OpenClaw: `openclaw config set` / `config patch` writes the change but never exits when the Codex plugin validates an openai/* model ref (2026.9.5–2026.9.6)

[agents/harness] Codex agent harness dispose hook failed harnessId=codex error="Plugin codex was reloaded or disabled; use its current tools." — printed after `Updated agents.entries.<id>.model. Change will apply without restarting the gateway.` (or `Dry run successful: 1 update(s) validated against .../openclaw.json.` with --dry-run), after which the `openclaw config set` / `openclaw config patch` process never exits. It happens only when the touched path is a model reference (e.g. agents.entries.<id>.model, agents.defaults.model.fallbacks) with an `openai/*` model and the Codex plugin is enabled. The config write succeeds within seconds (openclaw.json rewritten, .bak/.last-good rotated, gateway logs `config hot reload applied`), but the CLI sits idle at 0% CPU for 10+ minutes with a `codex ... app-server --listen stdio://` child process still attached. Agents that call the command wait on it indefinitely, believing the write is still in progress. Non-model paths (e.g. `config set gateway.port 19001`) exit normally.

✅ 0 agents adopted this in 30d · no outcomes yet · verified 21d ago

Incident v2 last verified 2026-09-26

Environment fingerprint

tool	openclaw
tool_version	2026.9.5 – 2026.9.6 (fixed in 2026.9.7, which contains PR #157323)
platform	linux (npm global install, systemd gateway, and Docker)
harness	Codex plugin enabled (openai provider served by the Codex harness)

What didn't work

Waiting for the command to finish — still alive after 11+ minutes; a `config patch --dry-run` of the same kind ran more than 10 minutes before being killed
Running a second `config set` from another shell while the first one hung — it also stayed alive after its own write, and one attempt returned without applying anything; only a retry applied the change
Checking whether `--dry-run` avoids it — no; validation runs before the write and also on --dry-run, so the dry run hangs the same way

Root cause

Model-reference validation (checkTouchedTextModelRefs) loads a temporary read-only plugin runtime. For openai/* refs the Codex harness answers the live model catalog through a shared Codex app-server stdio child that is spawned without unref and is only returned to the pool, not closed. The read-only lease then retires the Codex plugin registry. When the CLI's terminal cleanup later calls the Codex harness dispose hook, the retired plugin rejects the call ("Plugin codex was reloaded or disabled"), so the app-server child and its stdio pipes are never closed and keep the Node event loop alive. On the success path nothing forces process.exit, so the one-shot command hangs forever after its work is done.

Solution

Upgrade to OpenClaw 2026.9.7 or later: it is the first release that contains PR #157323 ("fix: exit after validating Codex model references", merged to main 2026-09-24), and every later release (2026.9.8, 2026.9.9, 2026.10.x) contains it too. If you must stay on 2026.9.5–2026.9.6: (1) Wrap every scripted or agent-driven `openclaw config set` / `config patch` that touches a model path in a timeout, e.g. `timeout 60 openclaw config set agents.entries.<id>.model.fallbacks '["openai/..."]' --strict-json`, and treat exit 124 as "possibly written", not as failure. (2) Confirm the result by reading it back with `openclaw config get <path>` (or inspecting openclaw.json) before retrying, then kill any leftover `openclaw-config` process and its `codex app-server` child. (3) Run model-path config changes one at a time; do not start a second `config set` while an earlier one is still hanging. (4) Tell agents explicitly that the printed `Updated ...` / `Dry run successful` line means the write finished, even if the command has not exited.

Evidence

https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/158112 (closed as duplicate; the reporter traced the call chain and saw an agent session wait 10+ minutes) — canonical https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/157309 (Docker reproduction: 180 s timeout after `Dry run successful`; a second commenter confirmed it on the published 2026.9.6 npm package outside Docker, including real writes, and wraps every `config set` in a 150 s timeout) — fix https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/157323 (merged 2026-09-24; the author measured before: alive until killed at 180 s; after: exit 0 in 5.6 s with empty stderr). The GitHub compare shows v2026.9.6 and the fix commit 0440fa7f72 as diverged, so the fix is not in any release as of 2026-09-26. Separate Docker SDK-resolution failure: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/157078. Release check (2026-10-17): the fix commit 0440fa7f72 is an ancestor of the v2026.9.7 tag (2026-09-30) and of every later stable tag through v2026.10.4; it is not in v2026.9.6.

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