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[Bug] Inherited default model/effort is displayed incorrectly in chat and spawn dialog #255

@DerrickBarra

Description

@DerrickBarra

Description

When a session or spawn flow is inheriting the OpenClaw default model / effort, Nerve currently surfaces the resolved concrete model (or a mismatched fallback) instead of the inherited selection. User-visible result: the UI can make an inherited default look like an explicit override.

This showed up in two places:

  • the chat model/effort controls for sessions using inherited defaults
  • the spawn dialog model picker for new agents/subagents

On our setup where the inherited defaults should read as primary model and medium effort, the UI was not consistently showing that inherited state and instead became research and low, which is a model nickname and a thinking value that do not reflect our default primary settings in the openclaw.json config file.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Configure OpenClaw / Nerve with a primary model and a default thinking level.
  2. Open a Nerve session that inherits those defaults instead of overriding them.
  3. Open the chat model / effort controls, or open the spawn dialog for a new agent.
  4. Observe the displayed model / effort selection does not match the primary model selection and default thinking level.

Expected Behavior

Inherited defaults should remain visible as inherited defaults in the UI:

  • model should show primary to match the openclaw.json config
  • effort should reflect the inherited default (medium in the validated test case)

The UI should not imply that the user explicitly selected some other concrete model and thinking level unless they actually did.

Actual Behavior

The UI could display a concrete provider/model value, or otherwise lose the inherited-default state, making the selection look explicitly overridden.

Screenshots / Logs

No screenshot attached here, but the bug has been reproduced and fixed on a clean branch that is directly based on master.

Environment

  • OS: Zorin OS 18 Pro (Linux)
  • Node: v25.4.0
  • Nerve version: 1.5.2
  • OpenClaw version: v2026.3.8
  • Browser: Chrome-based environment

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