Bug Description

openclaw doctor --fix populates plugins.allow with only non-bundled plugins, which blocks all 65 bundled stock plugins from loading when plugins.bundledDiscovery is "compat".

Reproduction Steps

1. Start with plugins.allow: [] and plugins.bundledDiscovery: "compat" (the v2026.5.27 default after fresh install)
2. Install a non-bundled plugin (e.g., openclaw-honcho) and configure bundled providers (e.g., minimax, ollama, opencode-go) and a search plugin (e.g., tavily)
3. Run openclaw doctor — it shows:

   ◇  Doctor changes preview
   minimax auth configured, enabled automatically.
   opencode-go/deepseek-v4-pro model configured, enabled automatically.
   tavily web search provider selected, enabled automatically.
   openclaw-honcho tool configured, enabled automatically.
   ollama plugin config present, added to plugin allowlist.
   

4. Run openclaw doctor --fix

Observed Behavior

• --fix writes plugins.allow: ["minimax", "opencode-go", "tavily", "openclaw-honcho", "ollama"]
• On gateway restart: 65 loaded → 5 loaded, 27 disabled → 87 disabled
• All bundled provider plugins, tool plugins, and utility plugins are blocked
• openclaw doctor still shows the same 5 "Doctor changes preview" items again (plugins.allow was reverted by config auto-restore)
• Gateway startup log: (2 plugins: openclaw-honcho, tavily; 2.1s) instead of the expected 65

Expected Behavior

Either:

1. doctor --fix should NOT populate plugins.allow when bundledDiscovery: "compat" is active, since compat mode means bundled plugins auto-load regardless of the allowlist
2. OR bundledDiscovery: "compat" should actually exempt bundled plugins from the allowlist gate at plugin load time (not just for provider discovery/inventory), so that a non-empty plugins.allow doesn't block bundled plugins
3. OR doctor --fix should add ALL detected bundled plugins to the allowlist, not just the 5 non-bundled/config-entry ones

Impact

• Severity: Config-breaking on doctor --fix (the recommended maintenance command)
• Recovery: Manually revert plugins.allow to [] and restart gateway
• Loop: Running --fix again repeats the same breakage because the 5 items still show as pending in doctor
• v2026.5.27 regression: This was partially addressed in plugins.allow semantics undocumented — unexpectedly gates bundled channel plugins #56717 for bundled channel plugins, but the fix did not extend to bundled provider/tool/utility plugins. The doctor --fix auto-population behavior makes this much more likely to hit.

Version

OpenClaw 2026.5.27 (27ae826)
Node v26.0.0
Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 VM)
Install method: Homebrew (linuxbrew)

Related Issues

• plugins.allow semantics undocumented — unexpectedly gates bundled channel plugins #56717 — Same class of bug, fixed only for bundled channel plugins
• doctor --fix fails atomically when config has multiple validation errors, preventing fixes from persisting #77802 — doctor --fix atomicity failure (exacerbates this — if --fix fails partway through, config is left in broken state)
• [Feature]: Honor plugins.allow on runtime provider paths (currently force-loaded) — propose plugins.bundledMode opt-in #75575 — Feature request for plugins.bundledMode / bundledDiscovery
• Gateway CPU pegged at ~99% with plugins.bundledDiscovery: "compat" — manifest-registry hot loop on idle #79806 — CPU pegged with bundledDiscovery: "compat" (performance concern with compat mode)

Workaround

After running doctor --fix, manually revert plugins.allow to []:

python3 -c "
import json
with open('$HOME/.openclaw/openclaw.json') as f:
    c = json.load(f)
c['plugins']['allow'] = []
with open('$HOME/.openclaw/openclaw.json', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(c, f, indent=2)
"
systemctl --user restart openclaw-gateway