Summary

After updating to 2026.2.23, subagents spawned via sessions_spawn (mode=run) execute correctly and the gateway logs show a successful Telegram send after each completion — but the completion message never appears in the Telegram chat.

Note: sessions_spawn auto-announces on completion by default (no --announce flag; that's cron-only).

Environment

• Version: 2026.2.23
• Platform: Telegram DM (single bot, single account, plain DM — not a group or forum topic)
• Gateway: systemd service, Linux, Node 22.22.0
• State dir: ~/.openclaw/ (CLI and daemon use same config, confirmed via openclaw gateway status --json)

Steps to reproduce

From Telegram chat, trigger:

sessions_spawn({ task: "Reply with exactly: Subagent check OK", mode: "run", cleanup: "keep" })

What happens

1. Subagent spawns and executes correctly
2. runs.json is written with full entry including correct requesterOrigin (channel, to, accountId: "default")
3. Gateway logs show send returning ✓ ~0.5s after completion
4. delivery-mirror entry appears in requester session transcript
5. cleanupHandled: true set immediately, no retry fields
6. Message never arrives in Telegram

Key evidence

Gateway log around subagent completion (same pattern for all 3 test runs):

[DEBUG] embedded run agent end: runId=... isError=false
[DEBUG] run active check: active=true
[DEBUG] waiting for run end
[INFO]  ⇄ res ✓ agent.wait 2781ms
[DEBUG] run cleared: totalActive=1
[DEBUG] notifying waiters
[DEBUG] embedded run done
[INFO]  Subagent check OK ✅
[INFO]  ⇄ res ✓ send 338ms channel=telegram conn=4f45b0e6…02c9 id=0da69492…f446
[DEBUG] abort failed: reason=no_active_run
[DEBUG] embedded run agent end (parent)
[DEBUG] run cleared: totalActive=0

runs.json entry (cleanup:"keep"):

{
  "runId": "1eae8983-34ba-48d0-af5c-9e81c9477d79",
  "childSessionKey": "agent:main:subagent:141f4cae...",
  "requesterSessionKey": "agent:main:main",
  "requesterOrigin": {
    "channel": "telegram",
    "to": "telegram:REDACTED",
    "accountId": "default"
  },
  "expectsCompletionMessage": true,
  "spawnMode": "run",
  "cleanup": "keep",
  "cleanupHandled": true,
  "endedAt": 1771981571039,
  "outcome": { "status": "ok" },
  "endedReason": "subagent-complete",
  "cleanupCompletedAt": 1771981571653
}

No announceRetryCount or lastAnnounceRetryAt fields — retry path never triggered.

sessions_history delivery-mirror entry:

{
  "role": "assistant",
  "content": [{ "type": "text", "text": "✅ Subagent main finished\n\nSubagent check OK ✅" }],
  "api": "openai-responses",
  "provider": "openclaw",
  "model": "delivery-mirror",
  "stopReason": "stop"
}

Outbound Telegram is healthy:

openclaw message send to the exact same target works and delivers correctly.

Suspected root cause

The gateway send RPC returns ✓ and the delivery-mirror records the transcript entry — but the message does not appear in the Telegram chat. The internal id=... in the log appears to be the RPC id, not the Telegram message_id. If Telegram is returning ok:true without dispatching (e.g. due to a disable_notification flag, invalid reply_to_message_id, or a short-circuit in the send pipeline), that would explain this exactly. The send codepath for subagent completion announcements may differ subtly from the openclaw message send CLI path in a way that causes Telegram to silently accept but not deliver.

What was working before

Cron jobs with --announce (systemEvent payload, sessionTarget=main) deliver correctly to Telegram. The broken path is specifically sessions_spawn subagent completion announce.