Summary

The webchat UI is displaying the internal conversation metadata envelope that gets prepended to user messages. Instead of only showing the agent's reply, the full JSON metadata block and timestamp wrapper is rendered visibly in the chat.

Steps to reproduce

Open the OpenClaw webchat UI
Send any message to the agent
Observe the chat after the agent responds

Expected behavior

Only the agent's reply is visible in the chat UI.

Actual behavior

The internal metadata envelope is rendered in the chat bubble:
Conversation info (untrusted metadata):
{
"message_id": "a2a19267-56f0-4236-ac4e-3a6089f44d24",
"sender": "openclaw-control-ui"
}
[Wed 2026-02-18 09:10 MST]

OpenClaw version

2026.2.17

Operating system

macOS (Apple Silicon)

Install method

npm

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

Impact and severity

Only affects webchat — Telegram channel works correctly with no metadata leak
Happens consistently on every message
The metadata block appears to be the same envelope prepended to messages before reaching the agent
The webchat frontend does not appear to be stripping this envelope before rendering

Additional information

Runtime: Local gateway