Best possible solution:

Keep the typed cooldown design, but classify explicit operator wake-now requests as intent: "manual" or otherwise give that source the same full exemption, with a focused regression test.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

Yes. A focused unit path can seed the cooldown helper or runner with five recent run starts, call the cron/system wake(..., { mode: "now" }) path from the PR, and observe the immediate intent being skipped as flood instead of bypassing deferral like manual.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

No. Centralized typed wake intent is the right direction, but using source: "manual" with intent: "immediate" is not the narrowest compatible fix because the new policy treats only intent: "manual" as fully non-deferred.

Full review comments:

• [P2] Classify wake-now requests as manual intent — src/cron/service/timer.ts:1604
wake(..., { mode: "now" }) is the explicit manual system-event wake path, but the PR sends source: "manual" with intent: "immediate". In the new cooldown helper, immediate still goes through the flood guard, so after five recent runs this request can be skipped as flood and the queued system event may wait despite mode: "now". Use intent: "manual" for this path or give manual-source wake-now requests the same full exemption.
  Confidence: 0.88

Overall correctness: patch is incorrect
Overall confidence: 0.87

Acceptance criteria:

• pnpm test src/infra/heartbeat-cooldown.test.ts src/infra/heartbeat-wake.test.ts src/infra/heartbeat-runner.scheduler.test.ts src/cron/service/timer.test.ts src/cron/service.main-job-passes-heartbeat-target-last.test.ts src/gateway/server-cron.test.ts src/plugins/runtime/index.test.ts
• pnpm exec oxfmt --check --threads=1 src/cron/service/timer.ts src/infra/heartbeat-cooldown.test.ts src/infra/heartbeat-runner.scheduler.test.ts
• pnpm check:changed

What I checked:

• Protected label: GitHub PR metadata shows the PR is open and carries the protected maintainer label, so cleanup closure is not allowed for this review. (7f7c7a12aad7)
• Current main still has the flood-prone path: Current main only checks nextDueMs for reason === "interval" in the broadcast branch, while targeted wakes go directly to runOnce; exec completion still calls requestHeartbeatNow(... reason: "exec-event", coalesceMs: 0). (src/infra/heartbeat-runner.ts:1874, 6a54aac4892c)
• PR adds centralized typed cooldown: The diff adds shouldDeferWake, typed wake intent/source fields, a minimum-spacing gate, and a 5-runs/60s flood guard used to prevent non-manual event-driven wake loops. (src/infra/heartbeat-cooldown.ts:86, 7f7c7a12aad7)
• Earlier alias blocker fixed on latest head: The latest PR diff maps deprecated runtime.system.requestHeartbeatNow() to intent: "immediate" by default and adds a regression test for that compatibility behavior. (src/plugins/runtime/runtime-system.ts:20, 7f7c7a12aad7)
• Remaining wake-now blocker: The PR maps wake(..., { mode: "now" }) to source: "manual" but intent: "immediate"; the new cooldown helper only fully exempts intent: "manual", while immediate still checks the flood guard. (src/cron/service/timer.ts:1604, 7f7c7a12aad7)
• Related reports and replacement context: The PR body says it replaces closed PR fix(heartbeat): centralized cooldown gate prevents exec-event runaway #75439, closes open issue BUG: heartbeat fires duplicate runs when external wake events (openclaw agent CLI) arrive during scheduled heartbeat #64016, and references the earlier heartbeat flood reports Heartbeat flood: exec-event bypasses interval check, causing runaway heartbeat runs #17797 and Heartbeat exec-event interval-bypass regression (re: #17797): runaway runs every ~10s instead of configured every:30m #75436. (7f7c7a12aad7)

Likely related people:

• steipete: Recent GitHub history shows repeated current-main work across heartbeat runner, heartbeat wake, cron, and plugin-runtime-adjacent paths, including heartbeat runner fixes and cron pressure handling. (role: recent maintainer; confidence: high; commits: b4437047f477, 9180173f9a79, f5e7557c70c1; files: src/infra/heartbeat-runner.ts, src/infra/heartbeat-wake.ts, src/cron/service/timer.ts)
• vignesh07: Feature history for heartbeat-wake.ts includes the queue-per-target wake machinery and cron reminder routing commits, both adjacent to the wake coalescing behavior this PR changes. (role: introduced behavior; confidence: medium; commits: 064a3079cb5f, f988abf202e3; files: src/infra/heartbeat-wake.ts, src/cron/service/timer.ts)
• obviyus: Recent history includes the deferred cron heartbeat target preservation work that touched the same wake request/heartbeat override contract this PR updates. (role: adjacent owner; confidence: medium; commits: 1d4e4314dddc; files: src/infra/heartbeat-wake.ts, src/cron/service/timer.ts, src/gateway/server-cron.ts)
• vincentkoc: Recent GitHub history shows multiple gateway hook and plugin runtime boundary changes near the affected hook/runtime surfaces. (role: recent maintainer; confidence: medium; commits: 7343d1b2ad1b, 6f38425e5c18, a494eea6d40f; files: src/plugins/runtime/runtime-system.ts, src/gateway/server/hooks.ts)

Remaining risk / open question:

• No validation commands were run because this was a read-only review; the repair should rerun the targeted heartbeat/cron/plugin tests and changed gate before merge.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 6a54aac4892c.