gotchas-openclaw-heartbeat-stale-throttle-loop

Use when the OpenClaw agent sends the same recurring email at the heartbeat interval (e.g. every 2h), when an "onboarding" / "status update" email won't stop firing, when designing a HEARTBEAT.md step that depends on a small model reading a conditional guard or a "Do NOT" negative instruction, or when edits to openclaw.json in agents/<name>/config/ silently don't reach the container. TRIGGER when: Onboarding Status Update, recurring email every 2h, heartbeat email loop, HEARTBEAT.md misfire, small model flips negative instruction, openclaw.json edits revert after compose-up, config-runtime reverts heartbeat, openclaw.json.bak auto-restore, missing-meta-vs-last-good, Config auto-restored from backup, meta.lastTouchedAt, config-runtime not loading staged values, send_email grep false positive, heartbeat fresh session per cycle, no poisoned session to wipe, AGENTS.base.md onboarding vocab

By jefftrout60 schedule Updated 6/3/2026