Description

Cron-spawned tasks consistently have startedAt timestamps earlier than createdAt timestamps. This causes the tasks audit to report hundreds of inconsistent_timestamps warnings that are purely cosmetic — all tasks complete normally.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.11 (769908e)
• OS: macOS 26.4 (arm64)
• Node: v25.9.0

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have several cron jobs running (we have 13 active crons)
2. Wait for tasks to accumulate over a few days
3. Run openclaw tasks audit

Observed Behavior

Tasks audit: 461 findings · 1 errors · 460 warnings
Task  warn  inconsistent_timestamps  389335a0-…  succeeded  fresh  startedAt is earlier than createdAt
Task  warn  inconsistent_timestamps  c07a581b-…  succeeded  fresh  startedAt is earlier than createdAt
[... 460 identical warnings]

Every cron-spawned task shows this warning. The tasks themselves all succeed — the timestamps are just recorded in the wrong order.

Expected Behavior

startedAt should be ≥ createdAt, or the audit should not flag this as a warning when the delta is negligible (likely sub-millisecond event ordering issue in the cron scheduler).

Impact

• Functional: Zero — all tasks run and complete normally
• Operational: The audit count grows linearly with cron runs, making it impossible to spot real issues in the noise. Our deployment went from 108 → 283 → 348 → 509 → 635 tracked findings in 5 days, almost entirely from this single warning type.
• Maintenance: openclaw tasks maintenance --apply does not clear these warnings since the tasks are valid completed records, not stale/broken entries.

Suggested Fix

Either:

1. Set startedAt = max(startedAt, createdAt) when recording the task start event
2. Suppress the inconsistent_timestamps audit warning when the delta is < 1 second
3. Allow openclaw tasks maintenance to clear cosmetic timestamp warnings on terminal tasks

Additional Context

The affected crons include various types: recurring (every 45min token refresh), nightly (git backup, PII scan, doc-drift), and frequent (every 5min calendar reminders). All exhibit the same pattern.