openclaw/docs/gateway/secrets-plan-contract.md

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Contract for `secrets apply` plans: target validation, path matching, and `auth-profiles.json` target scope	Generating or reviewing `openclaw secrets apply` plans Debugging `Invalid plan target path` errors Understanding target type and path validation behavior	Secrets apply plan contract

This page defines the strict contract enforced by openclaw secrets apply. If a target does not match these rules, apply fails before mutating any file.

Plan file shape

openclaw secrets apply --from <plan.json> expects a targets array of plan targets:

{
  version: 1,
  protocolVersion: 1,
  targets: [
    {
      type: "models.providers.apiKey",
      path: "models.providers.openai.apiKey",
      pathSegments: ["models", "providers", "openai", "apiKey"],
      providerId: "openai",
      ref: { source: "env", provider: "default", id: "OPENAI_API_KEY" },
    },
    {
      type: "auth-profiles.api_key.key",
      path: "profiles.openai:default.key",
      pathSegments: ["profiles", "openai:default", "key"],
      agentId: "main",
      ref: { source: "env", provider: "default", id: "OPENAI_API_KEY" },
    },
  ],
}

openclaw secrets configure generates plans in this shape. You can also hand-write or edit one.

Provider upserts and deletes

Plans may also include two optional top-level fields that mutate the secrets.providers map alongside the per-target writes:

• providerUpserts -- an object keyed by provider alias. Each value is a provider definition (the same shape accepted under secrets.providers.<alias> in openclaw.json, e.g. an exec or file provider).
• providerDeletes -- an array of provider aliases to remove.

providerUpserts runs before targets, so a target.ref.provider may reference a provider alias that the same plan introduces in providerUpserts. Without this ordering, plans that reference an alias not yet configured in openclaw.json fail with provider "<alias>" is not configured.

{
  version: 1,
  protocolVersion: 1,
  providerUpserts: {
    onepassword_anthropic: {
      source: "exec",
      command: "/usr/bin/op",
      args: ["read", "op://Vault/Anthropic/credential"],
    },
  },
  providerDeletes: ["legacy_unused_alias"],
  targets: [
    {
      type: "models.providers.apiKey",
      path: "models.providers.anthropic.apiKey",
      pathSegments: ["models", "providers", "anthropic", "apiKey"],
      providerId: "anthropic",
      ref: { source: "exec", provider: "onepassword_anthropic", id: "credential" },
    },
  ],
}

Exec providers introduced via providerUpserts are still subject to the exec consent rules in Exec provider consent behavior: plans containing exec providers require --allow-exec in write mode.

Supported target scope

Plan targets are accepted for supported credential paths in SecretRef Credential Surface.

Target type behavior

target.type must be a recognized target type, and the normalized target.path must match that type's registered path shape.

Some target types accept a compatibility alias as target.type for existing plans, in addition to their canonical type name:

Canonical type	Accepted alias
models.providers.apiKey	models.providers.*.apiKey
skills.entries.apiKey	skills.entries.*.apiKey
channels.googlechat.serviceAccount	channels.googlechat.accounts.*.serviceAccount

Path validation rules

Each target is validated with all of the following:

• type must be a recognized target type.
• path must be a non-empty dot path.
• pathSegments can be omitted. If provided, it must normalize to exactly the same path as path.
• Forbidden segments are rejected: __proto__, prototype, constructor.
• The normalized path must match the registered path shape for the target type.
• If providerId or accountId is set, it must match the id encoded in the path.
• auth-profiles.json targets require agentId.
• When creating a new auth-profiles.json mapping, include authProfileProvider.

Failure behavior

If a target fails validation, apply exits with an error like:

Invalid plan target path for models.providers.apiKey: models.providers.openai.baseUrl

No writes are committed for an invalid plan: target resolution and path validation run before any file is touched. Separately, once a valid plan starts writing, apply snapshots every touched file first and restores those snapshots if a later write in the same run fails, so a partial write never leaves config, auth-profile, or env state out of sync.

Exec provider consent behavior

• --dry-run skips exec SecretRef checks by default.
• Plans containing exec SecretRefs/providers are rejected in write mode unless --allow-exec is set.
• When validating/applying exec-containing plans, pass --allow-exec in both dry-run and write commands.

Runtime and audit scope notes

• Ref-only auth-profiles.json entries (keyRef/tokenRef) are included in runtime credential resolution and audit coverage.
• secrets apply writes supported openclaw.json targets, supported auth-profiles.json targets, and three optional scrub passes, each on by default: scrubEnv (removes migrated plaintext values from .env), scrubAuthProfilesForProviderTargets (clears plaintext/unused-ref residue in auth-profiles.json for providers a plan just migrated), and scrubLegacyAuthJson (drops migrated api_key entries from legacy auth.json stores). Set any of options.scrubEnv, options.scrubAuthProfilesForProviderTargets, options.scrubLegacyAuthJson to false in the plan to skip that pass.

Operator checks

# Validate plan without writes
openclaw secrets apply --from /tmp/openclaw-secrets-plan.json --dry-run

# Then apply for real
openclaw secrets apply --from /tmp/openclaw-secrets-plan.json

# For exec-containing plans, opt in explicitly in both modes
openclaw secrets apply --from /tmp/openclaw-secrets-plan.json --dry-run --allow-exec
openclaw secrets apply --from /tmp/openclaw-secrets-plan.json --allow-exec

If apply fails with an invalid target path message, regenerate the plan with openclaw secrets configure or fix the target path to a supported shape above.

Related docs

• Secrets Management
• CLI secrets
• SecretRef Credential Surface
• Configuration Reference