My Main agent has forgot who he is - I need help to get him back online

[glossy swallow]

I think my folder structure recently got corrupted, My main agent doesn't know who he is in telegram anymore. Also I'm burning through tons of api credits through anthropic models; so I can only run the ollama local models. Here is a screenshot of my .openclaw folder

[merry gulch]

From the screenshots, I don’t think the folder tree is obviously corrupted. I see the newer runtime layout under ~/.openclaw/agents/main/{agent,sessions}, and I also see your actual persona/workspace files under ~/.openclaw/workspace (AGENTS.md, IDENTITY.md, SOUL.md, MEMORY.md, etc.).

The risky thing is: if the main agent is now pointed at the wrong workspace, or Telegram is routed to another agent/session, it will look like it “forgot who he is”.

First, please run these and paste the output:

openclaw --version
openclaw status --all
openclaw agents list --bindings
openclaw config get agent.workspace
openclaw config get agents.defaults.workspace
openclaw config get agents.list

Do not manually move folders around yet. The ~/.openclaw/agents/main/agent folder is agent runtime/auth state; the identity/persona files belong in the workspace.

[merry gulch]

Quick recovery checks you can safely try:

openclaw setup --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace
openclaw agents set-identity --agent main --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace --from-identity
openclaw agents bind --agent main --bind telegram
openclaw gateway restart

For the API credit burn, switch the default model away from Anthropic and remove Anthropic fallbacks:

openclaw models status
openclaw models list
openclaw models set ollama/<your-pulled-model>
openclaw config get agents.defaults.model

[merry gulch]

If agents.defaults.model.fallbacks still contains Anthropic models, remove those or they can still get used after local-model failures. Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/agent-workspace, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/models, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/model-providers#ollama

[glossy swallow]

Agents:

• main (default)
  Identity: 🦉 Jarvis (IDENTITY.md)
  Workspace: ~/.openclaw/workspace
  Agent dir: ~/.openclaw/agents/main/agent
  Model: anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5
  Routing rules: 1
  Routing: default (no explicit rules)
  Routing rules:
  • telegram accountId=default
• emily
  Identity: 📋 Emily (config)
  Workspace: ~/.openclaw/agents/emily/workspace
  Agent dir: ~/.openclaw/agents/emily/agent
  Model: anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5
  Routing rules: 1
  Routing rules:
  • telegram accountId=littlelnd
    Routing rules map channel/account/peer to an agent. Use --bindings for full rules.
    Channel status reflects local config/creds. For live health: openclaw channels status --probe.

[merry gulch]

This output is useful: your main/Jarvis identity and workspace are wired correctly.

What it shows:

• main is Jarvis from ~/.openclaw/workspace/IDENTITY.md
• main is bound to Telegram account default
• emily is bound to Telegram account littlelnd
• both agents are still using anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5, so Anthropic spend can still happen

So if the Telegram chat you’re testing is on account littlelnd, it is expected to route to Emily, not Jarvis. If it’s on account default, Jarvis should answer.

Next I’d do these, in order:

openclaw --version
openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw models status

[merry gulch]

openclaw config get agents.defaults.model
openclaw config get agents.list --json

To stop Anthropic usage, pick one local model you actually have from ollama list, then set it explicitly. Example only, replace the model name:

ollama list
openclaw config set agents.defaults.model '{"primary":"ollama/llama3.3","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list[0].model '{"primary":"ollama/llama3.3","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list[1].model '{"primary":"ollama/llama3.3","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

The important part is fallbacks: []; otherwise a local-model failure can still fall back to Anthropic.

[merry gulch]

After restarting, send /new or /reset as a standalone Telegram message in the affected chat. That starts a fresh session so the current identity/workspace/model config gets loaded cleanly.

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/session, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/models, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/multi-agent, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/model-providers#ollama

[glossy swallow]

I"m trying to talk to Jarvis on timlittletech_bot

telegram account

[merry gulch]

Got it. Then the key question is: what OpenClaw accountId is timlittletech_bot registered as?

Your current routing says Jarvis only gets Telegram account default:

main/Jarvis -> telegram accountId=default
emily       -> telegram accountId=littlelnd

Run:

openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw agents list --bindings
openclaw config get channels.telegram --json

[merry gulch]

If timlittletech_bot shows up as default, Jarvis is already the right target and you should send /new or /reset to that Telegram bot to refresh the session.

If timlittletech_bot shows up under a different accountId, bind that account to Jarvis:

openclaw agents bind --agent main --bind telegram:<accountId>
openclaw gateway restart

Replace <accountId> with the actual account id from the status/config output. Don’t guess here, because binding the wrong Telegram account is exactly how you end up talking to the wrong persona.

[merry gulch]

Right, in OpenClaw “Telegram account” means the configured Telegram bot account id, not your personal Telegram username.

From your output, Jarvis is bound to:

telegram accountId=default

So if timlittletech_bot is your default Telegram bot config, Jarvis should receive it. Try this in Telegram to force a fresh Jarvis session:

/new

If it still answers wrong, paste the output of:

[merry gulch]

openclaw channels status --probe
openclaw config get channels.telegram --json
openclaw agents list --bindings

That will show whether timlittletech_bot is really default or another accountId.

[glossy swallow]

timlittletech_bot is the default; But when I message timlittletech_bot this is what I get: [5/19/26 11:45 AM] Timothy Little: Are you there?
[5/19/26 11:48 AM] Jarvis: Hello! I am a large language model, trained by Google. How can I help you today?

[merry gulch]

That response is a strong signal that the route is Jarvis, but the active model/session is not getting or following Jarvis’s OpenClaw system prompt.

Do this first in the Telegram chat with timlittletech_bot:

/reset

Then ask:

/context

The /context output should show injected workspace files like AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, USER.md, and IDENTITY.md. If those are missing, the issue is prompt/workspace injection. If they’re present, the local/Google-family model is just ignoring the persona prompt.

Also run locally:

[merry gulch]

openclaw config get agents.list[0].systemPromptOverride
openclaw config get agents.list[0].model
openclaw config get agents.defaults.model
openclaw doctor

One more thing: that exact “trained by Google” wording usually comes from a Google/Gemma-style model default response. Local models can be much worse at following the OpenClaw persona/system prompt than Anthropic/OpenAI-class models, especially with long prompts and tool schemas. You can still use Ollama, but pick the strongest tool-following model your machine can run and remove fallbacks so it doesn’t burn Anthropic:

openclaw config set agents.list[0].model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Docs for the exact pieces: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/context, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/system-prompt, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/session, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/model-providers#ollama

[glossy swallow]

Here are my anthropic api usage. I have done very little in the last day to cause 600,000,000 tokens the last two days. Something is causing this

[merry gulch]

Yeah, that graph is not normal. I’d contain this before debugging it.

Immediate containment:

openclaw gateway stop

Then in the Anthropic console, revoke/disable the key or set the spend limit to basically zero until you know what happened. The screenshot says the usage is claude-haiku-4-5, which matches your agents output, so OpenClaw is a plausible source. It can also include Console usage, but don’t assume it is harmless.

Before starting the gateway again, disable Anthropic fallback and background wakeups:

ollama list
openclaw config set agents.defaults.model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list[0].model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json

[merry gulch]

openclaw config set agents.list[1].model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.defaults.heartbeat.every "0m"

Replace <your-model> with a model from ollama list.

Then inspect likely token burners:

openclaw cron list
openclaw tasks list --status running
openclaw tasks audit
openclaw config get agents.defaults.heartbeat
openclaw config get agents.list --json
openclaw status --all

[merry gulch]

If tasks list --status running shows anything unexpected, cancel it before restarting:

openclaw tasks cancel <task-id>

The most likely causes are:

• heartbeat running repeatedly against a huge main session/context
• a recurring cron job
• a stuck background task/subagent loop
• model fallback still routing local-model failures to Anthropic
• a runaway Telegram session repeatedly retrying/erroring

After those checks, restart only after Anthropic is no longer reachable or no longer configured:

[merry gulch]

openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status

Please don’t paste raw auth files or tokens here. Redacted openclaw status --all, cron list, tasks list, and the model config output are safe enough to inspect. Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/heartbeat, https://docs.openclaw.ai/automation/cron-jobs, https://docs.openclaw.ai/automation/tasks, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/model-failover

[glossy swallow]

Nothing funny there; Perhaps someone got access to my api key? I'm going to rotate it. Can you help me get the new key on my openclaw server?

[merry gulch]

Yes. Don’t paste the new key here or into Discord.

Safest path on the OpenClaw server:

openclaw gateway stop
cp ~/.openclaw/.env ~/.openclaw/.env.bak.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S) 2>/dev/null || true
nano ~/.openclaw/.env

In that file, add or replace this line:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-api03-...

Save, then clear any pinned Anthropic auth ordering and verify:

[merry gulch]

openclaw models auth order clear --provider anthropic
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status --probe

Because you have multiple agents, also check both agents after restart:

openclaw models status
openclaw agents list --bindings

Important: if you currently want to avoid Anthropic charges entirely, do not add the new Anthropic key back yet. Leave it revoked, set your models to Ollama with fallbacks: [], restart, and confirm openclaw models status does not show Anthropic as the active default/fallback.

Also search for old key locations on the server without printing secrets:

[merry gulch]

rg -n "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY|sk-ant" ~/.openclaw ~/.config 2>/dev/null

If that finds old files, edit/remove the old key there too. Don’t paste the output if it includes key text; just say which file paths showed up.

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/authentication, https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq#what-does-no-credentials-found-for-profile-anthropicdefault-mean, https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/model-providers

[glossy swallow]

That file is blank

[merry gulch]

Blank is okay; it just means the key probably came from somewhere else, like an auth profile, shell/service env, or an older config path.

If you want the new key loaded via .env, create the line in that blank file:

nano ~/.openclaw/.env

Add:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_new_key_here

Then:

[merry gulch]

openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status --probe

But because your agents may already have Anthropic auth profiles, also check where Anthropic is currently coming from:

openclaw models status
openclaw models auth order get --provider anthropic
ls -la ~/.openclaw/agents/main/agent/auth-profiles.json ~/.openclaw/agents/emily/agent/auth-profiles.json 2>/dev/null

If models status still prefers an old auth profile instead of the new env key, use OpenClaw’s auth profile writer instead of hand-editing JSON:

[merry gulch]

openclaw models auth paste-token --provider anthropic --profile-id anthropic:default
openclaw models auth order set --provider anthropic anthropic:default
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status --probe

It will prompt for the key/token in your terminal; don’t paste it here.

One caution: if your goal is to stop Anthropic spend while investigating, leave Anthropic unconfigured for now and keep the agents on Ollama with fallbacks: []. Only add the new Anthropic key once you’re ready for OpenClaw to be able to use Anthropic again.

[glossy swallow]

Can you help me with a simpler command to get my api key in there?

[merry gulch]

Yep. Since your ~/.openclaw/.env is blank, use this on the OpenClaw server:

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw
read -rsp "Paste Anthropic API key: " ANTHROPIC_API_KEY; echo
printf 'ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=%s
' "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" > ~/.openclaw/.env
unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status --probe

That keeps the key out of your shell history because you paste it into a hidden prompt, not into the command itself.

If you still want zero Anthropic spend while investigating, don’t run this yet; keep Anthropic unset and use Ollama with fallbacks: [].

[glossy swallow]

Ok, I'll wait to add the new key; can we go back to investigating what could be burning the spend? I didn't see any stuck processes before or anything out of the ordinary

[merry gulch]

Yep. A clean process list doesn’t rule out spend burn, because the expensive cases are usually “normal gateway runs happening too often” or “API key used somewhere else,” not a stuck OS process.

Keep the gateway stopped and the old Anthropic key revoked while investigating. Then run this first:

openclaw --version
openclaw status --all
openclaw cron list
openclaw tasks list --limit 50
openclaw config get agents.defaults.heartbeat
openclaw config get agents.list --json
openclaw models status

Next, check whether OpenClaw has huge/repeated recent sessions. Don’t paste transcript contents, just this file-size output:

[merry gulch]

find ~/.openclaw/agents -path '*/sessions/*.jsonl' -mtime -3 -print0 \
  | xargs -0 ls -lh 2>/dev/null \
  | sort -k5 -hr \
  | head -30

Then check logs for repeated Anthropic runs without dumping secrets:

LOG="$(ls -t /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log 2>/dev/null | head -1)"
echo "$LOG"
rg -n "anthropic|claude-haiku|tokens|heartbeat|cron|task|retry|rate|429|error" "$LOG" \
  | tail -200

Before pasting, skim for API keys or private message text and redact anything sensitive.

[merry gulch]

What I’m looking for:

• heartbeat interval too low or heartbeats using full context
• recurring cron runs
• tasks created repeatedly
• very large session jsonl files
• repeated retry loops or model fallback attempts
• Anthropic still listed as a default/fallback even when you thought it was off

If those all look normal, the probability shifts hard toward the key being used outside this OpenClaw server. In that case rotation plus Anthropic console usage breakdown by API key/workspace is the right next step.

[glossy swallow]

Here is a make-mcp server connection that might be causing it: failed to start server "make-mcp" (https://us1.make.com/mcp/server/<redacted>: Error: SSE error: Non-200 status code (405)"}
THis shows up pretty often

[merry gulch]

Yes, that’s suspicious enough to disable while investigating.

A failing MCP server by itself usually doesn’t spend 600M tokens, but if it is configured as an available tool, every agent run may try to initialize it. If heartbeats / retries / chat turns are frequent, that can turn into a lot of repeated full-context model calls. The 405 also suggests the URL/transport is wrong: OpenClaw defaults remote MCP URLs to sse; Make may require a different endpoint or streamable-http.

For now, remove it from OpenClaw config:

openclaw mcp list
openclaw mcp show make-mcp --json
openclaw mcp unset make-mcp
openclaw gateway restart

If unset says it does not exist, find where it’s coming from:

[merry gulch]

rg -n "make-mcp|us1.make.com|mcp" ~/.openclaw ~/.config 2>/dev/null

If it came from a plugin/bundle rather than mcp.servers, temporarily deny bundled MCP tools for the agents:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.tools.deny '["bundle-mcp"]' --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Then watch whether the error disappears from logs:

openclaw logs --follow

[merry gulch]

If you later re-add Make, try the documented HTTP transport shape only after confirming Make’s exact MCP URL/auth format:

openclaw mcp set make-mcp '{"url":"https://us1.make.com/mcp/server/<id>","transport":"streamable-http","headers":{"Authorization":"Bearer <token>"},"connectionTimeoutMs":10000}'

Don’t post the Make URL/token. Keep it redacted. Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/cli/mcp

[glossy swallow]

Ok, Make mcp unset and gateway restarted what else should we investigate?

[merry gulch]

Next I’d narrow it in three passes: “is it still happening,” “which OpenClaw run did it,” and “could the key be used elsewhere.”

1. Confirm Make is gone and Anthropic is not reachable

openclaw mcp list
openclaw models status
openclaw logs --follow

Watch logs for a few minutes. You should no longer see make-mcp or Anthropic calls if the key is revoked / Anthropic is not configured.

2. Find recent giant sessions

find ~/.openclaw/agents -path '*/sessions/*.jsonl' -mtime -3 -print0 \

[merry gulch]

  | xargs -0 ls -lh 2>/dev/null \
  | sort -k5 -hr \
  | head -30

If one or two files are huge, that tells us which agent/session was generating big context. Then you can inspect only metadata around that session instead of guessing.

3. Check schedulers and background runs again after restart

openclaw cron list
openclaw tasks list --limit 50
openclaw tasks audit
openclaw config get agents.defaults.heartbeat
openclaw config get agents.list --json

[merry gulch]

The big things I’m looking for now:

• heartbeat.every not disabled or running too frequently
• a cron job using main, isolated, or a custom session
• large session files from the last 2 days
• agents.list[].model or fallbacks still containing Anthropic
• auth profiles still making Anthropic available even if .env is blank

If all of that is boring, rotate the key and assume it leaked or was used outside this server. The Anthropic dashboard/API usage breakdown by key or workspace is the source of truth there.

[glossy swallow]

Please can we do one thing at a time? I ran the giant sessions command and found some pretty large files and sessions.

[merry gulch]

Yes, fair. One thing at a time.

Please paste just the top 5 lines from the giant sessions command: file size + path only. No file contents.

Example shape:

-rw-r--r--  1 user user  123M May 19  .../agents/main/sessions/agent-main-telegram-...

From the paths and sizes, we’ll identify which agent/channel/session is the likely burner before touching anything else.

[glossy swallow]

Actually the sessions are relatively small 10M May 17 17:26 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/c14739c6-5d1e-4eef-a63e-93b4b4328d79.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 9.9M May 18 23:05 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 8.6M May 18 22:57 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eb7c4333-f6de-4af4-b2f1-2be6be2837e4.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 6.3M May 19 11:48 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 3.2M May 18 22:16 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/8c21f4a5-690b-4398-ba2c-26fedccd346a.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 923K May 17 21:36 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/57dfe067-7faa-44ee-bacc-225c2aeea436.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 677K May 19 11:48 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/ec09cd65-673b-47f1-be38-30b62f4a430c.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 677K May 17 18:44 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/de942e29-a2de-4db2-9cd4-d20db387fbfe.trajectory.jsonl
-rw------- 1 tltopenclaw staff 366K May 16 16:28 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/b4c77ca2-cfa1-4eaf-b857-4820c4be421c.trajectory.jsonl

[merry gulch]

Agreed, those are not big enough to explain 600M tokens by themselves. The May 19 11:48 main session is interesting because it lines up with the weird Jarvis reply, but file size alone doesn’t show runaway usage.

One next check: for that May 19 file only, count whether token-usage fields are present, without printing message contents:

f="/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl"

echo "lines:"
wc -l "$f"

echo "model mentions:"
rg -o "anthropic/[^\" ,}]+" "$f" | sort | uniq -c
rg -o "claude-[^\" ,}]+" "$f" | sort | uniq -c

echo "usage field counts:"
rg -c "input_tokens|output_tokens|cache_creation_input_tokens|cache_read_input_tokens|totalTokens|total_tokens|usage" "$f"

[merry gulch]

Paste that output. If usage fields exist, we’ll do one more command to sum just token numbers from the file. If they don’t, this session file probably isn’t the source of the Anthropic usage spike.

[glossy swallow]

123 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl
model mentions:
35 anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5
18 anthropic/claude-opus-4-7
18 claude-3-opus).
989 claude-haiku-4-5
339 claude-haiku-4-5
27 claude-opus-4-7
usage field counts:
86

[merry gulch]

Good, that file has real usage records, and the opus mentions are worth checking. One next step: sum only token fields from that one session, without printing prompts/messages.

Run this exactly:

f="/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl"

node - "$f" <<'NODE'
const fs = require("fs");
const file = process.argv[2];
const sums = {};
let lines = 0;
function walk(v) {
  if (!v || typeof v !== "object") return;
  if (Array.isArray(v)) return v.forEach(walk);
  for (const [k, val] of Object.entries(v)) {

[merry gulch]

    if (typeof val === "number" && /token/i.test(k)) sums[k] = (sums[k] || 0) + val;
    else walk(val);
  }
}
for (const line of fs.readFileSync(file, "utf8").split(/
/)) {
  if (!line.trim()) continue;
  lines++;
  try { walk(JSON.parse(line)); } catch {}
}
console.log({ lines, sums });
NODE

Paste the output. If that sums to normal thousands/millions, this specific session didn’t burn 600M. If it shows huge cache/read/input numbers, we’ve found the local source.

[glossy swallow]

Error running that: [stdin]:12
for (const line of fs.readFileSync(file, "utf8").split(/
^
Unterminated regexp literal

SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: missing /
at makeContextifyScript (node:internal/vm:194:14)
at compileScript (node:internal/process/execution:420:10)
at evalTypeScript (node:internal/process/execution:292:22)
at node:internal/main/eval_stdin:51:5
at ReadStream.<anonymous> (node:internal/process/execution:237:5)
at ReadStream.emit (node:events:509:20)
at endReadableNT (node:internal/streams/readable:1729:12)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:90:21)

Node.js v25.9.0

[merry gulch]

Yep, Discord ate the backslash in the regex. Use this version; it avoids regex entirely:

f="/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl"

node - "$f" <<'NODE'
const fs = require("fs");
const file = process.argv[2];
const sums = {};
let lines = 0;

function walk(v) {
  if (!v || typeof v !== "object") return;
  if (Array.isArray(v)) {
    for (const item of v) walk(item);
    return;

[merry gulch]

  }
  for (const [k, val] of Object.entries(v)) {
    if (typeof val === "number" && k.toLowerCase().includes("token")) {
      sums[k] = (sums[k] || 0) + val;
    } else {
      walk(val);
    }
  }
}

for (const line of fs.readFileSync(file, "utf8").split("
")) {
  if (!line.trim()) continue;
  lines++;
  try { walk(JSON.parse(line)); } catch {}

[merry gulch]

}

console.log(JSON.stringify({ lines, sums }, null, 2));
NODE

Paste the JSON output from that.

[glossy swallow]

another error: [stdin]:20
for (const line of fs.readFileSync(file, "utf8").split("
^
Expected ',', got 'string literal'

SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
at makeContextifyScript (node:internal/vm:194:14)
at compileScript (node:internal/process/execution:420:10)
at evalTypeScript (node:internal/process/execution:292:22)
at node:internal/main/eval_stdin:51:5
at ReadStream.<anonymous> (node:internal/process/execution:237:5)
at ReadStream.emit (node:events:509:20)
at endReadableNT (node:internal/streams/readable:1729:12)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:90:21)

[merry gulch]

Sorry, the heredoc is being annoying through Discord. Let’s use a simpler Perl one-liner instead.

Run this:

f="/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl"

perl -ne 'while (/"([^"]*token[^"]*)"\s*:\s*([0-9]+)/ig) { $s{$1}+=$2 } END { for $k (sort keys %s) { print "$k $s{$k}
" } }' "$f"

That just scans for JSON fields with “token” in the name and sums their numeric values. It won’t print the conversation text.

[glossy swallow]

completion_tokens 0
contextTokens 2000000
contextTokens\ 67800000
prompt_tokens 0
totalTokens 62635473
totalTokens\ 19897597
total_tokens 0

[merry gulch]

That is the first real smoking gun. A 123-line session showing roughly 82M totalTokens is absolutely enough to explain a big chunk of the Anthropic bill. So this is not just a leaked key theory anymore; at least some of the spend appears to be coming from OpenClaw sessions.

One next step: find whether this is isolated to that one session or repeated across sessions.

Run this:

find /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents -path '*/sessions/*.trajectory.jsonl' -mtime -3 -print0 \
  | while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do
      perl -ne 'while (/"totalTokens\\?"\s*:\s*([0-9]+)/g) { $sum += $1 } END { print "$sum $ARGV
" if $sum }' "$f"
    done \
  | sort -nr \
  | head -20

Paste that output. It should only show token sums + file paths, no message contents.

[merry gulch]

If several files show tens of millions, we’ll inspect what triggered those sessions. If only this one does, we focus on the May 19 Jarvis session and why it kept sending huge context.

[glossy swallow]

142167513 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/c14739c6-5d1e-4eef-a63e-93b4b4328d79.trajectory.jsonl
102393207 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eb7c4333-f6de-4af4-b2f1-2be6be2837e4.trajectory.jsonl
82533070 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl
77967849 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl****

[merry gulch]

Okay, that confirms the burn is repeated across a few OpenClaw sessions, mostly main plus one emily session.

One next check: find whether the huge numbers are actual usage fields or OpenClaw context/window estimates. Run this on those four files:

for f in \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/c14739c6-5d1e-4eef-a63e-93b4b4328d79.trajectory.jsonl \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eb7c4333-f6de-4af4-b2f1-2be6be2837e4.trajectory.jsonl \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl
do
  echo "---- $f"
  perl -ne 'while (/"([^"]*token[^"]*)"\\?\s*:\s*([0-9]+)/ig) { print "$1 $2
" if $2 > 1000000 }' "$f" | sort | uniq -c
done

[merry gulch]

Paste that output.

If the giant values are mostly contextTokens, that may be a misleading internal capacity/estimate field. If they’re input_tokens, cache_creation_input_tokens, cache_read_input_tokens, or real totalTokens per request, then we know those sessions really were repeatedly sending/reading massive Anthropic context.

[glossy swallow]

---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/c14739c6-5d1e-4eef-a63e-93b4b4328d79.trajectory.jsonl
---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eb7c4333-f6de-4af4-b2f1-2be6be2837e4.trajectory.jsonl
---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl
---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl

[merry gulch]

That output means my last filter didn’t catch any single >1M usage fields. Good catch. Let’s separate billing-ish fields from OpenClaw’s internal contextTokens / totalTokens estimates.

Run this one:

for f in \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/c14739c6-5d1e-4eef-a63e-93b4b4328d79.trajectory.jsonl \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eb7c4333-f6de-4af4-b2f1-2be6be2837e4.trajectory.jsonl \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl \
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl
do
  echo "---- $f"
  perl -ne 'while (/"(input_tokens|output_tokens|cache_creation_input_tokens|cache_read_input_tokens|prompt_tokens|completion_tokens|total_tokens)"\s*:\s*([0-9]+)/g) { $s{$1}+=$2 } END { for $k (sort keys %s) { print "$k $s{$k}
" } }' "$f"
done

[merry gulch]

If these are all zero or tiny, the huge totalTokens/contextTokens values we saw are likely internal accounting/estimates, not the billable Anthropic usage. Then we’ll pivot to Anthropic key/account usage rather than session size.

[glossy swallow]

/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/c14739c6-5d1e-4eef-a63e-93b4b4328d79.trajectory.jsonl
---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eb7c4333-f6de-4af4-b2f1-2be6be2837e4.trajectory.jsonl
---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/117b76d1-f84b-44f7-8d0b-81b4d7a25623.trajectory.jsonl
completion_tokens 0
prompt_tokens 0
total_tokens 0
---- /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl

[merry gulch]

That points away from those session files being the billable source. The huge totalTokens/contextTokens numbers look like OpenClaw/internal context accounting, because the Anthropic-style billing fields are zero or absent.

One next thing: check the gateway logs for actual Anthropic API usage/errors around the spike, without dumping message contents.

Run:

LOG="$(ls -t /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log 2>/dev/null | head -1)"
echo "$LOG"
rg -n "anthropic|claude-haiku|claude-opus|input_tokens|output_tokens|cache_creation|cache_read|usage|429|rate_limit|billing" "$LOG" | tail -200

Paste the output after redacting anything private. If there are no real token usage lines there either, I’d treat this as likely API key use outside OpenClaw and rotate the key before bringing Anthropic back.

[glossy swallow]

Too long to paste back here and nothing jumps out

[merry gulch]

No worries. Let’s reduce it to counts, no paste wall.

Run this one command:

LOG="$(ls -t /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log 2>/dev/null | head -1)"
echo "$LOG"
for p in anthropic claude-haiku claude-opus input_tokens output_tokens cache_creation cache_read usage make-mcp retry rate_limit 429 billing; do
  printf "%-18s " "$p"
  rg -c "$p" "$LOG" 2>/dev/null || true
done

Paste just that output.

If anthropic/claude counts are high but usage fields are low/absent, logs may not have enough billing detail. At that point I’d rotate the Anthropic key and check the Anthropic console’s per-key/workspace breakdown, because OpenClaw session files are not showing billable token fields that match 600M.

[glossy swallow]

/tmp/openclaw/openclaw-2026-05-19.log
anthropic 119
claude-haiku 94
claude-opus 5
input_tokens output_tokens cache_creation cache_read usage make-mcp 1756
retry 5
rate_limit 429 81
billing 114

[merry gulch]

This is useful. make-mcp 1756 is a lot of log spam, and billing 114 / 429 81 means the gateway was repeatedly hitting provider/billing/rate-limit paths. That could create repeated retries, but the count still doesn’t prove 600M billable tokens.

One next check: show only the surrounding error/status lines, with URLs/tokens redacted automatically.

LOG="/tmp/openclaw/openclaw-2026-05-19.log"

rg -n "billing|429|rate_limit|make-mcp|anthropic|claude-haiku|claude-opus|retry" "$LOG" \
  | tail -120 \
  | sed -E 's#https://[^ )"]+#https://<redacted>#g; s#sk-ant-[A-Za-z0-9_-]+#sk-ant-<redacted>#g; s#Bearer [A-Za-z0-9._~+/-]+#Bearer <redacted>#g'

Paste that output if it’s not full of private message text. If it includes chat content, don’t paste it; just tell me whether the repeated lines are mostly make-mcp, billing, 429, or actual Anthropic request failures.

[glossy swallow]

mostly make-mcp errors

[merry gulch]

Then Make MCP is very likely at least a major contributor to the runaway behavior, even if the Anthropic dashboard is the only place that can confirm exact billable tokens.

Now that it’s unset, one focused verification:

openclaw gateway restart
sleep 60
LOG="$(ls -t /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log 2>/dev/null | head -1)"
for p in make-mcp anthropic claude-haiku 429 billing retry; do
  printf "%-14s " "$p"
  rg -c "$p" "$LOG" 2>/dev/null || true
done

If make-mcp keeps increasing after unset/restart, it’s coming from somewhere else, probably a bundle/plugin or another MCP config file. Then run:

[merry gulch]

rg -n "make-mcp|us1.make.com" ~/.openclaw ~/.config 2>/dev/null

If make-mcp stays quiet, the next step is to keep Anthropic revoked, switch both agents to Ollama with fallbacks: [], and watch usage for a few hours before adding any new Anthropic key.

[glossy swallow]

I'm honestly completely lost at this point. I just ran the latest command and hit a wall of text. I don't even know what we are doing at this point

[merry gulch]

Totally fair. We’ve gone too deep. Let’s reset the approach.

What we know:

• Jarvis routing looks mostly correct.
• The Anthropic spend is real and scary.
• The session files did not clearly prove 600M billable tokens.
• The logs show a ton of make-mcp errors, so disabling Make MCP was a good move.
• At this point, the safest assumption is: do not trust the old Anthropic key.

Do only these three things now:

openclaw gateway stop

Then rotate/revoke the old Anthropic key in the Anthropic console. Do not add the new key to OpenClaw yet.

[merry gulch]

Then start OpenClaw only on Ollama/no Anthropic fallback:

ollama list
openclaw config set agents.defaults.model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list[0].model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list[1].model '{"primary":"ollama/<your-model>","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.defaults.heartbeat.every "0m"
openclaw gateway restart

Replace <your-model> with one exact model name from ollama list.

That’s it. No more log spelunking right now. Once Anthropic is revoked and OpenClaw is running without Anthropic fallback, the spend should stop. After that we can calmly bring Jarvis back online and only later decide whether to add a fresh Anthropic key.

[glossy swallow]

Jarvis is down; not working still. Trying to access from telegram or from the gateway dashboard chat

[merry gulch]

Got it. Since Telegram and dashboard chat both fail, stop looking at Telegram for a minute. This is probably gateway/model health.

One thing only: run this and paste the output:

openclaw status

Also, if you used the command with ollama/<your-model> literally, that will break Jarvis. <your-model> must be replaced with an exact name from:

ollama list

Example shape, not a recommendation:

[merry gulch]

openclaw config set agents.defaults.model '{"primary":"ollama/llama3.3","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json

For now just paste openclaw status. We’ll fix the first red/error line from that before doing anything else.

[glossy swallow]

Everything looks good etc there are 3 running tasks that have 46 issues: Tasks │ 3 active · 0 queued · 3 running · 46 issues · audit 5 warn · 4950 tracked

[merry gulch]

That’s probably the blocker. Three running tasks plus 46 task issues can keep the system busy or wedged.

One thing now: list only the running tasks.

openclaw tasks list --status running

Paste that output. Don’t cancel anything yet; I want to see whether they’re cron/subagent/CLI tasks and which agent/session they belong to.

[glossy swallow]

ba379e88-… cron running not_applicable cron:2652… agent:main:telegram:direct:… Emily v2 - Monitor Telegram & Process L&D Requests
a678c775-… cron running not_applicable cron:2652… agent:main:telegram:direct:… Emily v2 - Monitor Telegram & Process L&D Requests
a7788c85-… cron running not_applicable cron:2652… agent:main:telegram:direct:… Emily v2 - Monitor Telegram & Process L&D Requests

[merry gulch]

That’s the blocker and likely spend source.

You have three running cron tasks all named:

Emily v2 - Monitor Telegram & Process L&D Requests

They’re also oddly running under agent:main:telegram:direct:..., so this can absolutely interfere with Jarvis and burn model calls.

One thing now: cancel the running copies. Since your output truncated the IDs, run:

openclaw tasks list --status running --json

Copy the full id values, then run:

[merry gulch]

openclaw tasks cancel <full-task-id-1>
openclaw tasks cancel <full-task-id-2>
openclaw tasks cancel <full-task-id-3>

After that, do not restart the gateway yet. Next we’ll disable the cron job itself so it doesn’t immediately spawn again.

[glossy swallow]

How do I get the full task list?

I mean the full task id

[merry gulch]

Use JSON so the IDs don’t get shortened:

openclaw tasks list --status running --json

If that’s too much output, filter just the ids/names:

openclaw tasks list --status running --json | jq -r '.tasks[] | "\(.id)  \(.name // .title // .summary // "")"'

Then cancel each full id:

openclaw tasks cancel <full-id>

[merry gulch]

Right, the full task id is in the JSON output.

Try this:

openclaw tasks list --status running --json | jq -r '.tasks[] | .id'

If that prints nothing or errors, use this fallback:

openclaw tasks list --status running --json | rg '"id"'

Those full UUIDs are what you pass to:

[merry gulch]

openclaw tasks cancel <full-uuid>

[glossy swallow]

Got it; tried to run with this rerror bckTask runtime does not support cancellatiion yet

[merry gulch]

No problem. Since task cancellation isn’t supported for that runtime, remove the cron job that is spawning them.

Run:

openclaw cron list

Find the job named:

Emily v2 - Monitor Telegram & Process L&D Requests

Then remove that cron job id:

[merry gulch]

openclaw cron remove <job-id>
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw tasks list --status running

If cron list truncates the id, use JSON:

openclaw cron list --json | jq -r '.jobs[] | "\(.id)  \(.name)"'

After removing the cron job and restarting, those running Emily monitor tasks should stop coming back.

[glossy swallow]

Cron list is empty

[merry gulch]

Okay, then those are probably stale cron task records from an old/deleted job, not an active cron definition.

Next single step:

openclaw tasks maintenance --apply
openclaw gateway restart
openclaw tasks list --status running

Paste the final tasks list --status running output.

If they disappear, we’ve cleared the stale blocker. If they stay running, we’ll inspect one task with openclaw tasks show <id> and see what state file is keeping it alive.

[glossy swallow]

Got it, I've removed that cron job and no active runnign cron tasks

[merry gulch]

Good. That’s the first real cleanup win.

Now one thing: test Jarvis from the dashboard chat, not Telegram yet. Send a fresh message there like:

/reset

then:

Who are you?

If it still fails, paste just the error text from the dashboard chat or the first red/error line from openclaw logs --follow.

Once dashboard chat works, Telegram is a separate routing/channel check.

[glossy swallow]

Jarvis just thinks he is a large language model trained by google again

[merry gulch]

That means Jarvis is running again, but the current model is ignoring or not receiving the persona context. Since it says “trained by Google,” this is probably a Gemma/Gemini-family local model defaulting to its baked identity.

One thing now: in dashboard chat, run:

/context detail

Look for the “Injected workspace files” section. It should list AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, USER.md, and IDENTITY.md.

Tell me which of these is true:

1. Those files are listed as OK.
2. They are missing/truncated/error.
3. /context detail itself errors.

If they’re OK, your folder structure is fine and this is a local-model instruction-following problem, not Jarvis being lost. Then the fix is to use a stronger Ollama model or temporarily restore a trusted cloud model after the key rotation.

[glossy swallow]

here is an error: ⚠ Bootstrap context is over configured limits: 1 file(s) truncated (37,918 raw chars -> 26,601 injected chars).
Causes: 1 file(s) exceeded max/file.

[merry gulch]

That’s a real problem, but it’s not enough detail yet. One file in Jarvis’s bootstrap is too big and getting truncated; if the important persona/routing instructions are below the cutoff, the model may never see them.

One thing now: find which bootstrap file is huge.

cd /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace
wc -c AGENTS.md SOUL.md USER.md IDENTITY.md TOOLS.md MEMORY.md HEARTBEAT.md 2>/dev/null | sort -nr

Paste that output.

Most likely fix: move bulky notes/logs out of the bootstrap files, especially AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, or TOOLS.md, and keep Jarvis identity near the very top of IDENTITY.md / SOUL.md. But let’s identify the oversized file first.

[glossy swallow]

monday-mcp__update_doc: 16,195 chars (~4,049 tok)

[merry gulch]

That line is not a workspace file; it’s a tool schema from a Monday MCP server. It adds ~4k tokens to the prompt just for that one tool, and local Google/Gemma-style models can get much worse when the prompt is bloated with MCP tools.

One thing now: if you don’t need Monday tools while recovering Jarvis, disable MCP tools for the agent:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.tools.deny '["bundle-mcp"]' --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Then in dashboard chat:

/reset
/context detail

Check whether monday-mcp__update_doc disappears from the context/tool list. If it does, ask Who are you? again.

[merry gulch]

We still need to find the truncated bootstrap file too, but first remove the giant MCP tool noise from Jarvis’s prompt.

[glossy swallow]

still there;

[merry gulch]

Okay. If bundle-mcp deny didn’t remove it, it may be coming from an explicit MCP server config or a per-agent tools override.

One thing now: list the MCP servers OpenClaw knows about.

openclaw mcp list

If you see a Monday server there, remove it:

openclaw mcp unset <monday-server-name>
openclaw gateway restart

Then run /reset and /context detail again.

[merry gulch]

If openclaw mcp list is empty or Monday is not listed, paste the output of:

openclaw config get agents.defaults.tools.deny
openclaw config get agents.list --json

That will show whether a per-agent config is overriding the deny rule.

[glossy swallow]

{
"id": "main"
},
{
"id": "emily",
"name": "emily",
"workspace": "/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/workspace",
"agentDir": "/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/agent",
"identity": {
"name": "Emily",
"theme": "L&D Checklist Editor",
"emoji": "📋",
"avatar": "_(not set yet)"
}
}
]

[merry gulch]

That agents.list output shows no per-agent tools override, so the deny rule should be able to apply globally.

One thing now: please run and paste just these two outputs:

openclaw config get agents.defaults.tools.deny
openclaw mcp list

If agents.defaults.tools.deny does not show bundle-mcp, the previous config write didn’t land where we expected. If mcp list shows Monday, we’ll remove that specific server instead.

[glossy swallow]

Isn't it a problem that main doesn't have any information in it? No identity no workspace?

[merry gulch]

Not necessarily. A minimal entry like:

{ "id": "main" }

can inherit the default workspace, agent dir, model, and identity from the workspace files. Earlier openclaw agents list --bindings showed:

main
Identity: Jarvis (IDENTITY.md)
Workspace: ~/.openclaw/workspace
Agent dir: ~/.openclaw/agents/main/agent

So the short JSON by itself doesn’t prove main is broken.

[merry gulch]

But you’re right that making it explicit would reduce ambiguity. One check first:

openclaw agents list --bindings

If that still shows main -> Identity: Jarvis and Workspace: ~/.openclaw/workspace, main’s identity/workspace wiring is okay. If it does not, run:

openclaw agents set-identity --agent main --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace --from-identity
openclaw gateway restart

The bigger current issue still looks like prompt/tool bloat plus the local Google-family model ignoring instructions, not missing main config.

[glossy swallow]

Got it; going back I tried the deny command and got this error: Config path not found: agents.defaults.tools.deny. Run openclaw config validate to inspect config shape.

[merry gulch]

You’re right, that was my bad: the deny path is top-level tools.deny, not agents.defaults.tools.deny.

Run this instead:

openclaw config set tools.deny '["bundle-mcp"]' --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Then verify:

openclaw config get tools.deny

After that, in dashboard chat:

[merry gulch]

/reset
/context detail

If monday-mcp__update_doc is still present after that, it’s not coming through the normal bundle MCP policy and we’ll look at openclaw mcp list next.

[glossy swallow]

still there

[merry gulch]

Okay. Then it is probably not being hidden by the normal bundle-mcp deny, or the context report is still showing a cached snapshot.

One thing now: list the configured MCP servers.

openclaw mcp list

If you see anything Monday-related, remove it:

openclaw mcp unset <server-name>
openclaw gateway restart

If openclaw mcp list is empty or doesn’t show Monday, paste only that output.

[glossy swallow]

No MCP servers configured in /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json. Add one with openclaw mcp set <name> '{"command":"uvx","args":["context7-mcp"]}'.

[merry gulch]

Good, that rules out mcp.servers in openclaw.json.

One thing now: find where monday-mcp is coming from on disk.

rg -n "monday-mcp|monday.*mcp|update_doc" /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw /Users/tltopenclaw/.config 2>/dev/null

Paste only the file paths / matching line names, and redact tokens or URLs if any appear.

Likely sources now are:

• a plugin/bundle with a .mcp.json
• a workspace skill/tool definition
• cached tool snapshot from an old session

If the search finds nothing, start a completely fresh dashboard session after restart and check /context detail there; the existing chat may still be showing an old run’s context report.

[glossy swallow]

I got a wall of red text that was HUGE

[merry gulch]

Okay, stop that search. Sorry, we’re back in wall-of-text territory.

Use this quieter version. It prints only filenames that contain those terms:

rg -l "monday-mcp|monday.*mcp|update_doc" /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw /Users/tltopenclaw/.config 2>/dev/null | head -30

Paste only those file paths.

If even that is huge, just run:

rg -l "monday-mcp" /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw /Users/tltopenclaw/.config 2>/dev/null | head -10

[glossy swallow]

/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json.bak.2
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json.bak.1
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/57dfe067-7faa-44ee-bacc-225c2aeea436.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/fab0c187-9437-410b-b1a8-297c09bd5485.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/sessions.json
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json.bak.4
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json.clobbered.2026-05-19T05-09-33-818Z
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/sessions/93488712-51ae-407c-9ed0-796ec6403eaa.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/openclaw.json.clobbered.2026-05-13T03-11-35-708Z
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/4c4174c4-e11e-4bff-9b8c-cabc271e823d.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/logs/gateway.err.log
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/logs/config-audit.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/eae1ba11-8eaa-4ffa-8e9c-b9f343ce2a5a.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/logs/gateway.log
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/5df9893c-37d0-44c1-ab60-18b5915932e7.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/4a09e42d-4441-4861-bd14-aed6eef01e03.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/8d13cd18-10e6-4492-aabc-6bb6e0900388.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/4c258568-c5fd-4b88-9d77-5e8f9c7e59a0.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/b5ab2b90-6753-43d0-8614-6d68ab23421a.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/15ba3d24-78e8-4bff-8ff2-0b20306cf5b3.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/41cc8ab4-f73b-4f42-811d-f6c73cc58955.trajectory.jsonl
/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/80f7e319-fffa-428b-b50f-988db62ca3ad.trajectory.jsonl

[merry gulch]

That tells us Monday was in old backups/logs/sessions, but not necessarily active config. The important files are the openclaw.json.bak.* and clobbered configs, which means config has been rewritten a few times.

Let’s stop chasing Monday for now and make Jarvis’s active config explicit.

One command:

openclaw config set agents.list '[{"id":"main","default":true,"name":"Jarvis","workspace":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace","agentDir":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/agent","identity":{"name":"Jarvis","emoji":"🦉"}},{"id":"emily","name":"emily","workspace":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/workspace","agentDir":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/agent","identity":{"name":"Emily","theme":"L&D Checklist Editor","emoji":"📋"}}]' --strict-json --replace

Then:

openclaw gateway restart
openclaw agents list --bindings

[merry gulch]

This should make main explicitly Jarvis with the correct workspace instead of relying on inherited defaults.

[glossy swallow]

still loading the mcp servers and other stuff.

[merry gulch]

Okay. For recovery, don’t fight each MCP source one by one. Put Jarvis into a minimal tool profile temporarily so the prompt is small and MCP tools are not exposed.

Run:

openclaw config set tools.profile "minimal"
openclaw config set tools.deny '["bundle-mcp"]' --strict-json
openclaw gateway restart

Then start a fresh dashboard chat/session, or send:

/reset
/context detail

[merry gulch]

At that point the context should be much smaller. If Jarvis still says he is Google after tools.profile: minimal, then the issue is the local model ignoring the system prompt, not MCP loading.

This is temporary. Once Jarvis is stable, you can restore normal tools with:

openclaw config set tools.profile "coding"

[glossy swallow]

still getting overloaded context can we update bootstrap or something like that to help?

[merry gulch]

Yes. Bootstrap cleanup is the right next move. But don’t edit blindly; first identify the oversized bootstrap file.

Run this one command:

cd /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace
wc -c AGENTS.md SOUL.md USER.md IDENTITY.md TOOLS.md MEMORY.md HEARTBEAT.md 2>/dev/null | sort -nr

Paste the output.

What we want:

• IDENTITY.md tiny, with Jarvis name/emoji right at the top
• SOUL.md concise
• AGENTS.md concise operating rules
• bulky notes moved into memory/ or separate docs that are not always injected

[merry gulch]

If one file is ~38k chars, that’s probably the truncation warning. Once we know which file, I’ll give you the safest trim command/edit for that specific file.

[glossy swallow]

39983 total
23497 MEMORY.md
9151 AGENTS.md
2492 SOUL.md
1755 HEARTBEAT.md
1427 TOOLS.md
1212 USER.md
449 IDENTITY.md

[merry gulch]

Yes. MEMORY.md is the first thing to shrink. It is 23k chars and gets injected every turn, so it can drown out Jarvis’s identity, especially on local models.

Do this. It preserves the old memory file, then creates a tiny bootstrap memory:

cd /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace
mkdir -p memory/archive
mv MEMORY.md "memory/archive/MEMORY.archive.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).md"

tee MEMORY.md >/dev/null <<'EOF'
# MEMORY.md

## Core identity
- The agent is Jarvis.
- Jarvis should identify as Jarvis, not as a generic model.
- Jarvis works for Timothy Little through OpenClaw.

[merry gulch]

- Use the detailed memory archive only when needed via memory search, not as always-loaded context.

## Current recovery note
- Anthropic key/spend investigation is in progress.
- Make/Monday MCP and old Emily cron activity were suspected context/spend contributors.
- Keep bootstrap files short.
EOF

openclaw gateway restart

Then in dashboard chat:

/reset

[merry gulch]

/context detail
Who are you?

If /context detail no longer warns about bootstrap truncation, we’ve removed the biggest bootstrap problem.

[glossy swallow]

But I'm still getting monday mcp skills loaded on bootstrap How do I remove those before I start messing with Memory?

[merry gulch]

Yes, remove the Monday/MCP skills first. Don’t touch MEMORY.md yet.

For recovery, the blunt safe move is to expose no skills to Jarvis temporarily. That should remove Monday skills from bootstrap even if they come from ~/.openclaw/skills, workspace skills, or a plugin skill root.

Run:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.skills '[]' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list '[{"id":"main","default":true,"name":"Jarvis","workspace":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace","agentDir":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/main/agent","skills":[],"identity":{"name":"Jarvis","emoji":"🦉"}},{"id":"emily","name":"emily","workspace":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/workspace","agentDir":"/Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/agents/emily/agent","skills":[],"identity":{"name":"Emily","theme":"L&D Checklist Editor","emoji":"📋"}}]' --strict-json --replace
openclaw gateway restart

Then in dashboard chat:

/reset

[merry gulch]

/context detail

If Monday skills are gone, ask Who are you? again.

This is temporary. Later, you can restore specific wanted skills with an allowlist instead of unrestricted loading.

[glossy swallow]

Ok Memory.md is now truncated: MEMORY.md: TRUNCATED | raw 23,316 chars (~5,829 tok) | injected 11,999 chars (~3,000 tok)

[merry gulch]

Good, now we’ve isolated the remaining bootstrap issue: MEMORY.md is too large. Let’s shrink it safely by archiving it and replacing it with a short recovery memory.

Run:

cd /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace
mkdir -p memory/archive
mv MEMORY.md "memory/archive/MEMORY.archive.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).md"

cat > MEMORY.md <<'EOF'
# MEMORY.md

## Core identity
- The agent is Jarvis.
- Jarvis should identify as Jarvis, not as a generic model.
- Jarvis works for Timothy Little through OpenClaw.

[merry gulch]

- Keep responses grounded in the workspace identity files.

## Current recovery note
- Anthropic spend investigation is in progress.
- Old Emily cron activity was removed.
- Make/Monday MCP and unrestricted skills were suspected context/spend contributors.
- Skills are temporarily disabled during recovery.
- Keep bootstrap files short; use archived memory only when specifically needed.
EOF

openclaw gateway restart

Then in dashboard chat:

[merry gulch]

/reset
/context detail
Who are you?

You should no longer see MEMORY.md: TRUNCATED.

[glossy swallow]

still getting truncated MEMORY.md: TRUNCATED | raw 23,316 chars (~5,829 tok) | injected 11,999 chars (~3,000 tok)

[merry gulch]

That means the edit didn’t hit the active Jarvis workspace, or the dashboard is showing an old session/context report.

One thing now: verify the active file size at the exact active workspace path.

wc -c /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace/MEMORY.md
head -20 /Users/tltopenclaw/.openclaw/workspace/MEMORY.md
openclaw agents list --bindings

If wc -c still says ~23316, the archive/replace command didn’t apply to that file. If it says a small number but /context detail still shows 23,316, then you’re looking at a stale session/context snapshot; start a brand-new dashboard chat/session after the gateway restart.

[glossy swallow]

553 characters now

[merry gulch]

Great. Then the file is fixed; the 23k truncation report is stale context from an old session.

Do this now in the dashboard:

/reset

Then open a brand-new dashboard chat/session if the UI has that option, and run:

/context detail

Expected: MEMORY.md should show ~553 chars and not truncated.

If it still shows 23,316 after a brand-new session, restart once more:

[merry gulch]

openclaw gateway restart

Then retry /context detail.

[glossy swallow]

Ok brand new session worked

[merry gulch]

Excellent. That confirms the active workspace is fixed; the old dashboard session was just showing stale/truncated context.

Current safe state:

• old huge MEMORY.md archived
• active MEMORY.md is small
• stale Emily cron runs removed
• Make MCP removed
• skills/tools are temporarily locked down

Next, test Jarvis identity in that brand-new dashboard session:

Who are you?

If Jarvis answers correctly there, then test Telegram with:

[merry gulch]

/reset
Who are you?

Keep Anthropic revoked/unconfigured until you’re confident the runaway jobs are gone.

[glossy swallow]

Still doesn't know, I want to try anthropic again; I only have $25 credits loaded so if it burns it burns through it, but this is taking infinitely too long

[merry gulch]

Yeah, I get it. At this point trying Anthropic is reasonable, with guardrails.

Do this on the server. It keeps the key out of shell history, uses Haiku only, disables fallbacks, and keeps heartbeat off:

openclaw gateway stop

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw
read -rsp "Paste Anthropic API key: " ANTHROPIC_API_KEY; echo
printf 'ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=%s
' "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" > ~/.openclaw/.env
unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

openclaw config set agents.defaults.model '{"primary":"anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.list[0].model '{"primary":"anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5","fallbacks":[]}' --strict-json
openclaw config set agents.defaults.heartbeat.every "0m"

[merry gulch]

openclaw gateway restart
openclaw models status --probe

Then in a brand-new dashboard session:

/reset
Who are you?

If that works, Telegram next:

[merry gulch]

/reset
Who are you?

Leave skills/tools locked down for now. Don’t restore Monday/Make/cron/heartbeat until Jarvis is stable.

[glossy swallow]

That worked. Jarvis is back

[merry gulch]

Good. I’m glad we got him back.

Leave the system in this locked-down state for a bit:

• Haiku only
• fallbacks: []
• heartbeat off
• skills/tools restricted
• Make/Monday MCP not restored
• old Emily cron removed
• compact MEMORY.md

For safety, check spend after a few dashboard/Telegram messages. If it stays normal, then re-enable things one at a time later. I’d restore in this order: Telegram check, then only the specific skills you need, then heartbeat last, and only after you’re sure it isn’t looping.

If this fixed the thread, please right-click the solution message → Apps → ✅ Mark Solution so Answer Overflow indexes it for future users.