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OpenClaw config

How to find and fix broken config or JSON issues

Use this page when OpenClaw config is broken, ignored, or behaving strangely and you need to classify the failure before making more edits.

Start from the symptom The visible failure pattern usually points to the broken layer.
Classify the failure first

Do not debug config as one giant mystery

Ask what actually happened:

  • did the file stop loading?
  • did the setting get ignored?
  • did a map lose sibling entries?
  • did the config validate but the runtime still behave the old way?
Failure classes

Parse failures are different from schema failures

JSON5 allows comments and trailing commas, but broken braces, malformed pasted examples, wrong nesting, and wrong types still cause different kinds of failure. Diagnose the failure class before changing more config.

Common failure patterns

Most broken config falls into a few repeatable categories

Load failure

File will not load

Usually malformed JSON5 or a broken recent edit.

Wrong path

Setting exists but is ignored

Usually wrong nesting, wrong parent, or restart misunderstanding.

Validation

Value shape does not match schema

Type or allowed-value problems need schema-guided correction.

Map clobbering

Working siblings disappeared

A parent map was likely replaced instead of narrowly patched.

Safe diagnosis rules

The safest next move is usually smaller than you think