OpenClaw: Scoped chat.send route inheritance could bypass admin command scope gates

Summary

Some internal command handlers require operator.approvals or operator.admin scopes. In affected releases, a scoped Gateway chat.send request delivered through an inherited external route could be evaluated as an external-channel command while still carrying the lower Gateway client scopes.

This issue affects scoped Gateway clients. It does not apply to shared-secret bearer HTTP compatibility endpoints, which are documented as full operator surfaces under OpenClaw's trust model.

Affected configurations

This affects deployments where a scoped Gateway caller with operator.write can use chat.send with delivery into a session that has an inherited external delivery route.

Impact

Commands that should have required operator.approvals or operator.admin could run with only operator.write in this routed context. Affected command families included approval resolution and selected administrative commands such as plugin, config, MCP, allowlist, and ACP mutations.

Patched Versions

The first stable patched version is 2026.5.18.

Mitigations

Upgrade to openclaw@2026.5.18 or later. Before upgrading, avoid granting operator.write tokens to clients that can deliver commands into sessions with external routes unless those clients are trusted with admin-like command effects.