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This page covers how to invoke openclaw doctor: the supported postures, ready-to-run examples, and every option the command accepts.

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Postures

Doctor supports these postures: Use openclaw doctor --json when an operator or script wants the advisory Doctor report as JSON. It exits successfully after producing a report; inspect ok and findings for health state. Use explicit openclaw doctor --lint --json when CI should exit nonzero for findings at the selected severity threshold. Prefer --fix when a human operator wants Doctor to edit config or state. For read-only diagnosis, use --lint or bare --json. Ordinary doctor, including doctor --non-interactive, can copy legacy config and migrate state even without --fix. --non-interactive suppresses prompts, not writes. If the shared state database uses a newer schema, Doctor refuses before offering an interactive update because update admission also needs that database. Run Doctor from the OpenClaw install that wrote the state, or another compatible build. A readable shared database still permits an interactive source update when agent databases use newer schemas; if the update does not take over, Doctor checks all database schemas again before diagnostics or repair. See Database schemas. After an exec-approval format upgrade, Doctor reports older generated approvals that are no longer active because they were not tied to a working directory. openclaw doctor --fix removes those inactive generated entries and leaves manual allowlist rules unchanged. Rerun affected workflows and choose Always allow here to renew trust for the intended directory. The normal openclaw update finalization runs this safe repair automatically. Explicit repair stops the matching managed Gateway and checks Gateway, state, and agent-database ownership before taking read-only schema snapshots. It excludes other processes during repair, verifies readiness, and restarts the same service once. It preserves the service definition and does not activate a service confirmed offline before maintenance. A loaded, enabled macOS job between respawns is not offline: Doctor stops it before repair and resumes it afterward. Run repair from a shell outside the Gateway process tree. For externally supervised or unmatched installations, stop and start the Gateway through its owning supervisor. During automatic triage, repair can run against an offline target when schema and maintenance locks permit it. If repair needs to stop the managed Gateway, Doctor refuses inside its automatic fixing subtree because that stop would cancel recovery. Use read-only diagnosis or safe offline artifact repair followed by an atomic openclaw gateway restart, or ask an independent operator to run Doctor from a shell outside triage. Read-only database snapshots and initial integrity scans have a 30-second execution limit per database. A timeout names the database and asks you to stop its Gateway service and other OpenClaw processes before retrying. If all writers are stopped, inspect storage performance and the reported database; a timeout does not prove corruption. openclaw doctor --fix --non-interactive applies the supported migrations that block Gateway startup without prompting, including shared-state audit schema, legacy workspace setup, legacy session stores, and exec approvals. Malformed or conflicting input is retained and requires the manual action in the diagnostic. The updater uses this repair path before accepting the installed target. Update-time Doctor omits project-clone inspection, SQLite database-size advice, active tool-schema warnings, and workspace backup and memory suggestions. These diagnostics do not migrate state or establish restart readiness. Doctor names the omitted checks in its output; run openclaw doctor after the update to inspect them. Update-time Doctor still runs required repairs and final session, database, workspace-state, and exec-approval readiness checks. A successful update does not mean the omitted diagnostics passed. This maintenance window also applies when repair ultimately finds no changes. Runs without --fix, --repair, or --yes do not enter maintenance. Custom state directories remain runtime-only and do not adopt a native service. --force alone does not select repair mode: openclaw doctor --force remains guided and still requires interactive consent before an eligible service rewrite. With --fix, --repair, or --yes, it allows aggressive config/state repairs but preserves the installed service definition. Force does not bypass service ownership, write-access, or interactive-only confirmation requirements.
doctor --fix follows explicitly configured workspace and store paths, including paths outside OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR. Setting OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR and OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH to a copy does not redirect those paths. Before rehearsing repairs on copied state, copy the external workspaces and stores too, then rewrite their paths in the copied config to point to the copies. Otherwise, Doctor can modify the originals.
When an updater supplies an explicit Gateway activation policy, Doctor leaves stop and restart ownership with that updater. The native manager must confirm the service is already offline before repair. If openclaw update --no-restart reaches Doctor while that service is running, repair fails without stopping or restarting it; stop the service through its owner, then retry the update. If service inspection is unavailable or an unmatched service can still run, Doctor refuses maintenance before changing config or state. Inspect it with openclaw gateway status --deep, restore service-manager access, and stop the service through its owner. Once the native manager confirms it is offline, Doctor can repair its selected state without changing or starting that service. If migration or config repair cannot finish, Doctor leaves the stopped service stopped and reports an incomplete repair with exit code 1. When state requires manual recovery, the diagnosis names its path and the next action:
  • Unsupported canonical workspace version: use an OpenClaw build that supports that version. Preserve the shared database unchanged.
  • Unreadable or conflicting exec policy: stop the Gateway and node hosts, then reconcile the named legacy file or interrupted claim with a verified copy of the intended policy. Preserve the existing SQLite policy.
Doctor does not quarantine unsupported workspace state, discard future-version rows, or infer execution policy. Repeating the same repair invocation cannot resolve these conditions. After manual recovery, verify readiness before starting the service through its owner.

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Examples

For channel-specific permissions, use the channel probes instead of doctor:
channels capabilities reports the bot’s effective permissions for a specific channel target. channels status --probe audits all configured channels and voice auto-join targets.

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Options

--severity-min, --all, --only, and --skip are only accepted together with --lint. Bare --json uses the default read-only lint check selection but keeps Doctor’s advisory exit behavior. Both read-only postures reject --repair, --fix, --force, --yes, and --generate-gateway-token. Explicit --lint also rejects --session-sqlite modes and their selectors, including --github-issue. Other machine modes can still use --json for their own output.