Problem

During long development sessions, users sometimes want to:

• Test alternative approaches without losing current progress
• Roll back to a known-good state after mistakes
• A/B test different prompts or models in parallel
• Branch conversations without manual transcripts

Currently, OpenClaw saves sessions automatically, but there's no way to:

1. Create an explicit checkpoint at a specific moment
2. Reload that exact state (messages + context window + model choice)
3. Fork a session into parallel branches

Proposed Solution

Add /session save <name> and /session load <name> commands:

# Save current session (all messages, context, model state) to checkpoint
/session save healthcheck-baseline

# Later, reset current session and restore from checkpoint
/session load healthcheck-baseline
# Result: Current session cleared, full context restored to that exact moment

Use Cases

1. A/B Testing: Save baseline config, test variant A, load baseline, test variant B
2. Rollback: Save before risky commands, revert if things break
3. Branching: Fork a conversation to explore multiple paths
4. Reproducibility: Save working states for debugging or sharing

Implementation Sketch

// Save checkpoint
POST /sessions/{sessionKey}/checkpoints/{name}
- Captures: transcript, context tokens, model, compaction state
- Stores: workspace/session-checkpoints/{sessionKey}-{name}.jsonl

// Load checkpoint  
POST /sessions/{sessionKey}/restore/{name}
- Clears: current transcript
- Restores: checkpoint transcript, context, model
- Effect: Like /reset + history injection, but deterministic

Related Issues

• [Feature]: Memory flush on /new and /reset (pre-reset memory save) #8185: Memory flush on /new and /reset (pre-reset memory save)
• [Feature Request] Add session:compacted hook event with compact summary #11799: session:compacted hook event (post-compaction recovery)
• Feature Request: sessions_kill and sessions_cleanup tools #12297: sessions_kill/cleanup tools (session lifecycle)

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.2.9
• User: Developer workstation (local + Telegram relay)
• Use case: Long-running development sessions with context preservation