openclaw / openclaw/openclaw-windows-node

Claude CLI auth not detected in onboarding despite successful claude auth login inside OpenClawGateway WSL distro

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clawsweeper:needs-maintainer-review clawsweeper:no-new-fix-pr impact:auth-provider impact:ux-release-blocker issue-rating: 🦪 silver shellfish P0
Dominant language
C#
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Description

When going through OpenClaw Setup on Windows and choosing "Anthropic Claude CLI" as the auth method, the onboarding wizard repeatedly fails with:

Provider setup failed
Claude CLI is not authenticated on this host.
Run claude auth login first, then re-run this setup.

Steps I took:

Ran claude auth login inside the Ubuntu WSL distro (manually installed via wsl --install) — logged in successfully, claude auth status --text confirmed a valid Claude Pro session.
Discovered OpenClaw actually provisions its own separate WSL distro OpenClawGateway (found via %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenClawTray\wsl\OpenClawGateway\ext4.vhdx).
Entered OpenClawGateway via wsl -d OpenClawGateway -u root, installed Node.js + @anthropic-ai/claude-code, ran claude auth login — succeeded, claude auth status --text confirmed login.
Also copied /root/.claude to /home/openclaw/.claude and chown'd it to the openclaw user, in case the gateway process runs as that non-root user.
Fully restarted the OpenClaw Windows Companion app (quit from tray, relaunched).
Still get the same "Claude CLI is not authenticated on this host" error when retrying setup / clicking Install again.

Relevant log lines from %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenClawTray\openclaw-tray.log:

[WARN] [WslKeepAlive] Distro 'OpenClawGateway' not found; skipping keepalive.
[ERROR] Previous session did not exit cleanly (started ...)

Environment:

Windows (OpenClaw Windows Companion / OpenClawTray)
WSL2, distro OpenClawGateway (auto-provisioned by OpenClaw)
Claude Pro subscription account
Expected: Setup should detect the successful claude auth login inside the gateway's own WSL distro.
Actual: Always reports "not authenticated" regardless of login location or restart.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the onboarding wizard's Anthropic Claude CLI setup path and the OpenClawTray log at %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenClawTray\openclaw-tray.log. Compare the authentication check's host, distro, and user context with the successful login in OpenClawGateway; done means setup detects that session after retrying Install.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp, linux
Domain
authentication, cli, desktop, operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
52/100

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