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rob-shutdown-2026-07-27

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Decision: Rob (OpenClaw) Shut Down — Kilroy Sole Agent (2026-07-27)

Dustin ordered Rob disabled altogether. Context: Rob’s WhatsApp session had been dead since the 7/26 mis-pair incident (device slot invalidated, re-link never happened); every cron delivery and outbound send was failing with retries and model-call timeouts — burning API spend with zero delivery. Meanwhile Kilroy (Hermes, Telegram) had just absorbed the entire duty set:

  • All 13 report/schedule crons (field schedule, morning briefing, EOD, backup health, triage alert, cert readiness, weekly pipeline, tomorrow preview, invoice/stalled/permit/RFI aging, health digest)
  • Field photo filing (/field-media/upload) with Darius allowlisted
  • Vision-proposal delivery (field-proposal deliver_only webhook)

What was done

  • Root-crontab openclaw-watchdog line commented out (it auto-restarts the gateway and SMS-alerts; would have fought the shutdown). Crontab backups in /home/claude/.crontab_backup_*_pre_rob_disable.
  • cd /opt/personal/openclaw/repo && docker compose down — containers and repo_default network removed; config/volumes at /opt/personal/openclaw/ fully preserved.
  • 02:00 openclaw-backup.sh cron KEPT (still archives the config nightly).
  • Verified: unlikely-api healthy, Kilroy webhook path unaffected, shutdown notice delivered to Dustin’s Telegram.

Consequences

  • WhatsApp +1-667-274-2864 is dark: inbound texts go nowhere (session was already logged out, so this changes nothing in practice).
  • unlikely-api WhatsApp sends (daily_schedule, notification_router channel, pipeline shepherd) now fail at connect instead of at the listener — same graceful ok:False handling; proposals fall back to Kilroy Telegram.
  • rob-openclaw-2 Anthropic key no longer accrues spend.

Resurrection

cd /opt/personal/openclaw/repo && docker compose up -d, re-enable the watchdog crontab line, openclaw channels login --channel whatsapp scanned with the phone owning +16672742864.

Relationships

  • Kilroy → replaces → Rob (conversational agent + cron fleet)
  • decision → supersedes → “Rob remains production and untouched” trial rule

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