fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type by dbachelder · Pull Request #24717 · openclaw/openclaw

dbachelder · 2026-02-23T18:46:59Z

Summary

Problem: replyToModeByChatType.direct: "off" is ignored on the inbound path — DM replies are always threaded when the top-level replyToMode is "all".
Why it matters: Users configuring flat DM replies still get threaded responses, making DMs harder to read and breaking expected behavior.
What changed: The inbound message handler (prepare.ts) now calls resolveSlackReplyToMode(account, chatType) per-message instead of using the static ctx.replyToMode resolved once at startup. dispatch.ts reads the resolved value from prepared.replyToMode.
What did NOT change: The outbound dock and tool threading context already used resolveSlackReplyToMode correctly — those paths are untouched. The SlackMonitorContext.replyToMode field remains for backward compatibility but is no longer used in the message handler hot path.

Change Type (select all)

Scope (select all touched areas)

Linked Issue/PR

N/A

User-visible / Behavior Changes

replyToModeByChatType.direct and dm.replyToMode config overrides now take effect on the inbound Slack path. Previously these were silently ignored for inbound message threading.
No change for users who don't use replyToModeByChatType — resolveSlackReplyToMode falls through to the top-level replyToMode.

Security Impact (required)

New permissions/capabilities? No
Secrets/tokens handling changed? No
New/changed network calls? No
Command/tool execution surface changed? No
Data access scope changed? No

Repro + Verification

Environment

OS: macOS (Darwin 25.2.0)
Runtime/container: Docker linux/amd64, OpenCLAW v2026.2.22
Model/provider: AWS Bedrock (Claude)
Integration/channel: Slack (Socket Mode)

Relevant config:

{
  "channels": {
    "slack": {
      "replyToMode": "all",
      "replyToModeByChatType": {
        "direct": "off"
      }
    }
  }
}

Steps

Configure replyToMode: "all" with replyToModeByChatType.direct: "off"
Send an unthreaded DM to the bot
Observe the bot's reply

Expected

Bot replies as a flat message in the DM (no thread_ts)

Actual (before fix)

Bot replies inside a thread on the user's message

Evidence

Verified in production Slack workspace: DM replies are now flat when replyToModeByChatType.direct: "off"
Channel messages still thread correctly with replyToMode: "all"

Human Verification (required)

Verified scenarios: Unthreaded DM with direct: "off" → flat reply. Channel message with top-level "all" → threaded reply.
Edge cases checked: Existing threads in DMs still reply within the thread (isThreadReply path unchanged). Group DMs respect their own override if configured.
What I did not verify: replyToMode: "first" with per-chat-type override (same code path, should work identically).

Compatibility / Migration

Backward compatible? Yes
Config/env changes? No
Migration needed? No

Failure Recovery (if this breaks)

How to disable/revert: Remove replyToModeByChatType from config — behavior falls back to top-level replyToMode as before.
Files/config to restore: src/slack/monitor/message-handler/prepare.ts, dispatch.ts, types.ts
Known bad symptoms: If regression, DM replies would ignore replyToModeByChatType overrides again (same as current behavior, not worse).

Risks and Mitigations

Risk: resolveSlackReplyToMode is called per-message instead of once at startup — negligible perf impact (pure in-memory config lookup, no I/O).
- Mitigation: The outbound dock and tool context already call this per-message without issue.

Greptile Summary

Fixed replyToModeByChatType.direct config being ignored on the inbound Slack path. Previously, the message handler used a static ctx.replyToMode value resolved once at startup, which prevented per-chat-type overrides from taking effect. Now calls resolveSlackReplyToMode(account, chatType) per-message in prepare.ts:202-203 and passes the resolved value through PreparedSlackMessage.replyToMode, which dispatch.ts consumes in place of the static ctx.replyToMode.

Key changes:

prepare.ts:202-203: resolve replyToMode per-message based on chat type
dispatch.ts:93,104,170,192: read prepared.replyToMode instead of ctx.replyToMode
types.ts:16: added replyToMode field to PreparedSlackMessage
prepare.ts:679: include resolved replyToMode in returned object

Incidental changes in this PR:

resolve-channels.ts:54: changed exclude_archived: false to true (now excludes archived channels from startup resolution)
Dockerfile: multi-stage build reduces image size by ~3GB
docker-image-digests.test.ts: updated test to handle multi-stage Dockerfile with AS clauses

Confidence Score: 5/5

Safe to merge with no risk
The fix is surgical and correct: moves reply-to-mode resolution from startup to per-message, enabling chat-type-specific config. The change is well-contained (3 core files), type-safe, backward compatible (falls back to top-level config), and verified in production. Incidental changes (Docker multi-stage, archived channel exclusion) are improvements with no breaking impact.
No files require special attention

_{Last reviewed commit: 469d49b}

openclaw-barnacle · 2026-03-01T04:08:52Z

This pull request has been automatically marked as stale due to inactivity.
Please add updates or it will be closed.

The Slack monitor resolved replyToMode once at startup from the top-level config, ignoring replyToModeByChatType overrides. This caused DM replies to be threaded even when replyToModeByChatType.direct was set to "off". Now the inbound message handler calls resolveSlackReplyToMode(account, chatType) per-message — the same function already used by the outbound dock and tool threading context — so per-chat-type overrides take effect on the inbound path. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Takhoffman · 2026-03-01T16:21:12Z

Merged via salvage path.

Merge commit: 9ae9439
Head commit pinned: bc912a1

What changed before merge:

rebased on latest main and resolved overlap with fix(slack): thread agent identity through channel reply path #27134 in Slack dispatch logic
preserved per-message reply mode resolution and threaded agent identity behavior
added missing changelog entry for this user-facing Slack threading fix

Verification run on the rebased branch:

CI=true pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm build
pnpm check
pnpm test:macmini

All checks passed.

…#24717) Cherry-pick of upstream 9ae9439.

…#24717) * fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type The Slack monitor resolved replyToMode once at startup from the top-level config, ignoring replyToModeByChatType overrides. This caused DM replies to be threaded even when replyToModeByChatType.direct was set to "off". Now the inbound message handler calls resolveSlackReplyToMode(account, chatType) per-message — the same function already used by the outbound dock and tool threading context — so per-chat-type overrides take effect on the inbound path. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com> * Slack: add changelog for per-message replyToMode resolution --------- Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: Tak Hoffman <781889+Takhoffman@users.noreply.github.com>

…#24717) * fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type The Slack monitor resolved replyToMode once at startup from the top-level config, ignoring replyToModeByChatType overrides. This caused DM replies to be threaded even when replyToModeByChatType.direct was set to "off". Now the inbound message handler calls resolveSlackReplyToMode(account, chatType) per-message — the same function already used by the outbound dock and tool threading context — so per-chat-type overrides take effect on the inbound path. * Slack: add changelog for per-message replyToMode resolution --------- Co-authored-by: Tak Hoffman <781889+Takhoffman@users.noreply.github.com>

…#24717) Cherry-pick of upstream 9ae9439.

openclaw-barnacle bot added channel: slack Channel integration: slack docker Docker and sandbox tooling size: S labels Feb 23, 2026

dbachelder force-pushed the fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type branch from 469d49b to 87847be Compare February 23, 2026 18:50

openclaw-barnacle bot added size: XS and removed docker Docker and sandbox tooling size: S labels Feb 23, 2026

dbachelder force-pushed the fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type branch from 87847be to 823c36a Compare February 23, 2026 18:58

openclaw-barnacle bot added docker Docker and sandbox tooling size: S and removed size: XS labels Feb 23, 2026

dbachelder force-pushed the fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type branch from 823c36a to 27ca5cb Compare February 23, 2026 19:05

openclaw-barnacle bot added size: XS and removed docker Docker and sandbox tooling size: S labels Feb 23, 2026

dbachelder force-pushed the fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type branch from 27ca5cb to 99647ea Compare February 23, 2026 19:07

openclaw-barnacle bot added size: S and removed size: XS labels Feb 23, 2026

dbachelder force-pushed the fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type branch from 99647ea to 90762fb Compare February 23, 2026 19:17

openclaw-barnacle bot added the stale Marked as stale due to inactivity label Mar 1, 2026

dbachelder and others added 2 commits March 1, 2026 09:28

Slack: add changelog for per-message replyToMode resolution

bc912a1

Takhoffman force-pushed the fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type branch from 90762fb to bc912a1 Compare March 1, 2026 16:20

Takhoffman merged commit 9ae9439 into openclaw:main Mar 1, 2026
6 checks passed

vabole mentioned this pull request Mar 1, 2026

ops: decision needed for upstream sync (1 disputed files) vabole/openclaw#4

Merged

1 task

github-actions bot mentioned this pull request Mar 1, 2026

📡 Upstream Digest — 2026-03-01 18:22 UTC curtismercier/openclaw-mods#154

Open

zooqueen added a commit to hanzoai/bot that referenced this pull request Mar 1, 2026

fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type (openclaw…

c649415

…#24717) Cherry-pick of upstream 9ae9439.

zooqueen added a commit to hanzoai/bot that referenced this pull request Mar 6, 2026

fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type (openclaw…

84c4e64

…#24717) Cherry-pick of upstream 9ae9439.

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fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type#24717

fix(slack): resolve replyToMode per-message using chat type#24717
Takhoffman merged 2 commits intoopenclaw:mainfrom
dbachelder:fix/slack-dm-reply-to-mode-per-chat-type

dbachelder commented Feb 23, 2026 •

edited by greptile-apps bot

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Summary

Change Type (select all)

Scope (select all touched areas)

Linked Issue/PR

User-visible / Behavior Changes

Security Impact (required)

Repro + Verification

Environment

Steps

Expected

Actual (before fix)

Evidence

Human Verification (required)

Compatibility / Migration

Failure Recovery (if this breaks)

Risks and Mitigations

Greptile Summary

Confidence Score: 5/5

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dbachelder commented Feb 23, 2026 •

edited by greptile-apps bot

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