Description

Sub-agent announce-back consistently fails with gateway timeout after 60000ms when the parent session lane is actively in use (user chatting with the main agent).

Reproduction

1. Have an active conversation in a Telegram group topic session
2. Spawn a sub-agent via sessions_spawn
3. Sub-agent completes successfully (generates response, stopReason: stop)
4. Announce step never delivers to chat
5. Gateway log shows: announce queue drain failed for <session>: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms

Environment

• OpenClaw version: tested on both 2026.1.30 and 2026.2.1
• Channel: Telegram (group with forum topics)
• Parent session: agent:main:telegram:group:<id>:topic:1
• Sub-agent models: tested with both LiteLLM/Kimi and LiteLLM/MiniMax

Logs

2026-02-01T20:00:26.409Z Subagent announce failed: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms
2026-02-01T20:02:13.688Z announce queue drain failed for agent:main:main: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms
2026-02-01T23:16:36.144Z announce queue drain failed for agent:main:main: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms
2026-02-02T02:54:54.313Z announce queue drain failed for agent:main:main: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms
2026-02-02T20:32:30.325Z Subagent announce failed: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms
2026-02-03T02:43:34.676Z announce queue drain failed for agent:main:telegram:group:<id>:topic:1: Error: gateway timeout after 60000ms

Also observed lane wait warnings:

2026-02-03T02:15:16.303Z [diagnostic] lane wait exceeded: lane=session:agent:main:telegram:group:<id>:topic:1 waitedMs=46036 queueAhead=0
2026-02-03T02:44:10.254Z [diagnostic] lane wait exceeded: lane=session:agent:main:telegram:group:<id>:topic:1 waitedMs=95248 queueAhead=0

Analysis

The announce step needs to run an agent call on the parent session lane to format and deliver the result. When the parent session is actively processing a user message (or the user is chatting frequently), the lane is occupied. The announce queues behind it, waits, and times out after 60 seconds.

This affects both DM sessions (agent:main:main) and group topic sessions.

Expected Behavior

Sub-agent announces should reliably deliver to chat regardless of parent session activity. Possible approaches:

• Announce could bypass the session lane (deliver directly without an agent formatting call)
• Announce could use a separate lane/queue with higher priority
• Announce timeout could be extended or made configurable

Workaround

Main agent manually checks sub-agent results via sessions_list / sessions_history and relays them to chat.