What

A /goal <text> directive, or explicit goal: / objective: marker, was not preserved across compaction or resume. extractIntent kept only the coarse mode (investigate / implement) and discarded the actual objective, so restored context could say only <intent mode="implement"/> without saying what to implement.

This PR makes the stated session goal first-class session memory so a resumed model can continue toward the user's objective without asking the user to restate it.

Change

• Goal extraction (src/session/extract.ts): add extractGoal() and wire it into extractUserEvents(). It captures /goal <text>, goal: <text>, and objective: <text> as a goal event.
• Durability under the session cap: store goal at priority: 4, matching the existing SessionDB eviction contract where higher numeric priority survives before lower-priority events.
• Snapshot restore (src/session/snapshot.ts): render the latest goal in a <session_goal> section immediately after <how_to_search>, before files, tasks, and <intent>.
• Analytics copy (src/session/analytics.ts): label goal as "Session goal" and relabel intent as "Session intent".
• Codex compact coverage (tests/hooks/codex-goal-compact.test.ts): run the actual Codex hook sequence UserPromptSubmit -> PreCompact -> SessionStart(source=compact) and assert the slash /goal objective is restored in hookSpecificOutput.additionalContext.
• Bundles: regenerate affected runtime bundles (server.bundle.mjs, cli.bundle.mjs, hooks/session-extract.bundle.mjs, hooks/session-snapshot.bundle.mjs).

No behavior change to the coarse intent mode.

Codex Review Follow-Up

Codex review found that the original priority: 1 goal event would be evicted first at the per-session 1000-event cap because SessionDB removes the lowest numeric priority first. That would break the core continuity claim for long Codex sessions before compaction.

Follow-up changes:

• changed goal priority to 4;
• added an event-cap regression proving a goal survives after 1000 lower-priority events;
• added Codex hook lifecycle coverage proving slash /goal survives through compact restore when the prompt text reaches UserPromptSubmit.

Verification

Local

• npx vitest run tests/hooks/codex-goal-compact.test.ts tests/session/session-goal.test.ts tests/session/session-db.test.ts tests/session/session-snapshot.test.ts --reporter=dot — 4 files / 132 tests passed.
• npx tsc --noEmit — passed.
• npm run build — passed (tsc, bundle, assert-bundle, assert-asymmetric-drift).
• git diff --check — passed.

Independent Codex Subagent Verification

A separate Codex subagent verified the goal behavior without editing files:

• session goal/unit + DB/snapshot suite: 4 files / 295 tests passed;
• bundle probes confirmed /goal, goal:, and Objective: create goal events with priority: 4;
• bundle DB probe confirmed a goal survives the 1000-event cap;
• bundle snapshot probe confirmed latest goal wins and <session_goal> is ordered before files/intent.

A second Codex subagent independently exercised the Codex hook compact path:

• ran tests/hooks/codex-goal-compact.test.ts successfully;
• manually simulated hooks/codex/userpromptsubmit.mjs -> hooks/codex/precompact.mjs -> hooks/codex/sessionstart.mjs(source=compact) with a fake CODEX_HOME;
• confirmed a stored goal row with { category: "goal", priority: 4 };
• confirmed restored additionalContext contains <session_goal>, contains the objective, and orders goal before <intent>.

Remote CI

• test (ubuntu-latest) — success.
• test (macos-latest) — success.
• test (windows-latest) — success.
• openclaw-e2e (ubuntu-latest) — success.
• openclaw-e2e (macos-latest) — success.

Constraints / Assumptions

• This preserves /goal ... only when the host passes the submitted slash-command text to UserPromptSubmit. If a host consumes the slash command before hooks see it, context-mode cannot infer that exact text from this path.
• goal: and objective: remain explicit marker forms for hosts or workflows where slash-command text is not available to hooks.
• The PR stores the latest stated goal. It does not implement goal completion semantics, multiple named goals, or goal history UX.
• priority: 4 intentionally follows today's SessionDB eviction contract. A future cleanup can introduce named priority constants to remove numeric ambiguity.
• The PR targets next and remains a draft while maintainers review the new behavior and test shape.

Future Work

• Consider extending context-mode with a more explicit goal feature surface, instead of treating goals only as parsed prompt text. For example, a future context-mode command/API could set, inspect, clear, or update the current session goal directly while reusing the same <session_goal> restore path.
• Consider replacing numeric priorities with named constants (CRITICAL, HIGH, etc.) so future continuity-critical events cannot accidentally use the wrong eviction priority.

Closes #694