Summary

On native OpenClaw 2026.4.14, restarting an active session deleted the active transcript, created no archive, and exposed no durable restart handoff or explicit degraded-recovery warning.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.14 (323493f)
• Operating system: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
• Install method: npm global
• Model under test: openai-codex/gpt-5.4
• Provider / routing chain: openclaw -> openai-codex-responses -> chatgpt.com/backend-api

Steps To Reproduce

1. Start an active session with a clear current ask and current step.
2. Restart the OpenClaw service during that active task.
3. Send a continuity prompt after restart.
4. Observe whether the active session resumes with preserved continuity.

Expected Behavior

Restart should preserve continuity for the active session by keeping or archiving the transcript, restoring a durable restart handoff, and explicitly warning if recovery is degraded.

Actual Behavior

On native 2026.4.14, the active transcript was deleted, no archive was created, no durable restart handoff was present, and the follow-up reply did not surface an explicit degraded-recovery warning.

Impact

• Severity: High
• Frequency: Observed in accepted 2026.4.14 validation
• Consequence: restart can destroy active-task continuity and leave the resumed reply without trustworthy recovery state

Fix Direction

The native fix appears to need three pieces:

1. Preserve or archive transcript state before startup cleanup runs.
2. Write a durable per-session restart handoff that survives transcript loss.
3. On the first resumed reply, prefer the freshest durable handoff over stale mirrored session state and explicitly surface degraded recovery when transcript recovery is partial.