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openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Feature]: [TUI] Add optional message timestamps to chat view [1 participants]

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openclaw/openclaw#56293•Fetched 2026-04-08 01:42:41
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When using openclaw tui over SSH (e.g., via PuTTY), there is no way to see the timestamp of each individual message. This makes it hard to track when conversations happened, especially in longer sessions.

Root Cause

When using openclaw tui over SSH (e.g., via PuTTY), there is no way to see the timestamp of each individual message. This makes it hard to track when conversations happened, especially in longer sessions.

Code Example

12:31  HP.Jiang:  hello
 12:33  AI:    hi there
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Summary

When using openclaw tui over SSH (e.g., via PuTTY), there is no way to see the timestamp of each individual message. This makes it hard to track when conversations happened, especially in longer sessions.

Problem to solve

Add an optional timestamp prefix to each message in the TUI chat view, displaying the time each message was sent/received in a format like [HH:MM:SS] at the start of every line.

Proposed solution

  • Using tmux status bar: Only shows one timestamp at the bottom, not per-message
    • Using terminal escape sequences: Fragile and hard to implement correctly
    • External logging: Doesn't show in the TUI itself

Alternatives considered

No response

Impact

A simple toggle like --timestamps or a setting in openclaw.json to enable this would be ideal. Something like:


12:31  HP.Jiang:  hello
12:33  AI:    hi there

This is especially useful for users connecting remotely via PuTTY or similar terminals where native timestamp support is limited.

Evidence/examples

No response

Additional information

No response

extent analysis

Fix Plan

To add an optional timestamp prefix to each message in the TUI chat view, you can modify the openclaw tui code to include a timestamp toggle. Here are the steps:

  • Add a --timestamps flag to the openclaw tui command
  • Modify the message rendering function to include the timestamp prefix when the flag is enabled
  • Update the openclaw.json configuration file to include a timestamps setting

Example code:

import datetime

# ...

def render_message(message):
    if args.timestamps or config.get('timestamps'):
        timestamp = datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%H:%M')
        return f'{timestamp} {message}'
    return message

# ...

Verification

To verify that the fix worked, run openclaw tui with the --timestamps flag and check that each message is prefixed with a timestamp. You can also update the openclaw.json configuration file to enable timestamps and verify that the setting is respected.

Extra Tips

  • Use a consistent timestamp format throughout the application
  • Consider adding a setting to customize the timestamp format
  • Make sure to handle cases where the timestamp cannot be determined (e.g. offline messages)

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#authentication setup#request error#file not found#serialization error#model compatibility

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