Config sync fails on live OpenClaw config because OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH is parsed as strict JSON

[itsmiso-ai]

Summary

Mission Control's config sync path appears to parse OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH as strict JSON, but real OpenClaw live configs are JSON5/JSONC-style (comments, unquoted keys, trailing commas). This causes sync/registration to fail even when Mission Control is otherwise connected and paired successfully.

What I observed

In a sidecar deployment with Mission Control sharing the live OpenClaw state/config:

• OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH=/home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json
• Mission Control is otherwise working enough to:
  • start successfully
  • use SQLite successfully
  • authenticate/login successfully
  • pair/connect to the gateway successfully

But config sync fails with:

Sync failed: Expected property name or '}' in JSON at position 4 (line 2 column 3)

The live OpenClaw config begins in the normal OpenClaw style, e.g.:

{
  agents: {

That is valid JSON5/JSONC-style config, but not strict JSON.

Why this matters

This makes Mission Control incompatible with the actual live OpenClaw config format when using OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH against the real mutable config file.

So the integration currently ends up in a weird split state:

• gateway connectivity works
• pairing can work
• but config sync/registration features fail because the config parser expects strict JSON

Expected behavior

One of these should happen:

1. Mission Control should support OpenClaw config syntax as actually used in the live file (JSON5/JSONC-ish)
2. Or Mission Control should document and enforce a different input format/path very explicitly
3. Or config-sync features should gracefully detect unsupported config syntax and disable themselves without noisy failure

Suggested fix

Parse OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH with the same config-format expectations OpenClaw itself uses, rather than raw JSON.parse(...) assumptions.

Notes

This is distinct from gateway/device auth and pairing. In my environment, Mission Control could already connect/pair successfully; the failure was specifically in config sync against the live config file.