Sessions

openclaw sessions

List stored conversation sessions.

Session lists are not channel/provider liveness checks. They show persisted conversation rows from session stores. A quiet Discord, Slack, Telegram, or other channel can reconnect successfully without creating a new session row until a message is processed. Use openclaw channels status --probe, openclaw status --deep, or openclaw health --verbose when you need live channel connectivity.

openclaw sessions
openclaw sessions --agent work
openclaw sessions --all-agents
openclaw sessions --active 120
openclaw sessions --limit 25
openclaw sessions --store ./tmp/sessions.json
openclaw sessions --json

Human-readable lists and cleanup previews use terminal-width tables. Long model names and flags wrap without being truncated, and Unicode keys stay aligned. Long keys show their beginning and end; use openclaw sessions --json for complete session keys.

Flags:

Flag	Description
--agent <id>	One configured agent store (required for multiple explicit agents).
--all-agents	Aggregate all configured agent stores.
--store <path>	Legacy store selector path (cannot combine with --all-agents).
--active <minutes>	Only show sessions updated within the past N minutes.
--limit <n|all>	Max rows to output (default 100; all restores full output).
--json	Machine-readable output.
--verbose	Verbose logging.

--store accepts the documented legacy selector form, including sessions.json and suffixless custom selectors. OpenClaw resolves that selector to its physical SQLite target, verifies the target exists and is usable, and reports the physical path it actually read. Combine it with --agent <id> when you must select the configured agent that owns the store.

--agent and --store require non-blank values. Selection errors exit non-zero and use the standard CLI JSON failure envelope when --json is set.

openclaw sessions and the Gateway sessions.list RPC are bounded by default so large long-lived stores cannot monopolize the CLI process or Gateway event loop. The CLI returns the newest 100 sessions by default; pass --limit <n> for a smaller/larger window or --limit all when you intentionally need the full store. JSON responses include totalCount, limitApplied, and hasMore when callers need to show that more rows exist.

JSON session rows include color when a session color is set (for example, "color": "blue"). Uncolored sessions and sessions whose color was cleared omit the field.

RPC clients can pass configuredAgentsOnly: true to keep the broad combined discovery source but return only rows for agents currently present in config. Control UI uses that mode by default so deleted or disk-only agent stores do not reappear in the Sessions view.

--all-agents reads configured agent stores. Gateway and ACP session discovery are broader: they also include SQLite stores resolved from configured agent roots or a templated session.store root. Legacy selector paths must resolve inside the agent root; symlinks and out-of-root paths are skipped.

openclaw sessions --all-agents --json:

{
  "path": null,
  "stores": [
    { "agentId": "main", "path": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/main/agent/openclaw-agent.sqlite" },
    { "agentId": "work", "path": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/work/agent/openclaw-agent.sqlite" }
  ],
  "allAgents": true,
  "count": 2,
  "totalCount": 2,
  "limitApplied": 100,
  "hasMore": false,
  "activeMinutes": null,
  "sessions": [
    { "agentId": "main", "key": "agent:main:main", "model": "openai/gpt-5.6-sol" },
    { "agentId": "work", "key": "agent:work:main", "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6" }
  ]
}

Archive sessions

Archive one or more sessions through the running Gateway:

openclaw sessions archive "agent:main:scratch-1"
openclaw sessions archive "agent:main:scratch-1" "agent:main:scratch-2"
openclaw sessions archive "agent:work:scratch-1" --agent work
openclaw sessions archive "agent:main:scratch-1" --dry-run
openclaw sessions archive "agent:main:scratch-1" --json

Archive uses the same sessions.patch lifecycle operation as the Control UI. It keeps the transcript, marks the session archived, and removes the session from the default active list. For a cloud-worker session with an active placement, the Gateway first stops the worker, reconciles its workspace, and reclaims the environment. If the placement is still transitioning or failed without proof that its environment is gone, the session remains unarchived; wait for the placement to settle, then retry. Agent main sessions remain protected. Already archived sessions are successful no-ops. Use --dry-run to validate every key and preview the result without changing session state.

Archive reasons are assigned automatically and displayed as human-readable text in the Control UI. Explicit archive commands record manual; maintenance-owned archives record their owning trigger. Missing reasons remain protected as legacy state. Under disk pressure, only sessions explicitly archived by maxEntries are eligible for automatic deletion after cheaper cleanup tiers are exhausted.

Delete sessions

Delete one or more sessions through the running Gateway:

openclaw sessions delete "agent:main:scratch-1"
openclaw sessions delete "agent:main:scratch-1" "agent:main:scratch-2" --yes
openclaw sessions delete "agent:work:scratch-1" --agent work --yes
openclaw sessions delete "agent:main:scratch-1" --dry-run
openclaw sessions delete "agent:main:scratch-1" --yes --json

Delete is destructive. In an interactive terminal it asks once before deleting the valid keys. Non-interactive and --json deletion requires --yes. Use --dry-run first when scripting a bulk cleanup.

Delete uses the same sessions.delete lifecycle operation as the Control UI, with transcript cleanup enabled. The Gateway removes the live session row, transcript generations, session-owned runtime state, bindings, boards, and other lifecycle artifacts. For ordinary sessions it retains the transcript as a verified .jsonl.deleted.<timestamp> archive; incognito transcripts are removed without an archive. If a managed worktree cannot be removed safely, the command reports the preserved branch and path for manual cleanup.

Both lifecycle commands:

• accept multiple keys and report one ordered result per key;
• use --agent <id> to select the owning agent, which is required for a global key outside the default agent;
• support --url, --token, --password, and --timeout <ms> Gateway connection overrides;
• return a non-zero exit when any key is unknown or any operation fails, while still processing the other valid keys;
• emit one stable JSON envelope with ok, operation, dryRun, and results when --json is set.

Dry-run uses the Gateway’s session list to report protected agent-main sessions as failed, even when the CLI uses different local session settings. Already archived sessions remain successful archive no-ops. Dry-run does not execute all Gateway lifecycle checks: global previews can still show an archive or delete action that the Gateway refuses. Explicitly selected non-default global deletion remains supported. The real archive or delete request is authoritative.

Example mixed-result JSON:

{
  "ok": false,
  "operation": "archive",
  "dryRun": false,
  "results": [
    { "key": "agent:main:scratch-1", "ok": true, "status": "archived" },
    {
      "key": "agent:main:missing",
      "ok": false,
      "status": "not_found",
      "error": "Session not found. Run openclaw sessions list --json to choose a valid key."
    }
  ]
}

Tail trajectory progress

openclaw sessions tail
openclaw sessions tail --follow
openclaw sessions tail --session-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123" --tail 25
openclaw sessions --agent work tail --follow
openclaw sessions --all-agents tail --follow

openclaw sessions tail renders recent runtime trajectory events as compact progress lines. Without --session-key, it tails running sessions first, then the latest stored session. --tail <count> controls how many existing events print before follow mode; default 80, and 0 starts at the current end. --follow keeps watching the selected SQLite-backed sessions. Session keys use fixed-width terminal columns, with long keys truncated at whole grapheme boundaries so CJK characters, combining accents, and joined emoji keep progress lines aligned.

A fully qualified --session-key selects its agent only when --agent, --store, and --all-agents are absent. An explicitly empty or whitespace-only --agent is rejected instead of selecting an inferred agent.

The progress view is intentionally conservative: prompt text, tool arguments, and tool result bodies are not printed. Tool calls show the tool name with {...redacted...}; tool results show status such as ok, error, or done; model completion lines show provider/model and terminal status. Provider failures and turns without delivery show error; cancellation shows aborted, timeouts show timeout, and successful completions (including delivered partial replies) show done.

Export a trajectory bundle

openclaw sessions export-trajectory --session-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123" --workspace .
openclaw sessions export-trajectory --session-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123" --output bug-123 --json

This is the command path used by the /export-trajectory slash command after the owner approves the exec request. The output directory is always resolved inside .openclaw/trajectory-exports/ under the selected workspace.

Cleanup maintenance

Run maintenance now instead of waiting for the next write cycle:

openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --agent work --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --all-agents --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --enforce
openclaw sessions cleanup --enforce --active-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123"
openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run --fix-dm-scope
openclaw sessions cleanup --json

openclaw sessions cleanup uses session.maintenance settings from config (Configuration reference):

• Scope note: openclaw sessions cleanup maintains session stores, transcripts, trajectory rows, and legacy trajectory sidecars. It does not prune cron run history. Task maintenance retains terminal cron history for 7 days (lost rows for 24 hours) and enforces the newest 2000 rows per job and history class as an additional ceiling (Task maintenance, Cron configuration).
• Cleanup also prunes unreferenced legacy/archive transcript artifacts, compaction checkpoints, and trajectory sidecars older than session.maintenance.pruneAfter; artifacts still referenced by SQLite session rows are preserved. Eligible empty files count as removed artifacts in both dry-run and applied summaries, even though they free zero bytes.
• Cleanup reports short-lived Gateway model-run probe cleanup separately as modelRunPruned. This only matches strict explicit keys shaped like agent:*:explicit:model-run-<uuid>. Retention is a fixed 24h and is pressure-gated: it only removes stale probe rows when session-entry maintenance/cap pressure is reached. When it runs, model-run cleanup happens before global stale cleanup and capping.
• maxEntries caps the unarchived session row count; archived rows do not consume it. Eligible ordinary overflow is reported as archive-cap and archived, while synthetic runtime overflow remains disposable. Protected unarchived rows are reported as keep and still consume the cap. If those protected rows prevent cleanup from reaching the cap, the unarchived store remains above it. --enforce does not remove that protection; unpin, wait for active work to finish, or explicitly delete sessions you no longer want to retain.

Flags:

Flag	Description
--dry-run	Preview how many entries would be pruned/capped without writing. In text mode, prints a per-session action table (Action, Key, Age, Model, Flags) plus a summary grouped by session label.
--enforce	Apply maintenance even when session.maintenance.mode is warn.
--fix-missing	Remove legacy entries whose archived transcript artifacts are missing or header-only/empty, even if they would not normally age/count out yet.
--fix-dm-scope	When session.dmScope is main, retire stale peer-keyed direct-DM rows left behind by earlier per-peer, per-channel-peer, or per-account-channel-peer routing. Use --dry-run first; applying removes those rows from SQLite and preserves their legacy transcript artifacts as deleted archives.
--active-key <key>	Protect a specific active key from automatic maintenance. It still counts toward maxEntries. Durable external conversation pointers, such as group sessions and thread-scoped chat sessions, are also kept by age/count/disk-budget maintenance.
--agent <id>	Run cleanup for one configured agent store.
--all-agents	Run cleanup for all configured agent stores.
--store <path>	Run against a specific legacy store selector path.
--json	Print a JSON summary. With --all-agents, output includes one summary per store.

When a Gateway is reachable, non-dry-run cleanup for configured agent stores is sent through the Gateway so it shares the same session-store writer as runtime traffic. Use --store <path> for explicit offline repair of a legacy store selector.

Offline cleanup loads trusted, permitted harness plugins so their session-owned resources are reclaimed with the deleted rows, even if the agent now uses a different model. Explicitly disabled or untrusted plugins are not run. If their resources may remain, cleanup prints a warning on stderr without changing the JSON result. Dry runs do not load harness plugins.

Applied artifact cleanup counts only successful file removals. If a file cannot be deleted, it contributes no freed bytes and remains part of disk usage. Unreferenced artifact cleanup and legacy disk-budget enforcement continue with other eligible files. Canonical SQLite archive pruning stops after a deletion error to retain its database recovery copy. If usage stays above the target, check filesystem permissions and retry after resolving the deletion failure.

openclaw sessions cleanup --all-agents --dry-run --json:

{
  "allAgents": true,
  "mode": "warn",
  "dryRun": true,
  "stores": [
    {
      "agentId": "main",
      "storePath": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/sessions.json",
      "beforeCount": 120,
      "afterCount": 80,
      "missing": 0,
      "dmScopeRetired": 0,
      "pruned": 40,
      "capped": 0
    },
    {
      "agentId": "work",
      "storePath": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/work/sessions/sessions.json",
      "beforeCount": 18,
      "afterCount": 18,
      "missing": 0,
      "dmScopeRetired": 0,
      "pruned": 0,
      "capped": 0
    }
  ]
}

Compact a session

Reclaim context budget for a wedged or oversized session. openclaw sessions compact <key> is the first-class wrapper around the sessions.compact Gateway RPC and requires a running Gateway.

openclaw sessions compact "agent:main:main"
openclaw sessions compact "agent:main:main" --max-lines 200
openclaw sessions compact "agent:work:main" --agent work --json

• Without --max-lines, the Gateway LLM-summarizes the transcript. The CLI does not impose a client deadline by default; the Gateway owns the configured compaction lifecycle.
• With --max-lines <n>, it permanently truncates the SQLite transcript to the last n lines. This path does not create a backup archive.
• --agent <id>: agent that owns the session; required for global keys.
• --url / --token / --password: Gateway connection overrides.
• --timeout <ms>: optional client-side RPC timeout in milliseconds.
• --json: print the raw RPC payload.

The command exits non-zero when the Gateway reports a failed compaction or is unreachable, so crons and scripts never mistake a silent no-op for success.

openclaw agent --message '/compact ...' is not a compaction path. Slash commands from the CLI are rejected by the authorized-sender check; that invocation exits non-zero with guidance pointing here instead of silently no-opping.

sessions.compact RPC

openclaw gateway call sessions.compact --params '<json>' accepts:

Field	Type	Required	Description
key	string	yes	Session key to compact (for example agent:main:main).
agentId	string	no	Agent id that owns the session (for global keys).
maxLines	integer ≥ 1	no	Truncate to the last N lines instead of LLM summarization.

Example LLM-summarize response:

{
  "ok": true,
  "key": "agent:main:main",
  "compacted": true,
  "result": { "tokensBefore": 243868, "tokensAfter": 34941 }
}

Example truncate response (--max-lines 200):

{
  "ok": true,
  "key": "agent:main:main",
  "compacted": true,
  "kept": 200
}

Related

• Session config
• Session management
• Compaction
• CLI reference