.
• Manual editing of config/state files and manual backup restore should not be required after a normal upgrade.

Actual behavior

Actual Behavior

• After upgrading to OpenClaw 2026.4.2 and restarting the gateway, startup failed strict config validation on legacy keys in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json, including:
  • agents.list[*].allowedModels
  • tools.exec.allowlist
• After manually removing those rejected keys and restarting, the gateway came back up, but cron RPC/status requests still failed because ~/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json could not be parsed.
• The cron store contained malformed JSON and recovery required manually restoring a prior valid backup.

OpenClaw version

OpenClaw 2026.4.2 (d74a122)

Operating system

Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS (Noble Numbat), x86_64

Install method

Manual install (service-managed, not global npm)

Model

Multiple; issue is not model-specific

Provider / routing chain

Use: Service-managed local gateway under moltbot; no external proxy/router involved in the primary failure. The bug occurred during gateway startup and cron-store load before normal model execution. During later runtime recovery, model fallback chain was minimax/MiniMax-M2.5 -> deepseek/deepseek-reasoner -> moonshot/kimi-k2.5.

Additional provider/model setup details

No response

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

## Relevant Logs

### Config validation failure after upgrade

Invalid config at /home/moltbot/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
- agents.list.0: Unrecognized key: "allowedModels"
- agents.list.1: Unrecognized key: "allowedModels"
- agents.list.2: Unrecognized key: "allowedModels"
- agents.list.3: Unrecognized key: "allowedModels"
- tools.exec: Unrecognized key: "allowlist"

Error: Failed to parse cron store at /home/moltbot/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json: SyntaxError: JSON5: invalid character ':' at 149:17

Restored from backup: /home/moltbot/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json.backup.dynamic.20260317_145258
Restored jobs count: 40

Impact and severity

No response

Additional information

No response