Bug

The pre-compaction memory flush prompt explicitly instructs the agent to update SESSION_HANDOFF.md:

ALSO: Update SESSION_HANDOFF.md with current session state (what was being worked on, background processes, pending tasks, key decisions, file paths). This is critical for session continuity — the next session reads this first. Overwrite the entire file with fresh content.

However, the runtime tool sandbox during flush turns restricts writes to only memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md, blocking the SESSION_HANDOFF.md write with an error like:

Memory flush writes are restricted to memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md; use that path only.

Expected Behavior

The flush write sandbox should allow writes to both:

• memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md (daily notes)
• SESSION_HANDOFF.md (session continuity file)

...or any path explicitly mentioned in the user-configured memoryFlush.prompt.

Reproduction

1. Configure agents.defaults.compaction.memoryFlush.prompt to include SESSION_HANDOFF.md instruction (this is the default/recommended setup)
2. Let a session reach the soft compaction threshold
3. Observe that the flush turn writes to memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md successfully but fails to write SESSION_HANDOFF.md

Workaround

SESSION_HANDOFF.md gets written in the next normal turn after the flush, but this is fragile — if the session resets immediately after flush, the handoff is lost.

Environment

• OpenClaw: latest (as of 2026-04-14)
• Config: memoryFlush.enabled: true, softThresholdTokens: 8000