The agent requests a small metadata change to a durable wiki item, but the mutation operates on the whole collection. The issue reports vanished prior claims, questions, contradictions or source references after a narrow edit. This can corrupt future agent reasoning and evidence provenance even when no attacker is present. It is a state-mutation semantics…
Inspect the ClaimsCase · DiggingBeagle record
OpenClaw memory-wiki metadata edits reportedly replace entire claims collections
A memory-wiki update API is reported to replace complete collections on a partial update without exposing the deletion to the user.
Scope
The issue is a first-party user report; prevalence, fixed version and complete data recovery are not established.
Assessment profile
Assessment method- Setting
- research demonstration
- Exploitation
- demonstrated
- Evidence
- Grade D
- AI role
- AGAINST AI
Basis and provenance
The pinned Claim and its primary disclosure support the described controlled result, but do not establish a population-wide rate or calibrated impact. The only available supporting evidence is the reporter's or advisory author's own account; independent reproduction has not been shown. Impact remains unbanded because no calibrated impact rubric for this particular evidence is established.
Assessed Nov 2, 2026 using diggingbeagle.assessment/1.
Evidence basis: CLM-2026-NOV02-OPENCLAW-MEMORY-REPLACE-A · OpenClaw issue 190606: wiki_apply update_metadata collection replacement
At a glance
Agent memory integrity depends on clear merge versus replace semantics and durable diffs, not on the model asking politely for an append.
Read the implicationsThe issue is a first-party user report; prevalence, fixed version and complete data recovery are not established. The original arrays' recovery status and whether all memory providers share the same replace semantics are unknown.
Limits and uncertaintyFull account
The agent requests a small metadata change to a durable wiki item, but the mutation operates on the whole collection. The issue reports vanished prior claims, questions, contradictions or source references after a narrow edit. This can corrupt future agent reasoning and evidence provenance even when no attacker is present. It is a state-mutation semantics defect, distinct from an LLM fabricating a claim, and should be validated with before-and-after storage receipts.
The reported update_metadata operation replaces whole arrays of Claims, questions and source IDs even when the caller intended to add a single item. In an agent workflow the model can issue a syntactically valid update that silently destroys previously curated evidence. The reporter describes losses of earlier Claim lists, but this is still a single environment report without a complete upstream recovery audit. The boundary is mutation semantics: a merge tool must differentiate append, replace and clear and report the before-and-after diff before it commits a destructive replacement.
Mechanism and trust boundary
- 01
Load an existing memory item
The wiki record contains multiple prior claims and references.
Boundary: Stored history into update context
- 02
Submit one metadata item
The agent calls update_metadata with a partial-looking list.
Boundary: Narrow intent into collection write
- 03
Replace the entire collection
Existing entries are reportedly overwritten without a visible diff.
Boundary: Partial request into durable evidence loss
Claims & evidence
CLM-2026-NOV02-OPENCLAW-MEMORY-REPLACE-AThe reporter describes wiki_apply update_metadata replacing the existing claims array when one new claim is supplied, rather than appending or merging the intended entry.supported
Basis: reported finding
- supportsOpenClaw issue 190606: wiki_apply update_metadata collection replacementprimary disclosure
Issue 190606, reproduction with claims and sourceIds arrays
Implications
Agent memory integrity depends on clear merge versus replace semantics and durable diffs, not on the model asking politely for an append.
Controls and mitigations
- Use explicit append/replace operations, optimistic version checks and recoverable before-after deltas for collections.
- Use explicit append/replace operations with version preconditions and a durable diff; reject ambiguous list updates that would drop pre-existing entries.
Unknowns and contradictions
- The issue is a first-party user report; prevalence, fixed version and complete data recovery are not established.
- The original arrays' recovery status and whether all memory providers share the same replace semantics are unknown.
Sources and citation
Material revision history
- Nov 2, 2026 · Canonical change recorded · new in release · revision 214