PR #72913: fix(memory-core): keep rotated cron transcripts out of dreaming corpus + add operator filters

• Repository: openclaw/openclaw
• Author: zqchris
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/72913

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Closes #72611.

Problem

Two related leaks let isolated cron transcripts flow into the Dreaming session corpus (memory/.dreams/session-corpus/<day>.txt) on real deployments, even with sessionTarget: isolated and existing generatedByCronRun / DIRECT_CRON_PROMPT_RE filtering:

1. Path-comparison miss after rotation. loadSessionTranscriptClassificationForSessionsDir indexes cron / dreaming-narrative transcripts by the live sessionFile absolute path read from sessions.json. As soon as that transcript is rotated to *.jsonl.deleted.<ts> (or *.trajectory.jsonl[.deleted.<ts>]) the on-disk path no longer matches the live entry, so the rotated artifact is no longer attributed to the cron session. dreaming-phases.collectSessionIngestionBatches then reads it as a normal transcript and ingests its [cron:<id> ...] content lines. Real-world recurrence in #72611 with paths like main/sessions/<uuid>.jsonl.deleted.2026-04-25T06-33-10.801Z.

2. No operator-facing exclusion knob. dreaming.* only exposes phase-level settings. There is no way to say "skip every cron run for the main agent" or "skip session keys starting with agent:ops:" without forking memory-core. Cron runs whose key is the broader cron:<id> shape (without :run:<runId>) are not even matched by isCronRunSessionKey so the built-in classifier silently lets them through.

Fix

Two complementary changes in one commit:

1. Session-id-aware classification (rotated artifacts)

SessionTranscriptClassification now also exposes session-id sets and reverse-lookup maps:

type SessionTranscriptClassification = {
  // existing path sets retained for back-compat
  dreamingNarrativeTranscriptPaths: ReadonlySet<string>;
  cronRunTranscriptPaths: ReadonlySet<string>;
  // new: sessionId-keyed sets for rotated artifacts
  dreamingNarrativeSessionIds: ReadonlySet<string>;
  cronRunSessionIds: ReadonlySet<string>;
  // new: reverse lookup so callers can resolve sessionKey for any transcript
  transcriptPathToSessionKey: ReadonlyMap<string, string>;
  sessionIdToSessionKey: ReadonlyMap<string, string>;
};

New helpers in session-files.ts (also re-exported from openclaw/plugin-sdk/memory-core-host-engine-qmd):

• extractSessionIdFromTranscriptFileName(fileName) — handles <id>.jsonl, <id>.jsonl.deleted.<ts>, <id>.jsonl.reset.<ts>, <id>.trajectory.jsonl[.deleted.<ts> | .reset.<ts>]. Returns null for non-transcript file shapes.
• isCronRunTranscriptPath(classification, absPath) / isDreamingNarrativeTranscriptPath(...) — try direct path lookup first, fall back to extractSessionIdFromTranscriptFileName(...) plus the new sessionId set.
• lookupSessionKeyForTranscriptPath(classification, absPath) — resolves the owning session key for a (possibly rotated) transcript; needed by the operator filter below.

dreaming-phases.collectSessionIngestionBatches is wired to use the new helpers in place of Set.has(normalizedPath).

2. Operator-facing dreaming session filters

New dreaming.sessionFilter config block in extensions/memory-core/openclaw.plugin.json:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "memory-core": {
        "config": {
          "dreaming": {
            "sessionFilter": {
              "excludeCronJobIds":          ["job-1", "job-2"],
              "excludeSessionKeyPrefixes":  ["agent:main:cron:", "agent:ops:"],
              "excludeAgentIds":            ["batch-runner"],
              "excludeSourcePathRegex":     ["^ops/sessions/.*\\.jsonl$"]
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

resolveSessionIngestionExcludePredicate(cfg, logger) builds a single predicate per ingestion sweep:

• Returns a no-op () => false when no filter is configured (zero overhead in the common case).
• Compiles excludeSourcePathRegex once; invalid patterns are logged as warnings and skipped, never throw.
• Operator-driven; the built-in classifier still runs, so this is defense-in-depth for shapes the classifier misses (notably cron:<id> without :run:).

excludeSessionKeyPrefixes is the most flexible knob since it covers both cron:<id>:run:<runId> and cron:<id> shapes via a single agent:<id>:cron: prefix.

Tests

src/memory-host-sdk/host/session-files.test.ts (+10 tests, 34 total):

• extractSessionIdFromTranscriptFileName — primary jsonl, .jsonl.deleted.<ts>, .jsonl.reset.<ts>, .trajectory.jsonl, .trajectory.jsonl.deleted.<ts>, non-transcript / null shapes.
• isCronRunTranscriptPath / isDreamingNarrativeTranscriptPath — live path classification, rotated .deleted.<ts> recovery, rotated .trajectory.jsonl.deleted.<ts> recovery, live .trajectory.jsonl recovery, unrelated transcripts not matched.
• lookupSessionKeyForTranscriptPath — live path, rotated path, unknown path.

extensions/memory-core/src/dreaming-phases.test.ts (+2 tests, 32 total):

• "skips rotated cron run transcripts (.jsonl.deleted.<ts>) via session id (#72611)" — full ingestion harness, asserts session-corpus/2026-04-05.txt is not created.
• "respects dreaming.sessionFilter.excludeSessionKeyPrefixes for operator-driven exclusion" — uses a cron:<id> (non-run) key the built-in classifier wouldn't catch; only the operator filter drops it.

Out of scope

• Does not change isCronRunSessionKey regex — kept strict for back-compat. Operators who want to drop cron:<id> (non-run) shapes use the new excludeSessionKeyPrefixes knob.
• Does not change disk repair (session-file-repair.ts) — only the in-memory ingestion path.
• Live cron transcripts already in the corpus stay; this fix only stops new ingestion. A separate cleanup task (e.g. openclaw doctor --fix extension) could prune historical leaks.

Verified

• pnpm tsgo:core ✓
• pnpm tsgo:extensions ✓
• pnpm test src/memory-host-sdk/host/session-files.test.ts → 34/34 pass
• pnpm test extensions/memory-core/src/dreaming-phases.test.ts → 32/32 pass
• pnpm check:changed → all gates pass (lint / typecheck / 0 import cycles / policy guards)

Changed files

• CHANGELOG.md (modified, +1/-0)
• extensions/memory-core/openclaw.plugin.json (modified, +47/-0)
• extensions/memory-core/src/dreaming-phases.test.ts (modified, +441/-0)
• extensions/memory-core/src/dreaming-phases.ts (modified, +224/-6)
• src/memory-host-sdk/engine-qmd.ts (modified, +4/-0)
• src/memory-host-sdk/host/session-files.test.ts (modified, +232/-1)
• src/memory-host-sdk/host/session-files.ts (modified, +186/-4)