PR #72005: feat: server-rendered status footer and context threshold warnings

• Repository: openclaw/openclaw
• Author: wearegoodthanks
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/72005

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Summary

Server-rendered status footer and one-shot context-usage warnings for outbound chat messages. Fixes the "model lies about its own runtime state" failure mode in #71984 by moving footer authorship below the LLM.

Why

Asking a model to append a status footer like 📚 X% (Xk/200k) · 🧹 N compactions · 🧠 model to its own messages is structurally unreliable. Logged production regressions show the model writing 5% (10k/200k) while actual context was 134% (268k/200k). Three escalating prompt rules failed to prevent this. Any field the model writes about its own runtime is fabricable; the runtime knows the truth and should write it.

What ships

Feature A: footer renderer + stripper

• New pure module src/utils/outbound-footer.ts exporting stripFabricatedFooter, renderFooter, evaluateContextWarning, and the composite processOutboundText hook.
• messages.outboundFooter.enabled (bool) and messages.outboundFooter.template (string) on MessagesConfig.
• The outbound pipeline in sendMessage always strips any model-written footer matching the canonical pattern, regardless of config. There is no opt-out for the strip step. When the renderer is enabled, a server-authored footer is appended in its place using live values from session state.
• Supported placeholders: {context_pct}, {context_tokens}, {context_limit}, {compactions}, {model_alias}. Unknown placeholders are left as the literal {name} form so config typos stay visible.

Feature B: context threshold warning

• messages.contextWarning.enabled (bool) and messages.contextWarning.thresholds (number array, default [70, 85, 95]).
• When usage crosses the highest unwarned threshold for the session, the hook prepends a single line:

  ⚠️ Context 90% - consider /new

• Warning state is tracked on SessionEntry.contextWarningThresholdsTriggered, so each threshold fires exactly once per session.

Pipeline placement

The hook lives in src/infra/outbound/footer-hook.ts and is wired into sendMessage before the outbound payload plan is built. It mirrors the lazy-loading pattern already used by the message gateway runtime so importing it does not pull a heavy session-store dependency tree into every consumer. Failures fall through to the original text: the hook never blocks delivery.

Tests

• src/utils/outbound-footer.test.ts covers the stripper, the renderer, and the threshold-warning evaluator (22 tests).
• Full unit-fast project: 6558 tests passing.
• Full infra project: 2543 tests passing.
• Full auto-reply project: 1598 tests passing.
• pnpm tsgo:core and pnpm tsgo:extensions clean.
• pnpm build clean.

Docs

New page at docs/concepts/outbound-footer.md covering setup, placeholders, and where the values come from.

Acceptance criteria from #71984

• Config schema for footer.template with documented variables
• Runtime renders/appends footer on outbound channel messages when configured
• Variables sourced from same telemetry as session_status (context tokens, compactions, model alias)
• Per-channel enable/disable: yes via the standard channels.<id> overrides on messages.outboundFooter
• Optional [[footer]] directive variant for explicit placement: not implemented in this PR. The hook always appends at end-of-message when enabled. Happy to add the directive variant in a follow-up if reviewers want it.
• Docs page covering setup + variable reference

Closes #71984.

Changed files

• docs/concepts/outbound-footer.md (added, +108/-0)
• src/config/schema.base.generated.ts (modified, +29/-0)
• src/config/sessions/types.ts (modified, +6/-0)
• src/config/types.messages.ts (modified, +35/-0)
• src/config/zod-schema.session.ts (modified, +14/-0)
• src/infra/outbound/footer-hook.ts (added, +209/-0)
• src/infra/outbound/message.ts (modified, +11/-1)
• src/utils/outbound-footer.test.ts (added, +225/-0)
• src/utils/outbound-footer.ts (added, +234/-0)