fix(gateway): preserve restart continuations after reboot by VACInc · Pull Request #63406 · openclaw/openclaw

VACInc · 2026-04-08T22:31:37Z

Summary

Problem: restart-sentinel wake preserved the restart notice, but requested post-restart continuation work could be dropped, delayed, or lose context after reboot.
Why it matters: gateway.restart is used specifically to resume work after reboot, so silent continuation loss breaks the main use case and is hard to diagnose.
What changed: the sentinel now carries an optional one-shot continuation, gateway.restart can request it, restart wake dispatches it back into the same session/thread, and the edge cases raised in review now warn or re-wake instead of silently failing.
What did NOT change (scope boundary): this does not add a durable continuation queue, change restart authorization, or broaden routing beyond the existing session-scoped restart sentinel flow.

Change Type (select all)

Scope (select all touched areas)

Linked Issue/PR

Closes Support continuation prompt in restart sentinel #50137
Related fix(gateway): restart sentinel wakes the session after restart and preserves thread routing #53940, RFC: Task Continuation Across Gateway Restarts (Checkpoint + Auto-Resume) #60864
This PR fixes a bug or regression

Root Cause (if applicable)

Root cause: the original restart-sentinel path only needed to enqueue and wake a restart notice; once continuation support was added, the later continuation enqueue/dispatch path inherited assumptions that were only safe for the original single-event wake flow.
Missing detection / guardrail: there was no regression coverage for post-restart continuation delivery semantics, especially around schema shape, missing routing/session state, timestamp preservation, and systemEvent wake timing.
Contributing context (if known): gateway.restart allows continuation requests without an explicit sessionKey, and systemEvent continuation enqueue happens later than the original restart wake.

Regression Test Plan (if applicable)

Coverage level that should have caught this:
- Unit test
- Seam / integration test
- End-to-end test
- Existing coverage already sufficient
Target test or file: src/gateway/server-restart-sentinel.test.ts, src/agents/tools/gateway-tool.test.ts, src/infra/restart-sentinel.test.ts
Scenario the test should lock in: restart continuation survives reboot in the same routed context, warns instead of silently disappearing when session/route state is missing, keeps stamped agent context, and re-wakes systemEvent continuations.
Why this is the smallest reliable guardrail: the failures happen in the orchestration seam between persisted sentinel payloads, restart wake scheduling, session routing, and tool schema generation, so helper-only tests would miss them.
Existing test that already covers this (if any): None before this PR.
If no new test is added, why not: N/A

User-visible / Behavior Changes

gateway.restart can resume a one-shot continuation after reboot in the same session/thread instead of only sending a restart notice.
agentTurn continuations now preserve the stamped agent-facing text used for time-sensitive follow-up work.
systemEvent continuations now trigger their own wake instead of depending on the earlier restart-notice wake timing.
If restart continuation cannot run because route or session state is missing, the failure is now surfaced as a warning instead of being silently dropped.

Diagram (if applicable)

Before:
[gateway.restart + continuation] -> [restart notice wake] -> [continuation may be dropped/delayed]

After:
[gateway.restart + continuation] -> [restart notice wake] -> [continuation dispatched or warning logged] -> [result visible]

Security Impact (required)

New permissions/capabilities? (Yes/No) Yes
Secrets/tokens handling changed? (Yes/No) No
New/changed network calls? (Yes/No) No
Command/tool execution surface changed? (Yes/No) Yes
Data access scope changed? (Yes/No) No
If any Yes, explain risk + mitigation: the owner-only gateway.restart tool now accepts optional continuation inputs and can resume one follow-up turn after reboot. Risk is constrained by the existing restart auth boundary, one-shot sentinel consumption, same-session routing, and explicit warning/fail-fast handling when continuation delivery is unavailable.

Repro + Verification

Environment

OS: Linux
Runtime/container: local Node/pnpm workspace
Model/provider: N/A
Integration/channel (if any): mocked channel routing in targeted tests
Relevant config (redacted): default local test config

Steps

Invoke gateway.restart with continuationMessage in a routed session.
Let restart sentinel wake run after startup.
Exercise agentTurn, systemEvent, missing-route, and missing-sessionKey continuation cases.

Expected

Continuation resumes in the same routed context after reboot, or logs a visible warning when it cannot be delivered.
systemEvent continuation requests a wake after enqueue.
agentTurn continuation keeps stamped BodyForAgent context.

Actual

Before this fix set, continuation edge cases could be silently dropped, delayed, or lose the stamped agent context.
After this fix set, the tested restart continuation paths behave deterministically and fail visibly when delivery is unavailable.

Evidence

Failing test/log before + passing after
Trace/log snippets
Screenshot/recording
Perf numbers (if relevant)

Human Verification (required)

Verified scenarios: ran targeted restart-sentinel/tool tests covering agent-turn continuation dispatch, systemEvent continuation wake, missing-route warning, missing-sessionKey warning, one-shot consumption, and flat enum tool schema generation.
Edge cases checked: timestamp preservation in BodyForAgent, no-route fail-fast path, no-sessionKey warning path, and delayed systemEvent wake after restart notice delivery.
What you did not verify: live restart behavior against a real channel/integration.

Review Conversations

I replied to or resolved every bot review conversation I addressed in this PR.
I left unresolved only the conversations that still need reviewer or maintainer judgment.

Compatibility / Migration

Backward compatible? (Yes/No) Yes
Config/env changes? (Yes/No) No
Migration needed? (Yes/No) No
If yes, exact upgrade steps:

Risks and Mitigations

Risk: continuation behavior now depends on the persisted restart sentinel shape and the new gateway tool inputs staying aligned.
- Mitigation: targeted tests cover sentinel payload, tool schema shape, restart wake dispatch, and the reviewed edge cases.
Risk: systemEvent continuation now schedules an extra heartbeat wake for the same session.
- Mitigation: the wake is narrowly scoped to the continuation session and covered by regression test coverage in src/gateway/server-restart-sentinel.test.ts.

greptile-apps · 2026-04-08T22:47:17Z

Greptile Summary

This PR extends the restart-sentinel flow with an optional one-shot continuation payload (systemEvent or agentTurn). After the gateway restarts and delivers the existing restart notice, it now dispatches the continuation into the same resumed session and routed thread. Two new schema parameters (continuationMessage and continuationKind) are added to the gateway tool's restart action. The prior Type.Union schema violation for continuationKind is correctly resolved using optionalStringEnum, and the sentinel remains one-shot because consumeRestartSentinel deletes the file before any dispatch.

Confidence Score: 5/5

Safe to merge — no P0/P1 findings; the prior schema violation concern has been correctly addressed.

All six changed files are clean. The Type.Union/anyOf schema issue flagged in the previous review round is resolved with optionalStringEnum. Continuation dispatch is one-shot (sentinel is consumed before any dispatch), error paths are caught and logged rather than bubbled, and test coverage spans the main agentTurn path, delivery failure, missing-route fallback, and the no-sessionKey warning branch.

No files require special attention.

Vulnerabilities

No security concerns identified. The continuationMessage and continuationKind inputs are sanitized via normalizeOptionalString and schema-level enum validation before being written to the sentinel file. The sentinel file is consumed (deleted) before dispatch, preventing replay. The CommandAuthorized: true flag is set on the injected inbound context, which is consistent with how other internal-sourced agent turns are handled in this codebase.

_{Reviews (2): Last reviewed commit: "gateway: handle restart continuation edg..." | Re-trigger Greptile}

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VACInc · 2026-04-08T23:11:07Z

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greptile-apps · 2026-04-08T23:14:04Z

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VACInc · 2026-04-08T23:36:09Z

@BunsDev tagging you as I know you were interested/helped merge in the last time I fixed the restart flow. I also know there's a broader effort to stabilize and get things more secure so I'm sure that's why it was lost in the cleanup.

That said, this is a bit more elegant than last time so hopefully it persists through future changes 🦞

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@VACInc

…anks @VACInc)

obviyus

Verified gateway restart continuations persist through reboot, resume the same session, and route replies back to the original channel/thread. Manual smoke covered PR-linked gateway restart and a valid restart-sentinel continuation; local tests cover stale routes, synthetic reply IDs, system-event wakeups, exhausted notice retries, and session-route fallback.

Maintainer follow-up: hardened route resolution, resolved current review threads, added restart-continuation edge coverage, documented the tool instruction, and added the Unreleased changelog entry.

Local gate: pnpm test src/gateway/server-restart-sentinel.test.ts src/agents/tools/gateway-tool.test.ts src/infra/restart-sentinel.test.ts; pnpm check:changed.

obviyus · 2026-04-22T14:39:19Z

Landed on main.

Landed source commit: 3aa09d9
Merge commit: 962b25b

Thanks @VACInc.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-04-22T14:41:24Z

+        Timestamp: Date.now(),
+        Provider: route.channel,
+        Surface: route.channel,
+        ChatType: "direct",


Preserve non-DM chat type in continuation context

Do not force restart agentTurn continuations to ChatType: "direct"; this misclassifies turns resumed from group/channel conversations. The reply pipeline keys behavior off ctx.ChatType (for example, group-context injection and related routing/prompt logic), so a continuation from a threaded/group route can be processed as a DM and produce the wrong follow-up behavior after reboot. Derive ChatType from the resolved session/route instead of hardcoding direct.

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@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

@VACInc

…anks @VACInc) * gateway: add restart continuation sentinel * gateway: address restart continuation review * gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases * gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path * fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing * test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases * docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage * fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (thanks @VACInc) --------- Co-authored-by: VACInc <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Ayaan Zaidi <[email protected]>

openclaw-barnacle Bot added gateway Gateway runtime agents Agent runtime and tooling size: L labels Apr 8, 2026

VACInc marked this pull request as ready for review April 8, 2026 22:44

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VACInc changed the title ~~[codex] Add restart sentinel continuations~~ fix(gateway): preserve restart continuations after reboot Apr 8, 2026

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VACInc force-pushed the codex/restart-sentinel-continuation branch 6 times, most recently from 8c4ab51 to 6691f05 Compare April 15, 2026 10:57

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VACInc force-pushed the codex/restart-sentinel-continuation branch from 8d69efe to b4b53c0 Compare April 21, 2026 02:32

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obviyus force-pushed the codex/restart-sentinel-continuation branch from b4b53c0 to a755686 Compare April 22, 2026 13:00

openclaw-barnacle Bot added size: XL and removed size: L labels Apr 22, 2026

obviyus self-assigned this Apr 22, 2026

VACInc added 2 commits April 22, 2026 20:00

gateway: add restart continuation sentinel

7b7809a

gateway: address restart continuation review

56f6845

VACInc and others added 6 commits April 22, 2026 20:00

gateway: handle restart continuation edge cases

f9db7ff

gateway: keep restart continuations on threaded delivery path

fbe0eb7

fix(gateway): harden restart continuation routing

7fe0466

test(gateway): cover restart continuation edge cases

f08edf1

docs(agent): clarify restart continuation usage

50ae1d8

fix: preserve restart continuations after reboot (openclaw#63406) (th…

3aa09d9

…anks @VACInc)

obviyus force-pushed the codex/restart-sentinel-continuation branch from 03c5f62 to 3aa09d9 Compare April 22, 2026 14:33

obviyus approved these changes Apr 22, 2026

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obviyus merged commit 962b25b into openclaw:main Apr 22, 2026
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github-actions Bot mentioned this pull request Apr 22, 2026

📡 Upstream Digest — 2026-04-22 15:05 UTC curtismercier/openclaw-mods#646

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silas-dandelion-cult mentioned this pull request Apr 26, 2026

feat: context-pressure-aware continuation (CONTINUE_WORK / CONTINUE_DELEGATE) #38780

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This was referenced Apr 28, 2026

RFC: Task Continuation Across Gateway Restarts (Checkpoint + Auto-Resume) #60864

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fix: broadcast GatewayRestart system event to all active agent sessions #44401

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clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request May 4, 2026

[Feature]: Implement task state persistence and proactive result reporting across restarts #42816

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clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request May 14, 2026

Control UI / WebChat: treat continuationMessage and runtime continuations as agent inner monologue, not visible user chat #78344

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clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request May 22, 2026

Config patch restart notice is misleading; should say 'restart required' #46797

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clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request Jun 29, 2026

feat(plugins): add session followup turn API and gateway-restart extension #63330

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7 tasks

clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request Jul 15, 2026

PR5/5 durable core: internal session delivery handoff #107559

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Summary

Change Type (select all)

Scope (select all touched areas)

Linked Issue/PR

Root Cause (if applicable)

Regression Test Plan (if applicable)

User-visible / Behavior Changes

Diagram (if applicable)

Security Impact (required)

Repro + Verification

Environment

Steps

Expected

Actual

Evidence

Human Verification (required)

Review Conversations

Compatibility / Migration

Risks and Mitigations

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Greptile Summary

Confidence Score: 5/5

Vulnerabilities

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