Feature Request

Problem

When requireMention: true is set for a Slack channel/account, agents correctly require an explicit @mention to respond in group channels. However, once an agent replies in a Slack thread, every subsequent message in that thread bypasses the mention gate because OpenClaw treats all thread messages as "implicit reply-to-bot" mentions.

This is documented behavior (from docs/channels/groups.md):

Replying to a bot message counts as an implicit mention (when the channel supports reply metadata).

The core mention gating logic in resolveMentionGating() treats implicitMention identically to an explicit mention:

const effectiveWasMentioned = params.wasMentioned || implicit || bypass;

In multi-agent setups (e.g., 3 Slack bots in the same workspace), this causes all agents that have previously replied in a thread to respond to every new message, even when only one agent (or none) was tagged. The user loses control over which agent speaks.

Expected Behavior

When a strict mention mode is enabled, agents should only respond to messages where they are explicitly @mentioned, regardless of whether they previously participated in the thread.

Proposed Solution

Add a requireMention: "strict" mode (or a separate disableImplicitMention: true flag) that disables the implicit reply-to-bot thread mention behavior. When enabled:

• Only explicit <@botId> app mentions pass the mention gate
• Only configured mentionPatterns regex matches pass the mention gate
• Replying in a thread where the bot previously responded does not count as a mention

This could be implemented at multiple levels:

• Per-channel: channels.slack.channels."*".requireMention: "strict"
• Per-account: channels.slack.accounts.*.requireMention: "strict"
• Global: messages.groupChat.requireMention: "strict"

Affected Channels

This applies to all channels that support implicit reply-to-bot mentions: Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, and Microsoft Teams.

Workaround

Currently there is no workaround. Setting requireMention: true at both channel and account levels does not prevent implicit thread mentions from bypassing the gate.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.5
• Channel: Slack (socket mode, multi-account)
• Config: channels.slack.channels."*".requireMention: true + per-account requireMention: true