Codex review: needs maintainer review before merge. Reviewed July 1, 2026, 12:16 AM ET / 04:16 UTC.

Summary
The branch adds exec.approval.followup_suppressed diagnostics for stale exec approval follow-up suppression, records bounded stability metadata, updates diagnostics-otel/SDK budget handling, documents the event, and adds focused tests.

PR surface: Source +38, Tests +125, Docs +4, Other 0. Total +167 across 14 files.

Reproducibility: yes. at source level: current main drops stale direct and gateway preflight follow-ups with log/ok-only behavior, and public diagnostic subscribers filter out log.record. I did not run a live external-channel approval timeout in this read-only review.

Review metrics: 1 noteworthy metric.

• Public Diagnostic Contract: 1 event type added. The new diagnostic event enters operator/plugin-facing surfaces, so its name and payload shape matter before merge.

Stored data model
Persistent data-model change detected: vector/embedding metadata: docs/cli/gateway.md, vector/embedding metadata: src/logging/diagnostic-stability.test.ts. Confirm migration or upgrade compatibility proof before merge.

Root-cause cluster
Relationship: fixed_by_candidate
Canonical: #98279
Summary: This PR is a candidate fix for the open structured stale approval follow-up suppression event issue; sibling PRs target the same request with different event vocabulary or narrower coverage.

Members:

• canonical: Emit structured event when stale approval-timeout follow-ups are suppressed #98279 - The issue defines the requested machine-readable stale approval-timeout suppression event and remains open.
• same_root_cause: fix(exec): emit structured event when stale approval followups are suppressed (fixes #98279) #98292 - That open PR targets the same issue but uses a different event name and exposes session-related payload that this PR intentionally avoids.
• same_root_cause: fix(exec): emit approval timeout suppression events #98301 - That open PR targets the same issue with different timeout-suppressed vocabulary and a larger diff.
• adjacent_distinct: Suppress expired exec approval followup warnings #66685 - That PR also concerns exec approval follow-up operator signal, but it suppresses benign expired-approval warnings rather than adding this stale-session diagnostic event.

Proposal only: this assessment does not dispatch repair, suppress jobs, mutate sibling items, close, or merge anything.

Merge readiness
Overall: 🐚 platinum hermit
Proof: 🦞 diamond lobster
Patch quality: 🐚 platinum hermit
Result: ready for maintainer review.

Overall follows the weaker of proof and patch quality, so missing proof can cap an otherwise strong patch.

Rank-up moves:

• Choose the public event vocabulary for the canonical issue before landing.
• Use final exact-head merge gates after the maintainer-selected contract is settled.

Risk before merge

• [P1] The event name, session_rebound reason, direct_delivery/gateway_preflight phases, and persisted approvalId become operator/plugin-facing diagnostic contract once merged.
• [P1] Related open PRs propose different public event vocabulary for the same canonical issue, so maintainers should select one stable contract before landing competing shapes.

Maintainer options:

1. Accept This Event Contract (recommended)
   Maintain the current exec.approval.followup_suppressed shape and land this PR once exact-head merge gates are final.
2. Revise Vocabulary Before Merge
   If maintainers prefer the timeout-suppressed naming or different field taxonomy, update this branch before the SDK-visible event type lands.
3. Consolidate Into A Sibling Candidate
   If another open PR becomes the chosen contract, keep the canonical issue open and close this PR only after the replacement path is viable.

Next step before merge

• [P2] Maintainers need to choose the public event vocabulary and canonical PR; no narrow automated code repair remains.

Security
Cleared: No concrete security or supply-chain concern found; the diff adds bounded diagnostic metadata and does not change permissions, dependencies, secrets handling, or command/session text exposure.

@clawsweeper re-review

Addressed the stability bundle finding in db2a5de5: persisted bundle reads now preserve approvalId for exec.approval.followup_suppressed, with a round-trip sanitizer test covering approval id, reason, and phase while stripping unrelated raw fields. Latest CI is green, including check-lint, check-additional-extension-bundled, checks-node-compact-small-whole-2, Real behavior proof, and QA Smoke CI.

🦞🧹
ClawSweeper re-review requested.

I asked ClawSweeper to review this item again.
Action: item re-review queued (workflow sweep.yml, event repository_dispatch).
Result: the existing ClawSweeper review comment will be edited in place when the review finishes.

Real behavior proof update for the stale exec approval followup diagnostic.

Crabbox run:

• Crabbox v0.33.0
• Provider: local-container
• Lease: cbx_14a7f978e2bd, slug golden-crab
• Target: Linux ubuntu_26.04
• Checkout: db2a5de505
• Exit: 0

Scenario run inside the disposable Crabbox container:

1. Seeded the runtime session store so agent:main:main resolved to session-after-reset while the approval carried expectedSessionId: "session-original".
2. Called the production sendExecApprovalFollowup path with direct: true and a denied exec result.
3. Confirmed the followup was suppressed and the stability recorder captured the structured diagnostic event.
4. Wrote a persisted stability bundle, then read it back through the actual CLI surface:
   corepack pnpm openclaw gateway stability --bundle latest --json --type exec.approval.followup_suppressed

Redacted proof output:

{
  "delivered": false,
  "event": {
    "type": "exec.approval.followup_suppressed",
    "approvalId": "req-crabbox-pr98293-rebound",
    "reason": "session_rebound",
    "phase": "direct_delivery"
  },
  "bundlePath": "$OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/logs/stability/openclaw-stability-2026-07-01T00-04-11-696Z-3947-pr98293.stale_exec_approval_followup_proof.json"
}

CLI stability readback:

{
  "cliPathRedacted": "$OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/logs/stability/openclaw-stability-2026-07-01T00-04-11-696Z-3947-pr98293.stale_exec_approval_followup_proof.json",
  "cliEvent": {
    "type": "exec.approval.followup_suppressed",
    "approvalId": "req-crabbox-pr98293-rebound",
    "reason": "session_rebound",
    "phase": "direct_delivery"
  },
  "summary": {
    "exec.approval.followup_suppressed": 1
  }
}

Hosted Crabbox providers were attempted first but blocked by local auth/tooling prerequisites:

• azure: missing AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID / az CLI login.
• blacksmith-testbox: required local blacksmith CLI auth; CLI installed, browser auth timed out for org openclaw.
• aws: requires crabbox login --url https://crabbox.openclaw.ai --provider aws.
• gcp: active project found, but provider auth failed with invalid_grant.

@clawsweeper re-review

@clawsweeper re-review

Proof is now in the PR body under Real behavior proof, with the Crabbox local-container run and CLI stability readback linked/details included.

Dependency graph guard cleared

This PR no longer has blocked dependency graph changes. A future dependency graph change requires a fresh /allow-dependencies-change comment after the guard blocks that new head SHA.

• Current SHA: 937e08c698f72a13778655dad51a112d207456fe

/allow-dependencies-change false-positive ancestry after maintainer prepare: the prepared tree has no dependency-file delta versus current main, and the repo-native merge wrapper will verify the prepared tree and mainline base before squash.

Land-ready maintainer proof for 0e4f16aee4991ae1ec3a72a1b170c8f8da80c6dd:

• Focused behavior tests: node scripts/run-vitest.mjs src/agents/bash-tools.exec-approval-followup.test.ts src/infra/diagnostic-events.test.ts src/logging/diagnostic-stability.test.ts src/logging/diagnostic-stability-bundle.test.ts test/scripts/plugin-sdk-surface-report.test.ts — 87 passed.
• Gateway preflight regression: node scripts/run-vitest.mjs src/gateway/server-methods/agent.test.ts -t "drops a stale exec approval followup at preflight" — 2 passed, 344 skipped.
• SDK/docs checks: node scripts/plugin-sdk-surface-report.mjs --check, node scripts/check-docs-mdx.mjs docs/gateway/opentelemetry.md docs/cli/gateway.md, pnpm format:docs:check, pnpm docs:check-i18n-glossary, and git diff --check — all passed.
• Fresh autoreview against origin/main — no accepted/actionable findings (confidence 0.94).
• Changed-surface remote gate: Blacksmith Testbox tbx_01kwdvy7e9yhvfex86rvc50347 / Actions run https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/actions/runs/28491692386 — passed.
• Exact-head release-gate CI: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/actions/runs/28492227982 — 110 jobs passed, 0 failed.
• Repo-native scripts/pr prepare-run 98293 accepted the exact-head hosted gates and verified the prepared and PR heads match.

The contributor also supplied real production-path Crabbox proof (cbx_14a7f978e2bd) for the direct stale guard and persisted stability CLI readback. Known gap: no external Slack workspace interaction was exercised; the changed contract is the channel-independent diagnostic emission path, with both direct-delivery and gateway-preflight guards covered by production-function regression tests.

Final-head addendum: the ancestry-only sync produced 937e08c698f72a13778655dad51a112d207456fe with the same reviewed change and a clean merge base. Exact-head release-gate CI passed all 110 jobs with zero failures: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/actions/runs/28492777136. OPENCLAW_TESTBOX=1 scripts/pr prepare-run 98293 then accepted the hosted gates and verified the prepared and remote heads match.

Merged via squash.

• Prepared head SHA: 937e08c698f72a13778655dad51a112d207456fe
• Landed commit: 9f98b6e174d1fcc9b1232125320b53edb44c50c8