Date: 2026-04-01

An OpenClaw install failed to start the gateway because ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json contained a legacy top-level fallbacks key inside agents.list[*].

The runtime schema rejected entries like:

{
  "id": "coder",
  "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
  "fallbacks": []
}

Doctor output showed:

Invalid config:
- agents.list.0: Unrecognized key: "fallbacks"

Mission Control still normalized model.fallbacks, but it also preserved any old top-level agent.fallbacks already present in openclaw.json during write-back.

That meant any agent edited from the dashboard could keep re-saving an invalid gateway config even if the current UI no longer depended on that field.

The write-back normalizer in src/lib/agent-sync.ts now removes legacy top-level agent.fallbacks before writing back to openclaw.json.

Regression coverage lives in:

• src/lib/__tests__/agent-sync.test.ts

If this happens again on a live install:

1. Remove fallbacks from each entry in agents.list inside ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json.
2. Run openclaw doctor.
3. Verify with openclaw gateway status.

Expected result:

• openclaw doctor no longer reports Unrecognized key: "fallbacks".
• openclaw gateway status shows Runtime: running and RPC probe: ok.