Summary

Cron jobs with delivery.mode = "announce" fail to deliver to Slack with error "cron announce delivery failed". The underlying cause is gateway closed (1008): pairing required. The job itself executes successfully and generates a summary, but the announce delivery step fails.

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure a local gateway with loopback bind and token auth
2. Configure Slack channel plugin (socket mode)
3. Create an isolated cron job with announce delivery:

   openclaw cron add \
     --name "test-announce" \
     --cron "0 * * * *" \
     --session isolated \
     --message "Test message" \
     --announce \
     --channel slack \
     --to "channel:CXXXXXXXXXX"

4. Run the job: openclaw cron run <job-id>
5. Check run history: openclaw cron runs --id <job-id>

Expected behavior

Job completes and summary is delivered to the specified Slack channel.

Actual behavior

Job completes with status: "error" and error: "cron announce delivery failed".

OpenClaw version

2026.2.19-2

Operating system

Windows 11 (10.0.26100)

Install method

npm

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

gateway connect failed: Error: pairing required
Subagent completion direct announce failed for run <job-id>: gateway closed (1008): pairing required
Gateway target: ws://127.0.0.1:18789
Source: local loopback


Additional log details:

{
  "cause": "pairing-required",
  "reason": "scope-upgrade",
  "handshake": "failed"
}


Workaround**: Set `delivery.mode = "none"` and instruct the job to use the `message` tool directly. This works but bypasses the announce delivery feature.

Impact and severity

No response

Additional information

No response