openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix WhatsApp per-peer sessions missing buildDirectChatContext delivery context injection [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

WhatsApp (and likely Signal/Telegram) per-peer direct sessions are systematically missing the buildDirectChatContext delivery context injection that Slack sessions receive. This causes the model to leak internal process narration into messages sent directly to contacts.

Expected behavior

WhatsApp per-peer sessions with chatType: "direct" should receive:

"You are in a WhatsApp direct conversation. Your replies are automatically sent to this conversation."

...just as Slack sessions receive:

"You are in a Slack direct conversation. Your replies are automatically sent to this conversation."

Actual behavior

WhatsApp per-peer sessions receive only the raw inbound_meta.v2 JSON block:

{
  "schema": "openclaw.inbound_meta.v2",
  "account_id": "default",
  "channel": "whatsapp",
  "provider": "whatsapp",
  "surface": "whatsapp",
  "chat_type": "direct"
}

No buildDirectChatContext output follows. The model has no signal that its text output is delivered directly to the external contact.

Evidence

Verified across 30+ session trajectory files:

• ALL Slack sessions → have direct conversation context in compiled system prompt
• ALL WhatsApp sessions → missing direct conversation context

The session origin config correctly has chatType: "direct". The buildDirectChatContext() function in get-reply-CSQ5BMwG.js exists and is gated on sessionCtx.ChatType === "direct" || sessionCtx.ChatType === "dm". The function result is included in extraSystemPromptParts. But the output never appears in the compiled system prompt for WhatsApp channels.

Impact

Without the delivery context, the model (tested: Claude Opus 4-6, Claude Sonnet 4-6) emits chain-of-thought narration as regular text content alongside tool calls. Since only the final stopReason=stop message is delivered to WhatsApp, internal process notes in that final message ("Good, Reda's been notified. Now I'll acknowledge Mia's message warmly...") are sent directly to the contact.

This has occurred multiple times (April 16-18 in 3-way DMs, April 25 in per-peer DM) and is a systematic issue, not a one-off model failure.

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.4.22 (when incident occurred) / 2026.4.24 (current, bug persists)
• macOS, gateway mode
• WhatsApp channel with per-channel-peer DM scope