Bug type

Behavior bug (incorrect output/state without crash)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

• What happens: The openclaw_memory_core_short_te rm_promotion_dream system event fires at 3am via cron, but the before_agent_reply hook re-detects it on every subsequent
  heartbeat, running a full sweep every ~30 minutes indefinitely
• Evidence: 84 sweeps since April 10, gateway log shows dreaming promotion complete every ~30 minutes 24/7
• Impact: 246 dream diary subagent sessions spawned in 2 days across 3 workspaces (main, researcher, reviewer), 6 diary entries per sweep
• Version: OpenClaw 2026.2.9

Steps to reproduce

set dreaming.enabled: true

Expected behavior

Dream sequence runs once per cron schedule

Actual behavior

multiple sweeps across every heartbeat

OpenClaw version

2026.2.9

Operating system

macos 26.4.1

Install method

npm global

Model

codex-gpt-5.3-codex

Provider / routing chain

openclaw -> codex

Additional provider/model setup details

No response

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

Impact and severity

No response

Additional information

No response