openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Per-channel session scoping traps exec approvals when channel delivery fails (Telegram 4096 case) [1 participants]

Summary

OpenClaw sessions are scoped per-channel (e.g., agent:main:telegram:<chat>, agent:main:discord:<channel>). Exec approvals generated from a given session are dispatched to that session's channel. When the channel fails to deliver the approval (e.g., Telegram rejects with 400: Bad Request: message is too long), the approval is effectively trapped in a channel where it cannot be surfaced, even if the same user has other channels (Discord, Mac Desktop) configured and working.

Reproduction

Setup:

• OpenClaw 2026.4.8 on macOS
• Agent main with independent sessions on Telegram, Discord, and Mac Desktop
• Both channels.telegram.execApprovals and channels.discord.execApprovals configured with the same owner as approver
• Owner actively uses Telegram as primary chat channel

Trigger:

1. Send a message to the agent on Telegram that causes a Tier 2 action requiring approval
2. The command has enough context that the generated approval body exceeds 4096 chars
3. Telegram rejects: [telegram] approvals: failed to send request <id>: GrammyError: Bad Request: message is too long
4. The approval times out after the default window

Observed:

• The approval request is generated and has a valid ID
• Telegram delivery fails (expected: 4096 limit)
• Discord and Mac Desktop never receive the approval request even though they are configured surfaces with the same owner
• The agent is stuck: it cannot proceed (no approval), but the owner cannot act (no button, no notification)

Expected: When one approval delivery surface fails for a given session, either:

• Fallback: the approval should be retried on other configured surfaces for the same owner (Discord, Mac Desktop)
• Fanout: OR dispatch in parallel to all configured surfaces from the start, so per-surface failures are absorbed by the others
• Explicit config: OR at minimum, expose a config flag like approvals.exec.forwarding.mode = \"all-configured-channels\" that fans out regardless of session origin

Why this matters

• subagent announce messages got chunking in #25481 / #25110. That's for regular messages where chunking is trivial.
• Exec approvals cannot be chunked because Telegram inline buttons must attach to a single message. So the chunking fix doesn't help here.
• The result is that any agent building complex approval requests on Telegram eventually hits the 4096 wall and becomes unusable on that channel for Tier 2 work, even when other channels would work fine.
• This creates a trap specific to users running multi-channel setups who rely on Telegram as primary conversation surface.

Question to maintainers / community

Is there a current config workaround to make exec approvals session-origin-independent — so that any owner-configured channel can act as an approval surface for any session?

Specifically:

• Does `approvals.exec.forwarding` with `mode: "both"` and explicit `targets` achieve this? The schema description says "session uses origin chat, targets uses configured targets, both sends to both paths" — is "both" enough to make a Telegram-origin approval also surface on Discord?
• Is the Mac Desktop app supposed to be a session-agnostic approval surface by design?
• Any known workaround for users hitting the 4096 limit on Telegram-session approvals?

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.4.8
• macOS 26.3.1
• Gateway running as LaunchAgent
• Channels: Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp
• `approvals.exec.mode: "targets"` currently set
• No `approvals.exec.forwarding` block configured (using legacy/default field?)

Related

• #25481 / #25110: subagent announce chunking (different code path, doesn't apply here)
• #63067: memory-core exclusive slot gating (same user, different subsystem)