openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: Feishu @ mention tags are escaped by MarkdownIt, breaking message delivery

Bug Description

When sending messages to Feishu (Lark) with @ mentions using the XML format <at user_id="...">name</at>, the MarkdownIt renderer in OpenClaw escapes the < and > characters to < and >. This causes the Feishu API to receive malformed mention tags that it cannot parse, resulting in:

1. The mention not being rendered as an actual @ mention in Feishu
2. The mentioned user not receiving a notification/push
3. The raw <at user_id="..."> text being displayed instead

Root Cause

In dist/send-B3SJ2DWf.js (compiled from the Feishu channel plugin), the message text is processed through MarkdownIt before being sent to the Feishu API. MarkdownIt treats the <at> tags as HTML and escapes them according to Markdown safety rules.

Current code location: ~/.npm-global/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/send-B3SJ2DWf.js

let rawText = text ?? "";
// The text here contains <at user_id="...">name</at>
// After MarkdownIt processing, it becomes &lt;at user_id="..."&gt;name&lt;/at&gt;

Temporary Fix Applied

We applied a temporary fix by adding reverse-escape regex replacements before the MarkdownIt processing:

// Temporary fix: reverse-escape Feishu <at> tags to fix MarkdownIt escaping issue
rawText = rawText.replace(/&lt;at\s+/g, "<at ")
                 .replace(/&lt;\/at&gt;/g, "</at>")
                 .replace(/&gt;([^<]*)$/g, ">$1")
                 .replace(/&quot;/g, '"');

This fix is fragile and may break with future OpenClaw updates.

Expected Behavior

The <at user_id="...">name</at> tags should be preserved as-is when sending to Feishu, without being escaped by MarkdownIt.

Suggested Fix

1. Option A: Exclude <at> tags from MarkdownIt escaping by pre-processing them before Markdown rendering, similar to how code blocks are protected.

2. Option B: Use a Feishu-specific post-processing step that unescapes <at> tags after Markdown rendering but before API submission.

3. Option C: Use Feishu's native mention API (buildMentionedMessage) instead of inline XML tags, though this may require changes to how OpenClaw handles mentions across channels.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.5.12
• Channel: Feishu (Lark)
• File affected: dist/send-B3SJ2DWf.js (Feishu send handler)

Additional Context

This issue affects all crew members on our ship who need to @ mention each other in group chats. The current workaround requires manual patching of compiled OpenClaw code, which needs to be re-applied after every update.

Thank you for maintaining OpenClaw! Let me know if you need more details or reproduction steps.