`openclaw tasks`

Inspect durable background tasks and Task Flow state. With no subcommand, openclaw tasks is equivalent to openclaw tasks list.

See Background Tasks for the lifecycle and delivery model, and its tasks audit section for full finding descriptions.

Usage

openclaw tasks
openclaw tasks list
openclaw tasks list --runtime acp
openclaw tasks list --status running
openclaw tasks list --status blocked
openclaw tasks show <lookup>
openclaw tasks notify <lookup> state_changes
openclaw tasks cancel <lookup>
openclaw tasks retry <lookup> [lookup...]
openclaw tasks dismiss <lookup> [lookup...]
openclaw tasks audit
openclaw tasks maintenance
openclaw tasks maintenance --apply
openclaw tasks flow list
openclaw tasks flow show <lookup>
openclaw tasks flow cancel <lookup>

Root Options

Flag	Description
--json	Output JSON.
--runtime <name>	Filter by kind: subagent, acp, cron, or cli.
--status <name>	Filter by status: queued, running, succeeded, failed, timed_out, cancelled, lost, or blocked.

Subcommands

list

openclaw tasks list [--runtime <name>] [--status <name>] [--json]

Lists tracked background tasks newest first.

Use --status blocked to find completed tasks whose result delivery is blocked. These tasks retain their stored succeeded status and also remain included in --status succeeded results; JSON task records keep the same stored status and terminalOutcome fields.

show

openclaw tasks show <lookup> [--json]

Shows one task by task ID, run ID, or session key.

notify

openclaw tasks notify <lookup> <done_only|state_changes|silent>

Changes the notification policy for a running task.

cancel

openclaw tasks cancel <lookup>

Cancels a running background task.

retry

openclaw tasks retry <lookup> [lookup...]

Retries 1-10 blocked subagent completion deliveries. The child execution stays successful; retry creates a fenced delivery generation from the retained canonical result. An ambiguous earlier acknowledgement can still cause a duplicate visible result.

Retry and dismissal select the task’s exact retained run, never another result from the same child session. Unrelated parent turns leave suspended completions blocked until you retry them. Upgrading from an older release repairs missing task bindings before loading runs, including runs that have not finished yet. Only unambiguous bindings are repaired; conflicting records remain unchanged and cannot be recovered by guessing from a shared session.

dismiss

openclaw tasks dismiss <lookup> [lookup...]

Records intentional non-delivery for 1-10 blocked subagent completions. The task continues to show a blocked terminal outcome and retains its result until the 7-day completion-retention window expires.

audit

openclaw tasks audit [--severity <warn|error>] [--code <name>] [--limit <n>] [--json]

Surfaces stale, lost, delivery-failed, or otherwise inconsistent task and Task Flow records. Lost tasks retained until cleanupAfter are warnings; expired or unstamped lost tasks are errors.

--code accepts task codes (stale_queued, stale_running, lost, delivery_failed, missing_cleanup, inconsistent_timestamps) and additional Task Flow codes (restore_failed, stale_waiting, stale_blocked, cancel_stuck, missing_linked_tasks, blocked_task_missing). See Background Tasks for severity and trigger detail per code.

maintenance

openclaw tasks maintenance [--apply] [--json]

Previews or applies task and Task Flow reconciliation, cleanup stamping, pruning, and stale cron run session registry cleanup.

For cron tasks, reconciliation uses persisted run logs/job state before marking an old active task lost, so completed cron runs do not become false audit errors just because the in-memory Gateway runtime state is gone. Offline CLI audit and maintenance are not authoritative for the Gateway’s process-local cron, CLI, or ACP liveness. They retain active tasks of those kinds when the local runtime cannot prove completion. Gateway maintenance marks CLI tasks with a run id/source id lost when their live run context is gone, even if an old child-session row remains.

When applied, maintenance also prunes cron:<jobId>:run:<uuid> session registry rows older than 7 days while preserving currently running cron jobs and leaving non-cron session rows untouched.

flow

openclaw tasks flow list [--status <name>] [--json]
openclaw tasks flow show <lookup> [--json]
openclaw tasks flow cancel <lookup>

Inspects or cancels durable Task Flow state under the task ledger. There is no top-level openclaw flows command. Both flow show and flow cancel accept a flow ID or its stable owner key as <lookup>.

flow list --status accepts queued, running, waiting, blocked, succeeded, failed, cancelled, or lost. See Task Flow for ownership and lifecycle details.

Related

• CLI reference
• Background tasks