Session Management Deep Dive

Session Management & Compaction (Deep Dive)

This document explains how OpenClaw manages sessions end-to-end:

Session routing (how inbound messages map to a sessionKey)
Session store (sessions.json) and what it tracks
Transcript persistence (*.jsonl) and its structure
Transcript hygiene (provider-specific fixups before runs)
Context limits (context window vs tracked tokens)
Compaction (manual + auto-compaction) and where to hook pre-compaction work
Silent housekeeping (e.g. memory writes that shouldn’t produce user-visible output)

If you want a higher-level overview first, start with:

Source of truth: the Gateway

OpenClaw is designed around a single Gateway process that owns session state.

UIs (macOS app, web Control UI, TUI) should query the Gateway for session lists and token counts.
In remote mode, session files are on the remote host; “checking your local Mac files” won’t reflect what the Gateway is using.

Two persistence layers

OpenClaw persists sessions in two layers:

Session store (sessions.json)
- Key/value map: sessionKey -> SessionEntry
- Small, mutable, safe to edit (or delete entries)
- Tracks session metadata (current session id, last activity, toggles, token counters, etc.)
Transcript (<sessionId>.jsonl)
- Append-only transcript with tree structure (entries have id + parentId)
- Stores the actual conversation + tool calls + compaction summaries
- Used to rebuild the model context for future turns

On-disk locations

Per agent, on the Gateway host:

Store: ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/sessions.json
Transcripts: ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/<sessionId>.jsonl
- Telegram topic sessions: .../<sessionId>-topic-<threadId>.jsonl

OpenClaw resolves these via src/config/sessions.ts.

Store maintenance and disk controls

Session persistence has automatic maintenance controls (session.maintenance) for sessions.json and transcript artifacts:

mode: warn (default) or enforce
pruneAfter: stale-entry age cutoff (default 30d)
maxEntries: cap entries in sessions.json (default 500)
rotateBytes: rotate sessions.json when oversized (default 10mb)
resetArchiveRetention: retention for *.reset.<timestamp> transcript archives (default: same as pruneAfter; false disables cleanup)
maxDiskBytes: optional sessions-directory budget
highWaterBytes: optional target after cleanup (default 80% of maxDiskBytes)

Enforcement order for disk budget cleanup (mode: "enforce"):

Remove oldest archived or orphan transcript artifacts first.
If still above the target, evict oldest session entries and their transcript files.
Keep going until usage is at or below highWaterBytes.

In mode: "warn", OpenClaw reports potential evictions but does not mutate the store/files.

Run maintenance on demand:

openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --enforce

Cron sessions and run logs

Isolated cron runs also create session entries/transcripts, and they have dedicated retention controls:

cron.sessionRetention (default 24h) prunes old isolated cron run sessions from the session store (false disables).
cron.runLog.maxBytes + cron.runLog.keepLines prune ~/.openclaw/cron/runs/<jobId>.jsonl files (defaults: 2_000_000 bytes and 2000 lines).

Session keys (`sessionKey`)

A sessionKey identifies which conversation bucket you’re in (routing + isolation).

Common patterns:

Main/direct chat (per agent): agent:<agentId>:<mainKey> (default main)
Group: agent:<agentId>:<channel>:group:<id>
Room/channel (Discord/Slack): agent:<agentId>:<channel>:channel:<id> or ...:room:<id>
Cron: cron:<job.id>
Webhook: hook:<uuid> (unless overridden)

The canonical rules are documented at /concepts/session.

Session ids (`sessionId`)

Each sessionKey points at a current sessionId (the transcript file that continues the conversation).

Rules of thumb:

Reset (/new, /reset) creates a new sessionId for that sessionKey.
Daily reset (default 4:00 AM local time on the gateway host) creates a new sessionId on the next message after the reset boundary.
Idle expiry (session.reset.idleMinutes or legacy session.idleMinutes) creates a new sessionId when a message arrives after the idle window. When daily + idle are both configured, whichever expires first wins.
Thread parent fork guard (session.parentForkMaxTokens, default 100000) skips parent transcript forking when the parent session is already too large; the new thread starts fresh. Set 0 to disable.

Implementation detail: the decision happens in initSessionState() in src/auto-reply/reply/session.ts.

Session store schema (`sessions.json`)

The store’s value type is SessionEntry in src/config/sessions.ts.

Key fields (not exhaustive):

sessionId: current transcript id (filename is derived from this unless sessionFile is set)
updatedAt: last activity timestamp
sessionFile: optional explicit transcript path override
chatType: direct | group | room (helps UIs and send policy)
provider, subject, room, space, displayName: metadata for group/channel labeling
Toggles:
- thinkingLevel, verboseLevel, reasoningLevel, elevatedLevel
- sendPolicy (per-session override)
Model selection:
- providerOverride, modelOverride, authProfileOverride
Token counters (best-effort / provider-dependent):
- inputTokens, outputTokens, totalTokens, contextTokens
compactionCount: how often auto-compaction completed for this session key
memoryFlushAt: timestamp for the last pre-compaction memory flush
memoryFlushCompactionCount: compaction count when the last flush ran

The store is safe to edit, but the Gateway is the authority: it may rewrite or rehydrate entries as sessions run.

Transcript structure (`*.jsonl`)

Transcripts are managed by @mariozechner/pi-coding-agent’s SessionManager.

The file is JSONL:

First line: session header (type: "session", includes id, cwd, timestamp, optional parentSession)
Then: session entries with id + parentId (tree)

Notable entry types:

message: user/assistant/toolResult messages
custom_message: extension-injected messages that do enter model context (can be hidden from UI)
custom: extension state that does not enter model context
compaction: persisted compaction summary with firstKeptEntryId and tokensBefore
branch_summary: persisted summary when navigating a tree branch

OpenClaw intentionally does not “fix up” transcripts; the Gateway uses SessionManager to read/write them.

Context windows vs tracked tokens

Two different concepts matter:

Model context window: hard cap per model (tokens visible to the model)
Session store counters: rolling stats written into sessions.json (used for /status and dashboards)

If you’re tuning limits:

The context window comes from the model catalog (and can be overridden via config).
contextTokens in the store is a runtime estimate/reporting value; don’t treat it as a strict guarantee.

For more, see /token-use.

Compaction: what it is

Compaction summarizes older conversation into a persisted compaction entry in the transcript and keeps recent messages intact.

After compaction, future turns see:

The compaction summary
Messages after firstKeptEntryId

Compaction is persistent (unlike session pruning). See /concepts/session-pruning.

When auto-compaction happens (Pi runtime)

In the embedded Pi agent, auto-compaction triggers in two cases:

Overflow recovery: the model returns a context overflow error → compact → retry.
Threshold maintenance: after a successful turn, when:

contextTokens > contextWindow - reserveTokens

Where:

contextWindow is the model’s context window
reserveTokens is headroom reserved for prompts + the next model output

These are Pi runtime semantics (OpenClaw consumes the events, but Pi decides when to compact).

Compaction settings (`reserveTokens`, `keepRecentTokens`)

Pi’s compaction settings live in Pi settings:

{
  compaction: {
    enabled: true,
    reserveTokens: 16384,
    keepRecentTokens: 20000,
  },
}

OpenClaw also enforces a safety floor for embedded runs:

If compaction.reserveTokens < reserveTokensFloor, OpenClaw bumps it.
Default floor is 20000 tokens.
Set agents.defaults.compaction.reserveTokensFloor: 0 to disable the floor.
If it’s already higher, OpenClaw leaves it alone.

Why: leave enough headroom for multi-turn “housekeeping” (like memory writes) before compaction becomes unavoidable.

Implementation: ensurePiCompactionReserveTokens() in src/agents/pi-settings.ts (called from src/agents/pi-embedded-runner.ts).

User-visible surfaces

You can observe compaction and session state via:

/status (in any chat session)
openclaw status (CLI)
openclaw sessions / sessions --json
Verbose mode: 🧹 Auto-compaction complete + compaction count

Silent housekeeping (`NO_REPLY`)

OpenClaw supports “silent” turns for background tasks where the user should not see intermediate output.

Convention:

The assistant starts its output with NO_REPLY to indicate “do not deliver a reply to the user”.
OpenClaw strips/suppresses this in the delivery layer.

As of 2026.1.10, OpenClaw also suppresses draft/typing streaming when a partial chunk begins with NO_REPLY, so silent operations don’t leak partial output mid-turn.

Pre-compaction “memory flush” (implemented)

Goal: before auto-compaction happens, run a silent agentic turn that writes durable state to disk (e.g. memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md in the agent workspace) so compaction can’t erase critical context.

OpenClaw uses the pre-threshold flush approach:

Monitor session context usage.
When it crosses a “soft threshold” (below Pi’s compaction threshold), run a silent “write memory now” directive to the agent.
Use NO_REPLY so the user sees nothing.

Config (agents.defaults.compaction.memoryFlush):

enabled (default: true)
softThresholdTokens (default: 4000)
prompt (user message for the flush turn)
systemPrompt (extra system prompt appended for the flush turn)

Notes:

The default prompt/system prompt include a NO_REPLY hint to suppress delivery.
The flush runs once per compaction cycle (tracked in sessions.json).
The flush runs only for embedded Pi sessions (CLI backends skip it).
The flush is skipped when the session workspace is read-only (workspaceAccess: "ro" or "none").
See Memory for the workspace file layout and write patterns.

Pi also exposes a session_before_compact hook in the extension API, but OpenClaw’s flush logic lives on the Gateway side today.

Troubleshooting checklist

Session key wrong? Start with /concepts/session and confirm the sessionKey in /status.
Store vs transcript mismatch? Confirm the Gateway host and the store path from openclaw status.
Compaction spam? Check:
- model context window (too small)
- compaction settings (reserveTokens too high for the model window can cause earlier compaction)
- tool-result bloat: enable/tune session pruning
Silent turns leaking? Confirm the reply starts with NO_REPLY (exact token) and you’re on a build that includes the streaming suppression fix.