Adapted community discussion: Paraphrased and condensed from an anonymized public OpenClaw Discord support conversation from September 2026. Technical guidance was reviewed for OpenClaw 2026.9.3.
I enabled Memory Wiki, but openclaw wiki search exits before searching and says no default Memory Wiki agent is configured. It tells me to pass an agent ID or create another agent. Wiki search used to work without that extra step. Do I really need a new agent?
You do not need to create another agent. With an agent-scoped vault, Memory Wiki must resolve which existing agent owns the command. List the roster and test with an explicit ID:
openclaw agents list --bindings
openclaw wiki status --agent main
openclaw wiki search "your query" --agent main
Replace main with an ID from the roster. If this is the agent you want bare agent-scoped commands to use, set default: true on that existing entry under agents.entries, then run openclaw config validate. Keep the plugin enabled and use openclaw wiki doctor --agent main if the selected vault itself is unhealthy.
That explains it. My older setup searched the wiki without making me name an agent.
The current agent-scoped path fails closed instead of guessing when no default can be resolved. Passing --agent is the clearest immediate fix. Declaring the intended existing agent as the default restores the convenient bare command without creating a second workspace or vault.
Solved. Selecting the existing agent made search work again. The confusing part was that the documentation did not explain this upgrade case.
That is a useful distinction. --agent may be documented, while the failure mode caused by an agent-scoped vault with no resolvable default is easy to miss. The important lesson is to select an existing agent deliberately rather than creating one just to satisfy the error.
If I keep main as the default agent, can I still make the wiki vault global for every agent?
Yes. Default-agent selection and vault scope are separate settings. agents.entries.main.default: true selects the default agent for agent-scoped commands. plugins.entries.memory-wiki.config.vault.scope: "global" selects one shared vault.
Changing scope does not move or copy existing vault data. Preserve the current vault path, back up the vault, validate the configuration, then run openclaw wiki status before compiling or importing anything. Keep agent scope when each agent needs a separate knowledge boundary.