Summary

When a channel config has named accounts but no default, the doctor/channels add migration moves top-level account-scoped keys into accounts.default. For channels that declare namedAccountPromotionKeys, this is limited to credentials only — policy keys stay at the channel top level as shared defaults.

Problem: Most channels do NOT declare namedAccountPromotionKeys. The guard in resolveSingleAccountKeysToMove() short-circuits when the value is undefined:

if (
  hasNamedAccounts &&
  namedAccountPromotionKeys &&  // undefined for most channels → guard skipped
  !namedAccountPromotionKeys.includes(key)
) {
  return false;
}

This means ALL movable keys (groupPolicy, allowFrom, defaultTo, credentials, etc.) get swept into accounts.default, stripping shared defaults from existing named accounts.

Channels with the guard

Channels WITHOUT the guard (affected)

Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, IRC, MS Teams, Google Chat, iMessage, Line, Nostr, Mattermost, Synology Chat, BlueBubbles, Tlon, Twitch, Zalo, and all other extensions.

Repro

Before migration — top-level acts as inherited base for all accounts:

channels:
  slack:
    groupPolicy: "open"
    allowFrom: ["U123"]
    accounts:
      work:
        botToken: "xoxb-work"
      personal:
        botToken: "xoxb-personal"

Both work and personal inherit groupPolicy and allowFrom via the { ...base, ...account } merge in mergeSlackAccountConfig().

After doctor --fix — shared defaults moved into phantom default:

channels:
  slack:
    accounts:
      default:
        groupPolicy: "open"
        allowFrom: ["U123"]
      work:
        botToken: "xoxb-work"     # lost groupPolicy + allowFrom
      personal:
        botToken: "xoxb-personal" # lost groupPolicy + allowFrom

work and personal no longer inherit those values.

Expected behavior

Each channel should declare namedAccountPromotionKeys listing only credential/auth keys that are per-account by nature (e.g., botToken, appToken, signingSecret). Policy keys (groupPolicy, allowFrom, defaultTo) should remain at the channel top level as shared defaults.

Alternatively, the fallback when namedAccountPromotionKeys is undefined could default to credentials-only (conservative) rather than move-everything (destructive).

Relevant code

• src/channels/plugins/setup-helpers.ts — resolveSingleAccountKeysToMove()
• src/commands/doctor/shared/channel-legacy-config-migrate.ts (calls via seedMissingDefaultAccountsFromSingleAccountBase)
• BUNDLED_NAMED_ACCOUNT_PROMOTION_FALLBACKS — only has Telegram
• BUNDLED_SINGLE_ACCOUNT_PROMOTION_FALLBACKS — only has Telegram

Related PRs

• Channels: move single-account config into accounts.default #27334 — Original migration
• fix(ci): Windows task tests and Telegram setup promotion surface #60630 — Telegram setup promotion surface (open)
• Fix Telegram doctor migration for multi-account configs #62263 — Telegram doctor migration fix (merged)
• fix(matrix): move avatar setup into account config #61437 — Matrix avatar setup into account config (merged)