openclaw doctor

Health checks and quick fixes for the gateway, channels, plugins, skills, model routing, local state, and config migrations. Use it whenever something is not behaving as expected and you want one command to explain what is wrong.

Related:

• Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting
• Security audit: Security

Postures

Prefer --lint when automation needs a stable result. Prefer --fix when a human operator wants doctor to edit config or state.

Examples

openclaw doctor
openclaw doctor --lint
openclaw doctor --lint --json
openclaw doctor --lint --severity-min warning
openclaw doctor --lint --all
openclaw doctor --lint --allow-exec
openclaw doctor --deep
openclaw doctor --fix
openclaw doctor --fix --non-interactive
openclaw doctor --generate-gateway-token
openclaw doctor --post-upgrade
openclaw doctor --post-upgrade --json

For channel-specific permissions, use the channel probes instead of doctor:

openclaw channels capabilities --channel discord --target channel:<channel-id>
openclaw channels status --probe

channels capabilities reports the bot's effective permissions for a specific channel target. channels status --probe audits all configured channels and voice auto-join targets.

Options

--json, --severity-min, --all, --only, and --skip are only accepted together with --lint.

Lint mode

openclaw doctor --lint is read-only: no prompts, no repair, no config/state rewrites.

openclaw doctor --lint
openclaw doctor --lint --severity-min warning
openclaw doctor --lint --json
openclaw doctor --lint --all
openclaw doctor --lint --allow-exec
openclaw doctor --lint --only core/doctor/gateway-config --json

Human output is compact:

doctor --lint: ran 6 check(s), 1 finding(s)
  [warning] core/doctor/gateway-config gateway.mode - gateway.mode is unset; gateway start will be blocked.
    fix: Run `openclaw configure` and set Gateway mode (local/remote), or `openclaw config set gateway.mode local`.

JSON output is the scripting surface:

{
  "ok": false,
  "checksRun": 5,
  "checksSkipped": 0,
  "findings": [
    {
      "checkId": "core/doctor/gateway-config",
      "severity": "warning",
      "message": "gateway.mode is unset; gateway start will be blocked.",
      "path": "gateway.mode",
      "fixHint": "Run `openclaw configure` and set Gateway mode (local/remote), or `openclaw config set gateway.mode local`."
    }
  ]
}

Exit codes:

--severity-min controls both which findings print and the exit threshold: openclaw doctor --lint --severity-min error can print nothing and exit 0 even when lower-severity info/warning findings exist.

--all controls which checks are selected before severity filtering. The default lint run excludes checks that are deep, historical, or more likely to surface repairable legacy residue; use --all for the complete inventory. --only <id> is the most precise selector and can run any registered check by id.

Structured health checks

Modern doctor checks use a small split contract:

detect(ctx, scope?) -> HealthFinding[]
repair?(ctx, findings) -> HealthRepairResult

detect() powers doctor --lint. repair() is optional and only runs under doctor --fix / doctor --repair. Checks that have not migrated to this shape still use the legacy doctor contribution flow.

Repair contexts can carry dryRun/diff requests; repair results can return structured diffs (config/file edits) and effects (service, process, package, state, or other side effects), so converted checks can grow toward doctor --fix --dry-run without moving mutation planning into detect().

repair() reports status: "repaired" | "skipped" | "failed" (omitted status means repaired). When repair returns skipped or failed, doctor reports the reason and skips validation for that check. After a successful repair, doctor re-runs detect() scoped to the repaired findings; if the finding is still present, doctor reports a repair warning instead of treating the change as complete.

A finding includes:

Modernized core doctor checks stay attached to the ordered doctor contribution that owns their human doctor / doctor --fix behavior. The shared structured health registry is the extension point: bundled and plugin-backed checks run after core doctor checks once their owning package registers them in the active command path. openclaw/plugin-sdk/health exposes the same contract for plugin authors.

Check selection

openclaw doctor --lint --only core/doctor/gateway-config --json
openclaw doctor --lint --skip core/doctor/skills-readiness
openclaw doctor --lint --all --skip core/doctor/session-locks

--only and --skip accept full check ids and may be repeated. If an --only id is not registered, no check runs for that id; use checksRun/checksSkipped in the output to confirm a focused gate selects the checks you expect.

Post-upgrade mode

openclaw doctor --post-upgrade runs plugin compatibility probes for chaining after a build or upgrade. Findings go to stdout; exit code is 1 if any finding has level: "error". Add --json for a machine-readable envelope ({ probesRun, findings }), suitable for CI, the community fork-upgrade skill, and other post-upgrade smoke tooling. If the installed plugin index is missing or malformed, JSON mode still emits the envelope with a plugin.index_unavailable error finding.

Container image startup is the exception to the usual "run doctor after updating" flow. When openclaw gateway run starts on a new OpenClaw version, it runs safe state and plugin repairs before reporting ready. If repair cannot finish safely, startup exits and tells you to run the same image once with openclaw doctor --fix against the same mounted state/config before restarting the container normally.

Notes

• In Nix mode (OPENCLAW_NIX_MODE=1), read-only doctor checks still work, but doctor --fix, doctor --repair, doctor --yes, and doctor --generate-gateway-token are disabled because openclaw.json is immutable. Edit the Nix source for this install instead; for nix-openclaw, use the agent-first Quick Start.
• Interactive prompts (keychain/OAuth fixes, etc.) only run when stdin is a TTY and --non-interactive is not set. Headless runs (cron, Telegram, no terminal) skip prompts.
• Non-interactive doctor runs skip eager plugin loading so headless health checks stay fast. Interactive sessions still load the plugin surfaces needed by the legacy health/repair flow.
• --lint is stricter than --non-interactive: always read-only, never prompts, never applies safe migrations. Use doctor --fix or doctor --repair when you want doctor to make changes.
• Doctor does not execute exec SecretRefs while checking secrets by default. Use --allow-exec (with or without --lint) only when you intentionally want doctor to run those configured secret resolvers.
• Any config write (including a --fix repair) rotates a backup to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json.bak (with a numbered .bak.1...bak.4 ring). --fix also drops unknown config keys reported by schema validation, listing each removal; it skips this while an update is in progress so partially written upgrade state is not stripped before its migration finishes.
• Set OPENCLAW_SERVICE_REPAIR_POLICY=external when another supervisor owns the gateway lifecycle. Doctor still reports gateway/service health and applies non-service repairs, but skips service install/start/restart/bootstrap and legacy service cleanup.
• On Linux, doctor ignores inactive extra gateway-like systemd units and does not rewrite command/entrypoint metadata for a running systemd gateway service during repair. Stop the service first, or use openclaw gateway install --force to replace the active launcher.
• doctor --fix --non-interactive reports missing or stale gateway service definitions but does not install or rewrite them outside update repair mode. Run openclaw gateway install for a missing service, or openclaw gateway install --force to replace the launcher.
• State integrity checks detect orphan transcript files in the sessions directory. Archiving them as .deleted.<timestamp> requires interactive confirmation; --fix, --yes, and headless runs leave them in place.
• Doctor scans ~/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json (or cron.store) for legacy cron job shapes and rewrites them before importing canonical rows into SQLite.
• Doctor reports cron jobs with an explicit payload.model override, including provider-namespace counts and mismatches against agents.defaults.model, so scheduled jobs that do not inherit the default model are visible during auth or billing investigations.
• On Linux, doctor warns when the user's crontab still runs the unmaintained legacy ~/.openclaw/bin/ensure-whatsapp.sh, which can misreport Gateway inactive when cron lacks the systemd user-bus environment.
• When WhatsApp is enabled, doctor checks for a degraded Gateway event loop with local openclaw-tui clients still running. doctor --fix stops only verified local TUI clients so WhatsApp replies are not queued behind stale TUI refresh loops.
• Doctor rewrites legacy openai-codex/* model refs to canonical openai/* refs across primary models, fallbacks, image/video generation models, heartbeat/subagent/compaction overrides, hooks, channel model overrides, and stale session route pins. --fix also migrates legacy openai-codex:* auth profiles and auth.order.openai-codex entries to openai:*, moves Codex intent onto provider/model-scoped agentRuntime.id: "codex" entries, removes stale whole-agent/session runtime pins, and keeps repaired OpenAI agent refs on Codex auth routing instead of direct OpenAI API-key auth.
• Doctor cleans legacy plugin dependency staging state from older OpenClaw versions and relinks the host openclaw package for managed npm plugins that declare it as a peer dependency. It also repairs missing downloadable plugins referenced by config (plugins.entries, configured channels, configured provider/search settings, configured agent runtimes). During package updates, doctor skips package-manager plugin repair until the package swap completes; rerun openclaw doctor --fix afterward if a configured plugin still needs recovery. If a download fails, doctor reports the install error and preserves the configured plugin entry for the next repair attempt.
• Doctor repairs stale plugin config by removing missing plugin ids from plugins.allow/plugins.deny/plugins.entries, plus matching dangling channel config, heartbeat targets, and channel model overrides, when plugin discovery is healthy.
• Doctor quarantines invalid plugin config by disabling the affected plugins.entries.<id> entry and removing its invalid config payload. Gateway startup already skips only that bad plugin so other plugins and channels keep running.
• Doctor removes the retired plugins.entries.codex.config.codexDynamicToolsProfile; the Codex app-server always keeps Codex-native workspace tools native.
• Doctor auto-migrates legacy flat Talk config (talk.voiceId, talk.modelId, and friends) into talk.provider + talk.providers.<provider>. Repeat doctor --fix runs no longer report/apply Talk normalization when the only difference is object key order.
• Doctor includes a memory-search readiness check and can recommend openclaw configure --section model when embedding credentials are missing.
• Doctor warns when no command owner is configured. The command owner is the human operator account allowed to run owner-only commands and approve dangerous actions. DM pairing only lets someone talk to the bot; if you approved a sender before first-owner bootstrap existed, set commands.ownerAllowFrom explicitly.
• Doctor reports an info note when Codex-mode agents are configured and personal Codex CLI assets exist in the operator's Codex home. Local Codex app-server launches use isolated per-agent homes; install the Codex plugin first if needed, then use openclaw migrate plan codex to inventory assets that should be promoted deliberately.
• Doctor warns when skills allowed for the default agent are unavailable in the current runtime environment (missing bins, env vars, config, or OS requirements). doctor --fix can disable those unavailable skills with skills.entries.<skill>.enabled=false; install/configure the missing requirement instead if you want to keep the skill active.
• If sandbox mode is enabled but Docker is unavailable, doctor reports a high-signal warning with remediation (install Docker or openclaw config set agents.defaults.sandbox.mode off).
• If legacy sandbox registry files or shard directories are present (~/.openclaw/sandbox/containers.json, ~/.openclaw/sandbox/browsers.json, ~/.openclaw/sandbox/containers/, or ~/.openclaw/sandbox/browsers/), doctor reports them; --fix migrates valid entries into SQLite and quarantines invalid legacy files.
• If gateway.auth.token/gateway.auth.password are SecretRef-managed and unavailable in the current command path, doctor reports a read-only warning and does not write plaintext fallback credentials. For exec-backed SecretRefs, doctor skips execution unless --allow-exec is present.
• If channel SecretRef inspection fails in a fix path, doctor continues and reports a warning instead of exiting early.
• After state-directory migrations, doctor warns when enabled default Telegram or Discord accounts depend on env fallback and TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN or DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN is unavailable to the doctor process.
• Telegram allowFrom username auto-resolution (doctor --fix) requires a resolvable Telegram token in the current command path. If token inspection is unavailable, doctor reports a warning and skips auto-resolution for that pass.

macOS: launchctl env overrides

If you previously ran launchctl setenv OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN ... (or ...PASSWORD), that value overrides your config file and can cause persistent "unauthorized" errors.

launchctl getenv OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN
launchctl getenv OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PASSWORD

launchctl unsetenv OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN
launchctl unsetenv OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PASSWORD

Related

• CLI reference
• Gateway doctor