OpenClaw macOS Workspace Config Ignored — Bug Report and Workaround

When adding a Mac Mini M1 as a new node in OpenClaw, the agents.list[].workspace config was completely ignored. Here's the investigation and a working workaround.

Symptoms

After installing OpenClaw 2026.3.13 on macOS Ventura and adding an agent with an explicit workspace path, every gateway restart ignores the setting and auto-generates ~/.openclaw/workspace/. The custom agent workspace is never used.

Linux Works Fine

The same version on Linux (Ubuntu 24.04) respects the workspace config. This is a macOS-specific bug.

What I Tried (All Failed)

1. Absolute path in agents.list[].workspace
2. agents.defaults.workspace fallback
3. CLI creation with --workspace flag
4. Deleting default workspace before restart (recreated every time)

Workaround: symlink + chflags

rm -rf ~/.openclaw/workspace
ln -s /path/to/actual/workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace
sudo chflags -h uchg ~/.openclaw/workspace

chflags -h uchg sets an immutable flag on the symlink itself, preventing overwrite on restart. Works for single-agent nodes only.

Takeaways

• Always use absolute paths for workspace config
• macOS and Linux can behave differently on the same version
• Always verify session JSONL cwd after adding a new node
• chflags is powerful for preventing daemon file overwrites