Bug Report: cron.add Tool Parameter Validation Failure

Date: 2026-02-02
Reporter: rmax (via RMax-10 agent)
Affected Tool: cron.add
OpenClaw Version: 2026.1.30
Severity: Medium

Summary

The cron.add tool rejects all job creation attempts with a validation error claiming missing required properties, even when all required fields are present and correctly formatted.

Error Message

invalid cron.add params: must have required property 'name'; must have required property 'schedule'; must have required property 'sessionTarget'; must have required property 'payload'

Reproduction Steps

1. Verify cron system is functional

cron action=status
# Returns: {"enabled": true, "jobs": 1, ...}

cron action=list  
# Returns: Existing job(s) with correct structure

2. Attempt to add a new job

Minimal example:

{
  "name": "Test Job",
  "schedule": {"kind": "every", "everyMs": 60000},
  "sessionTarget": "main",
  "payload": {"kind": "systemEvent", "text": "test"}
}

With job wrapper:

{
  "job": {
    "name": "Test Job",
    "schedule": {"kind": "every", "everyMs": 60000},
    "sessionTarget": "main",
    "payload": {"kind": "systemEvent", "text": "test"}
  }
}

With action field:

{
  "action": "add",
  "job": {
    "name": "Test Job",
    "schedule": {"kind": "every", "everyMs": 60000},
    "sessionTarget": "main",
    "payload": {"kind": "systemEvent", "text": "test"}
  }
}

Cron expression format:

{
  "name": "Cron Test",
  "schedule": {"kind": "cron", "expr": "*/30 * * * *", "tz": "UTC"},
  "sessionTarget": "main",
  "payload": {"kind": "systemEvent", "text": "Test"}
}

With all optional fields:

{
  "id": "test-job-1",
  "name": "Test Job",
  "schedule": {"kind": "every", "everyMs": 3600000},
  "sessionTarget": "main",
  "payload": {"kind": "systemEvent", "text": "Test message"},
  "enabled": true
}

Result for all attempts: ❌ "missing required properties" error

Evidence of Valid Schema

Existing job in store (created previously, still functional):

{
  "id": "cc8016cb-8e3c-4c47-ae64-832b36d79580",
  "agentId": "main",
  "name": "Status check job",
  "enabled": false,
  "schedule": {"kind": "every", "everyMs": 1800000},
  "sessionTarget": "main",
  "payload": {"kind": "systemEvent", "text": "..."}
}

Expected Behavior

Tool should accept valid job object and return success with job ID.

Actual Behavior

Tool rejects all attempts with validation error.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.1.30
• Node.js: v24.3.0
• OS: Linux 6.12.41+deb13-arm64 (arm64)
• Cron store: ~/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json

Additional Notes

• cron.status, cron.list, cron.runs all work correctly
• Only cron.add appears affected
• Cron system itself is functional (existing jobs execute)

Hypothesis

Parameter parsing bug where validation runs before the job object is properly extracted from the request.