fix: require mediated delivery for subagent announce completions by moeedahmed · Pull Request #80223 · openclaw/openclaw

moeedahmed · 2026-05-10T10:34:19Z

Summary

Treat subagent_announce completions like other agent-mediated completion sources so group/channel completions do not fall back to raw child-result delivery when the completion agent fails to deliver through the message tool.

Why

Subagent completion events are internal handoff data. In visible group/channel surfaces, the requester/orchestrator should deliver a normal user-facing response. If the completion agent does not use the message tool, the runtime should report the missing mediated delivery instead of raw-sending child output.

Change

Add subagent_announce to the agent-mediated completion source set.
Add regression coverage proving channel completions with subagent_announce do not raw-send fallback output when message-tool delivery is missing.

Tests

npm test -- --run src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.test.ts

Result: 31/31 passed.

Real behavior proof

Behavior or issue addressed: Subagent completion events could fall back to raw child-result delivery in visible group/channel surfaces if the completion agent did not deliver through the message tool.

Real environment tested: Moeed's live OpenClaw 2026.5.5 installation on macOS with the installed runtime hotfix matching this source change.

Exact steps or command run after the patch: Applied/verified the local installed-runtime hotfix with the OpenClaw reapply bundle, inspected the installed runtime marker, and verified the bundle against the live installed OpenClaw version.

Evidence after fix: Copied live terminal output from the real OpenClaw setup:

/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/subagent-announce-delivery-*.js:
const AGENT_MEDIATED_COMPLETION_TOOLS = new Set(["music_generate", "video_generate", "subagent_announce"]);
error: "completion agent did not deliver through the message tool"

Live patch verification command output:

Installed OpenClaw version: 2026.5.5
already patched
telegram-buttons-and-leak-hotfix: verified

Observed result after fix: subagent_announce is handled through the mediated-delivery guard in the installed runtime, so group/channel completion paths require message-tool/orchestrator delivery instead of falling back to raw child-result output.

What was not tested: I did not send another raw child result into a public Telegram group after the patch; the live verification confirms the installed runtime carries the mediated-delivery guard, and the targeted regression covers the fallback path.

Contributor response to ClawSweeper proof request

Additional live proof from the later subagent delivery validation:

After applying the equivalent installed-runtime fix locally, a native subagent smoke completion returned through the internal subagent_announce completion path for Operator mediation rather than as a raw child-result message in Telegram.

Redacted live evidence:

Native subagent smoke marker: SUBAGENT_RESTART_POLISH_OK_20260512
Observed delivery path: internal subagent_announce completion event to Operator
Observed user-facing behaviour: no raw child-result dump posted directly to the Telegram group

This is the behaviour the PR is intended to preserve: subagent_announce completions are treated as mediated agent completions, so the requester/orchestrator owns the visible user-facing report and raw child output is not used as a fallback visible message.

The installed runtime was also inspected after the hotfix and showed:

AGENT_MEDIATED_COMPLETION_TOOLS includes "subagent_announce"
Missing mediated delivery produces: "completion agent did not deliver through the message tool"

Targeted regression remains:

src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.test.ts: 31/31 passed

clawsweeper · 2026-05-10T10:38:41Z

Codex review: needs changes before merge.

Summary
The PR adds subagent_announce to the agent-mediated completion source set and adds regression coverage that Slack channel completions without message-tool delivery do not raw-send child output.

Reproducibility: yes. source-level: production subagent completions pass sourceTool: "subagent_announce", while current main excludes that source from the mediated completion set. Group/channel completion policy defaults to message_tool_only, which makes the missing guard observable on visible channel surfaces.

Real behavior proof
Sufficient (terminal): The PR body and later comment provide redacted live terminal/log evidence from an installed runtime showing the after-fix mediated path and no raw Telegram group dump.

Next step before merge
A narrow automated repair can address the blocking PR finding by adding message-tool delivery guidance or runtime mode and focused regression coverage.

Security
Cleared: The diff only changes agent completion delivery logic and test coverage; it does not alter dependencies, CI, secrets, permissions, packaging, or code-execution surfaces.

Review findings

[P2] Add message-tool guidance before requiring it — src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.ts:62

Review details

Best possible solution:

Keep the mediated-delivery guard, but pair it with explicit message-tool-only guidance or an equivalent runtime mode for subagent_announce completion agents, then land with focused regression coverage.

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

Yes, source-level: production subagent completions pass sourceTool: "subagent_announce", while current main excludes that source from the mediated completion set. Group/channel completion policy defaults to message_tool_only, which makes the missing guard observable on visible channel surfaces.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

No. Adding the set entry blocks raw fallback, but without message-tool-only guidance or runtime mode it can turn a normal completion final answer into a missing-delivery failure.

Full review comments:

[P2] Add message-tool guidance before requiring it — src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.ts:62
Adding subagent_announce to the mediated set makes group/channel completions call the requester with deliver:false and require message-tool evidence. The subagent completion prompt still only asks for a normal user-facing update, so a normal final answer stays private and the delivery reports completion agent did not deliver through the message tool. Please add the same message-tool-only guidance or an equivalent runtime mode used by media completions.
Confidence: 0.84

Overall correctness: patch is incorrect
Overall confidence: 0.86

Acceptance criteria:

pnpm test src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.test.ts
pnpm test src/agents/subagent-announce.format.e2e.test.ts
pnpm check:changed

What I checked:

Current main mediated source set: Current main only treats music_generate and video_generate as agent-mediated completion tools, so the central subagent_announce guard is not present on main. (src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.ts:59, 26da4edbe150)
Production subagent source: The production announce flow passes sourceTool: "subagent_announce" into deliverSubagentAnnouncement, so the PR affects the real subagent completion path. (src/agents/subagent-announce.ts:565, 26da4edbe150)
Group/channel delivery policy: The completion policy resolves group and channel completions to message_tool_only unless configured for automatic visible replies. (src/auto-reply/reply/source-reply-delivery-mode.ts:37, 26da4edbe150)
Mediated delivery enforcement branch: When a completion source is mediated and the policy requires the message tool, the direct agent call uses deliver: false and reports completion agent did not deliver through the message tool if no messaging-tool evidence is present. (src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.ts:598, 26da4edbe150)
Subagent prompt gap: The subagent completion instruction asks for a normal user-facing update but does not say that final replies are private in message-tool-only delivery or that the message tool must be used. (src/agents/subagent-announce.ts:90, 26da4edbe150)
Existing media precedent: The async media completion path already adds explicit message-tool-only guidance before relying on the same mediated-delivery guard. (src/agents/tools/media-generate-background-shared.ts:230, 26da4edbe150)

Likely related people:

steipete: History on the central subagent announce files includes repeated delivery-pipeline and structured-event work by Peter Steinberger, including the unified announce delivery pipeline and later helper refactors. (role: recent area contributor; confidence: high; commits: 4258a3307f5a, 4c43fccb3e03, b75be0914491; files: src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.ts, src/agents/subagent-announce.ts)
tyler6204: History shows multiple subagent announce delivery and routing fixes by Tyler Yust, including extension-channel delivery, descendant gating, and announce-chain repairs. (role: adjacent feature contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 41cf93efff4d, 38543d819690, 81b93b9ce04b; files: src/agents/subagent-announce-delivery.ts, src/agents/subagent-announce.ts)

Remaining risk / open question:

The related open routing PR fix: route subagent announce to originating parent session instead of channel-bound peer session #80242 changes adjacent subagent announce behavior and should be considered during landing order.
This read-only review did not execute the PR branch tests.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 26da4edbe150.

The subagent_announce addition to AGENT_MEDIATED_COMPLETION_TOOLS was unrelated to the routing fix and could cause group/channel completions to fail silently when the subagent does not use the message tool. This should be addressed separately with proper message-tool-only guidance (tracked in openclaw#80223).

moeedahmed · 2026-05-15T13:25:26Z

Fresh real-behavior recurrence — 2026-05-15

Reproduced the exact failure this PR addresses on installed runtime
openclaw 2026.5.12 today, with two independent observations:

Observation 1 — gateway log (14:01–14:06 GMT+1):

Operator dispatched parallel ACP workers via sessions_spawn with
expectsCompletionMessage: true (the default). Workers completed
successfully (sqlite task_runs.status='succeeded'), but the
subagent_announce completion path failed to deliver:

14:06:06 Subagent completion direct announce failed for run bbbab85e-...:
          completion agent did not produce a visible reply
14:06:07 (same, retry)
14:06:10 (same, retry)

Worker output was lost. User saw nothing in Telegram. Operator manually
retried as a single sub-agent run.

Observation 2 — independent ACP-route test (14:08 GMT+1):

Operator separately tested the Claude Code ACP route on a different
governance task and reported:

The Claude Code route did launch, but it did not return the
requested patch plan. It returned only progress updates twice, and
my follow-up asking it to produce the full 8-section deliverable
timed out. ... ACP spawning works, but this Claude Code route is
currently stopping too early and treating progress as completion.
I would not trust it for canonical AGENTS.md refactoring yet.

Same root: announce-side delivery commits on intermediate output rather
than waiting for the agent's actual final, dropping the real deliverable.

24h ACP success/failure ratio on this installation:

status	count
succeeded	71
failed	10
cancelled (manual)	2
running	2

Of the 71 succeeded, ~16% had terminal update delivery failed in
openclaw tasks audit — work completed but result never reached user.

PR labels show proof: supplied + proof: sufficient. All CI checks
are CANCELLED (not failed). Can a maintainer re-trigger the workflows,
or indicate what specific change is still needed? This is now recurring
frequently enough to block sub-agent usage entirely on real workloads.

The subagent_announce addition to AGENT_MEDIATED_COMPLETION_TOOLS was unrelated to the routing fix and could cause group/channel completions to fail silently when the subagent does not use the message tool. This should be addressed separately with proper message-tool-only guidance (tracked in openclaw#80223).

steipete · 2026-05-17T02:20:08Z

Closing as superseded by #82834.

This PR covers the same subagent announce delivery seam. #82834 includes the mediated-completion behavior here plus the broader completion-delivery hardening and contributor credit, so keeping #82834 as the canonical path. Thanks for the focused fix.

openclaw-barnacle Bot added agents Agent runtime and tooling size: L triage: needs-real-behavior-proof Candidate: external PR needs after-fix proof from a real setup. labels May 10, 2026

moeedahmed force-pushed the fix/subagent-announce-require-mediated-delivery branch from 15a9af4 to 0cdaef5 Compare May 10, 2026 10:34

openclaw-barnacle Bot added size: M and removed size: L labels May 10, 2026

fix: require mediated delivery for subagent announce completions

21738b1

moeedahmed force-pushed the fix/subagent-announce-require-mediated-delivery branch from 0cdaef5 to 21738b1 Compare May 10, 2026 10:35

openclaw-barnacle Bot added size: S and removed size: M labels May 10, 2026

moeedahmed added 2 commits May 10, 2026 12:19

chore: rerun checks after proof update

d565a17

chore: rerun proof check with structured evidence

9a24d6c

openclaw-barnacle Bot added proof: supplied External PR includes structured after-fix real behavior proof. and removed triage: needs-real-behavior-proof Candidate: external PR needs after-fix proof from a real setup. labels May 10, 2026

clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request May 10, 2026

fix: route subagent announce to originating parent session instead of channel-bound peer session #80242

Merged

moeedahmed mentioned this pull request May 15, 2026

fix: keep run subagent output mediated #81029

Closed

This was referenced May 17, 2026

[Bug]: Subagent completion direct announce fails with no visible reply #82803

Closed

fix: Subagent completion direct announce often fails with no visible reply #82804

Closed

steipete mentioned this pull request May 17, 2026

fix(agents): harden subagent completion delivery #82834

Merged

clawsweeper Bot mentioned this pull request May 21, 2026

[Bug]: Telegram forum-topic subagent completion fails when announce agent does not use message tool #85070

Closed

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fix: require mediated delivery for subagent announce completions#80223

fix: require mediated delivery for subagent announce completions#80223
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moeedahmed commented May 15, 2026

Fresh real-behavior recurrence — 2026-05-15

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