PR #73679: fix(ui): preserve queued chat messages across session switches

• Repository: openclaw/openclaw
• Author: tmimmanuel
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/73679

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Summary

• Problem: Control UI queued chat messages were stored only in the active chatQueue and were cleared when switching sessions.
• Why it matters: A queued follow-up could silently disappear if the user navigated away before the active run finished.
• What changed: Queue state is now preserved per session and restored when switching back; overview session switching uses the same session-switch helper.
• What did NOT change (scope boundary): This does not persist queued messages to the gateway or disk; it preserves the existing client-side queue across in-UI session navigation.

Change Type (select all)

• Bug fix
• Feature
• Refactor required for the fix
• Docs
• Security hardening
• Chore/infra

Scope (select all touched areas)

• Gateway / orchestration
• Skills / tool execution
• Auth / tokens
• Memory / storage
• Integrations
• API / contracts
• UI / DX
• CI/CD / infra

Linked Issue/PR

• Closes #73621
• Related #
• This PR fixes a bug or regression

Root Cause (if applicable)

• Root cause: resetChatStateForSessionSwitch() unconditionally cleared state.chatQueue, even when the queue belonged to the session being left.
• Missing detection / guardrail: Existing session-switch tests checked reset behavior but did not assert queued message preservation.
• Contributing context (if known): Queued messages are client-side until flushed, so clearing local queue state drops them silently.

Regression Test Plan (if applicable)

• Coverage level that should have caught this:
  • Unit test
  • Seam / integration test
  • End-to-end test
  • Existing coverage already sufficient
• Target test or file: ui/src/ui/app-render.helpers.node.test.ts
• Scenario the test should lock in: Queue a message in one session, switch away, then switch back and confirm the queued item is restored.
• Why this is the smallest reliable guardrail: The bug is in session-switch state reset logic, so a focused helper test covers the failure directly.
• Existing test that already covers this (if any): N/A
• If no new test is added, why not: N/A

User-visible / Behavior Changes

Queued Control UI messages remain associated with their original session when navigating to another session and are visible again when returning.

Changed files

• ui/src/ui/app-render.helpers.node.test.ts (modified, +51/-1)
• ui/src/ui/app-render.helpers.ts (modified, +21/-1)
• ui/src/ui/app-render.ts (modified, +1/-14)
• ui/src/ui/app-view-state.ts (modified, +2/-1)
• ui/src/ui/app.ts (modified, +1/-0)