Description

When an outbound Telegram message includes channelData (e.g., inline buttons, quote text), the delivery path goes through telegramOutbound.sendPayload() instead of sendText(). The sendPayload path sends the full text in a single sendMessage API call without chunking, causing Telegram to reject it with 400: Bad Request: message is too long.

The message then enters the delivery-recovery queue, retries, and is eventually permanently skipped (1 skipped (max retries)), silently dropping the user's message.

Root Cause

src/channels/plugins/outbound/telegram.ts — the telegramOutbound adapter correctly configures:

chunker: markdownToTelegramHtmlChunks,
textChunkLimit: 4000,

But these only take effect for the sendText path (via deliver.ts → sendTextChunks). The sendPayload path (L103-108) directly calls send(to, text, ...) without splitting.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have an OpenClaw agent generate a response longer than 4096 characters
2. The response includes channelData.telegram (e.g., inline buttons)
3. Observe in gateway logs:

   telegram message failed: Call to 'sendMessage' failed! (400: Bad Request: message is too long)
   Delivery recovery complete: 0 recovered, 0 failed, 1 skipped (max retries)
   

Expected Behavior

Long messages should be automatically split into chunks ≤4000 chars using the existing markdownToTelegramHtmlChunks chunker, with inline buttons attached to the last chunk.

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.2.26
• macOS (Darwin arm64)
• Node 25.6.1