openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Google Meet: support reliable headless agent join with audio/transcription health checks [1 participants]

Summary

We tested the OpenClaw Google Meet integration on macOS with OpenClaw 2026.4.24 and were able to get partial/visual meeting presence, but not a reliable realtime audio participant. This issue is both a bug report from the failed test and a product request: please move the Google Meet integration toward a supported headless agent join path, with listen/transcribe as the minimum useful mode and bidirectional voice as the target.

Why this matters

The desired workflow is: invite or ask an OpenClaw agent to attend a Google Meet, then have the agent listen, transcribe/summarize, and optionally answer questions in the meeting (e.g. someone says "hey Lando" and the agent responds). This would be more valuable than a passive notes product because the agent already has workspace/project context and can be interactive.

In our case the agent has its own Google Workspace email identity (lando@...) and can be invited to calendar events. That may not be true for all OpenClaw agents, so the integration likely needs to support multiple identity/join modes:

• Workspace email / calendar-invited agent identity
• Guest display-name join with host lobby admission
• Possibly delegated/service-account style calendar discovery where available
• Explicit meeting URL join when no calendar invite exists

Environment tested

• OpenClaw: 2026.4.24
• Host: macOS Mac mini
• Browser path: Chrome / Google Meet plugin, non-dial-in requirement
• Audio bridge tools available/attempted: BlackHole 2ch and SoX
• Desired transport: Chrome/Meet audio, not phone dial-in/Twilio
• Realtime provider reported connected during one attempt

What happened

We observed two different states that can be confused with success:

1. An openclaw googlemeet join session reported Chrome/realtime active and provider readiness, but audio health stayed idle:

   • audioInputActive=false
   • audioOutputActive=false
   • lastInputBytes=0
   • lastOutputBytes=0
   • The process was later killed.

2. A later direct/manual Chrome flow reached Google Meet lobby/visual presence as the agent display identity, but at the time the human tested audio the plugin had no active session (openclaw googlemeet status showed no sessions). So the browser/lobby presence was not an active realtime audio bridge.

We also saw audio routing mismatch/brittleness:

• Meet microphone showed BlackHole 2ch.
• Meet speaker output remained Mac mini Speakers / built-in output.
• System default input was BlackHole; output was Mac mini Speakers.
• This likely prevented a complete bidirectional audio path: human audio did not reach realtime input, and generated audio had no clear route back into Meet.

Browser automation/recovery was also brittle in this setup because some Playwright/browser operations were unavailable/unsupported in the gateway build (snapshot, screenshot, navigate, act:evaluate), making it hard to reliably inspect or recover the Meet tab/session.

Expected behavior

A successful Meet integration should have an explicit, inspectable lifecycle such as:

1. Join requested for a meeting URL or calendar event.
2. Agent identity selected (invited Google Workspace user vs guest display name).
3. Lobby/admission state reported separately from "joined" state.
4. Once admitted, realtime bridge owns the meeting session.
5. Health reports actual audio movement, not just provider/browser readiness:
   • input bytes/levels from Meet into realtime
   • output bytes/levels from realtime back into Meet
   • transcript/live captions if listen-only mode is enabled
6. If audio bridge is unavailable, the command should fail clearly with remediation steps rather than appearing joined-but-deaf/mute.

Recommendations

Product direction

Please add/support a headless Meet agent mode that does not depend on visible browser automation, physical speakers, or a hand-built BlackHole/SoX route when possible.

Minimum useful target:

• Join meeting as an agent identity
• Listen/transcribe reliably
• Produce meeting summary/action items afterward

Full target:

• Bidirectional audio using realtime voice
• Wake/attention phrase support (e.g. "hey Lando")
• Ability to answer meeting questions using the agent's OpenClaw context

Identity / meeting-entry model

Please document and support the expected way an agent gets into a meeting:

• Is each agent expected to have a Google Workspace mailbox and calendar invite?
• Can an agent join as a guest display name only?
• How should lobby admission be surfaced?
• Should calendar invites to the agent email automatically create a joinable session?
• What permissions/OAuth scopes are required for invited-user mode?

Audio / health model

Please separate these states in status output:

• browser tab opened
• lobby waiting
• admitted to meeting
• realtime provider connected
• audio input active from meeting
• audio output active to meeting
• transcript/caption stream active

Provider connected + browser present is not enough; status should show whether the bridge is actually hearing and speaking.

Failure handling

If Chrome transport requires a virtual audio device today, please provide:

• A supported setup guide for macOS
• Required BlackHole device/channel configuration
• Required system input/output settings
• Required Google Meet mic/speaker settings
• A built-in preflight check that confirms both directions before joining or before declaring success

Even better, if there is a way to capture/render Meet audio without OS-level virtual devices, that should be the default.

User impact

Right now it is easy to mistake visual/lobby presence for a working agent participant. The practical result is an agent that appears to have joined but is deaf/mute. For an executive assistant use case, this is worse than failing early because the human expects the assistant to be present in the meeting.

A robust headless/listen-first Meet integration would be a major improvement over passive meeting note tools because OpenClaw agents can bring project memory, calendar/email context, and interactive follow-up into the meeting.