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OpenClaw routes every inbound message to a session based on where it came from: DMs, group chats, cron jobs, etc. All session state is owned by the gateway; UI clients query the gateway for session data. To continue the same Gateway-owned session in the Control UI, terminal, or a coding harness, see Session synchronization and attachment. For the personal-agent default — one rolling conversation shared by all your DM channels, with group activity and background work flowing into it — see The main session.

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How messages are routed

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DM isolation

By default, all DMs share one session for continuity, which is fine for single-user setups.
If multiple people can message your agent, enable DM isolation. Without it, all users share the same conversation context, so Alice’s private messages would be visible to Bob.
session.dmScope options:
If the same person contacts you from multiple channels, use session.identityLinks to map their identities to one canonical peer id so they share a session.

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Dock linked channels

Dock commands move the current direct-chat session’s reply route to another linked channel without starting a new session. See Channel docking for examples, config, and troubleshooting. Verify your setup with openclaw security audit.

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Group and room routing

session.groupScope controls where non-direct peers store conversation context: A route binding can override the global value. This is useful when only a named team room should join the main conversation:
Use peer.kind: "group" for providers that classify the room as a group. The binding override wins over global session.groupScope. This setting changes session-key selection only: DM routing, mention gating, delivery context, and replies to the source room remain unchanged.

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Incognito sessions

Incognito sessions are available only from the Control UI’s New thread screen. Turn on Incognito before starting the thread to keep its session entry, transcript, and compaction state in process memory instead of on disk. The thread disappears when the Gateway restarts, does not run OpenClaw’s automatic memory flush, and does not create a transcript archive when you reset or delete it. Codex-backed runs also start their harness thread in ephemeral mode, so Codex writes no rollout or local session-state files; other model providers use HTTP APIs and keep no local provider transcript in OpenClaw. The incognito- segment is reserved for dashboard, subagent, and hidden internal session keys; openclaw doctor --fix renames any colliding legacy durable keys. Incognito does not restrict the agent’s normal tools. An explicit request to save information, or any tool-driven file write, can still persist data outside the incognito session store. Your configured model provider still processes the messages you send, diagnostic logging remains unchanged, and OpenClaw still records content-free audit metadata such as HMAC references. On multi-user gateways, incognito threads are visible only to admin-scope connections and never appear through another session’s agent session tools or transcript search. This protects them from storage and other gateway-mediated users, not from the gateway owner or process operator, who can always observe live sessions.

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Remember across conversations

Separate transcripts control each conversation’s local history. For a personal or fully trusted agent, memory.search.rememberAcrossConversations: true adds an optional retrieval step across that agent’s other private conversations; it does not combine their transcripts. Private direct and persistent explicit UI conversations can supply relevant context to one another. Under default session.groupScope: "per-group", groups and channels stay separate in both directions: their transcripts are not private recall sources, and replies in those conversations do not receive private transcript context. The current conversation is also excluded because its history is already loaded. This setting does not change session keys, DM scope, routing, delivery, or tools.sessions.visibility. Shared workspace memory in MEMORY.md and memory/*.md also keeps its existing behavior. The current memory provider must support protected private transcript recall; context engines such as Lossless Claw remain independent and can run alongside it. See Active Memory for setup and runtime details.

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Session lifecycle

Sessions are reused until you reset them manually or opt into an automatic reset policy:
  • No automatic reset (default mode: "none") - sessions keep the same sessionId; compaction manages the active context as the conversation grows.
  • Daily reset (mode: "daily") - opt into a new session at a configured local hour (session.reset.atHour, default 4, 0-23) on the gateway host. Daily freshness is based on when the current sessionId started, not on later metadata writes.
  • Idle reset (mode: "idle") - opt into a new session after session.reset.idleMinutes of inactivity. Idle freshness is based on the last real user/channel interaction, so heartbeat, cron, and exec system events do not keep the session alive.
  • Manual reset - type /new or /reset in chat. /new <model> also switches the model.
When both daily and idle resets are configured, whichever expires first wins. Heartbeat, cron, exec, and other system-event turns may write session metadata, but those writes do not extend daily or idle reset freshness. When a reset rolls the session, queued system-event notices for the old session are discarded so stale background updates are not prepended to the first prompt in the new session. Sessions with an active provider-owned CLI session follow the same no-automatic-reset default. Use /reset or configure session.reset explicitly when those sessions should expire on a timer. Opt into automatic resets globally, then override them per chat type or channel:
resetByType supports direct, group, and thread. Doctor migrates legacy dm entries to direct and session.idleMinutes to session.reset.idleMinutes; the schema rejects both retired forms.

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Where state lives

  • Runtime session rows: ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/openclaw-agent.sqlite
  • Archived transcript files: ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/
  • Legacy row migration source: ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/sessions.json
The session rows in the per-agent SQLite database keep separate lifecycle timestamps:
  • sessionStartedAt: when the current sessionId began; daily reset uses this.
  • lastInteractionAt: last user/channel interaction that extends idle lifetime.
  • updatedAt: last store-row mutation; useful for listing and pruning, but not authoritative for daily/idle reset freshness.
During migration from older installs, gateway startup and openclaw doctor --fix import legacy sessions.json rows and hot transcript JSONL history into SQLite automatically. Rows without sessionStartedAt are resolved from the legacy transcript JSONL session header when available. If an older row also lacks lastInteractionAt, idle freshness falls back to that session start time, not to later bookkeeping writes. Use openclaw doctor --session-sqlite inspect --session-sqlite-all-agents and the Doctor migration sequence when you want explicit inspection or validation evidence.

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Session maintenance

OpenClaw bounds session storage over time via session.maintenance, defaults shown:
For production-sized maxEntries limits, Gateway runtime writes use a small high-water buffer and clean back down to the configured cap in batches. Session store reads do not prune or cap entries during Gateway startup, so startup and isolated cron sessions do not pay for a full store cleanup. openclaw sessions cleanup --enforce applies the cap immediately. maxEntries counts every live session row. Archived or pinned sessions, active or admitted work, model-locked sessions, and durable external conversation pointers are protected from automatic eviction, but still consume the cap. Cleanup removes the oldest unprotected rows until it reaches maxEntries or runs out of eligible victims. The total can therefore remain above the cap when protected rows alone exceed it or active work temporarily blocks eviction. Cleanup does not unprotect those rows; unarchive, unpin, wait for active work to finish, or explicitly delete sessions you no longer want to retain. Gateway model-run probe sessions are short-lived by default. Rows matching agent:*:explicit:model-run-<uuid> use fixed 24h retention, but cleanup is pressure-gated: it only removes stale probe rows when session-entry maintenance/cap pressure is reached, and runs before the broader stale-entry age cutoff and entry cap. Normal direct, group, thread, cron, hook, heartbeat, ACP, and sub-agent sessions do not inherit this 24h retention. Maintenance preserves durable external conversation pointers, including group sessions and thread-scoped chat sessions, while still allowing synthetic cron, hook, heartbeat, ACP, and sub-agent entries to age out. Shared or high-volume installations can set preserveRecent to protect recently active interactive sessions and every SQLite history generation owned by those sessions. The option is disabled when omitted or set to false, so personal installations keep the normal oldest-first policy. Synthetic model-run, cron, hook, heartbeat, ACP, and sub-agent sessions remain eligible for bounded cleanup. Protection can temporarily keep the store above its entry or disk target; it expires after the configured inactivity window. Recent-session protection does not change managed-worktree garbage collection; durable dashboard sessions auto-archive after 7 days of inactivity by default, while other session types still require an explicit archive action. Archived and pinned sessions are user-protected and exempt from every automatic maintenance path, including age pruning, entry caps, model-run cleanup, and disk-budget eviction. They remain protected until you unarchive, unpin, or explicitly delete them. If you previously used DM isolation and later returned session.dmScope to main, preview stale peer-keyed DM rows with openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run --fix-dm-scope. Applying the same flag retires those old direct-DM rows and keeps their transcripts as deleted archives. Preview any maintenance run with openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run.

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Inspecting sessions

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Further reading