openclaw/docs/cli/sessions.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
CLI reference for `openclaw sessions` (list stored sessions + usage)	You want to list stored sessions and see recent activity	Sessions

openclaw sessions

List stored conversation sessions.

Session lists are not channel/provider liveness checks. They show persisted conversation rows from session stores. A quiet Discord, Slack, Telegram, or other channel can reconnect successfully without creating a new session row until a message is processed. Use openclaw channels status --probe, openclaw status --deep, or openclaw health --verbose when you need live channel connectivity.

openclaw sessions and Gateway sessions.list responses are bounded by default so large long-lived stores cannot monopolize the CLI process or Gateway event loop. The CLI returns the newest 100 sessions by default; pass --limit <n> for a smaller/larger window or --limit all when you intentionally need the full store. JSON responses include totalCount, limitApplied, and hasMore when callers need to show that more rows exist.

RPC clients can pass configuredAgentsOnly: true to keep the broad combined discovery source but return only rows for agents currently present in config. Control UI uses that mode by default so deleted or disk-only agent stores do not reappear in the Sessions view.

openclaw sessions
openclaw sessions --agent work
openclaw sessions --all-agents
openclaw sessions --active 120
openclaw sessions --limit 25
openclaw sessions --verbose
openclaw sessions --json

Scope selection:

• default: configured default agent store
• --verbose: verbose logging
• --agent <id>: one configured agent store
• --all-agents: aggregate all configured agent stores
• --store <path>: explicit store path (cannot be combined with --agent or --all-agents)
• --limit <n|all>: max rows to output (default 100; all restores full output)

Tail human-readable trajectory progress for stored sessions:

openclaw sessions tail
openclaw sessions tail --follow
openclaw sessions tail --session-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123" --tail 25
openclaw sessions --agent work tail --follow
openclaw sessions --all-agents tail --follow

openclaw sessions tail renders recent trajectory JSONL events as compact progress lines. Without --session-key, it tails running sessions first, then the latest stored session. --tail <count> controls how many existing events print before follow mode; the default is 80, and 0 starts at the current end. --follow keeps watching the selected trajectory files, including relocated files referenced by <session>.trajectory-path.json.

The progress view is intentionally conservative: prompt text, tool arguments, and tool result bodies are not printed. Tool calls show the tool name with {...redacted...}; tool results show status such as ok, error, or done; model completion lines show provider/model and terminal status.

Export a trajectory bundle for a stored session:

openclaw sessions export-trajectory --session-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123" --workspace .
openclaw sessions export-trajectory --session-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123" --output bug-123 --json

This is the command path used by the /export-trajectory slash command after the owner approves the exec request. The output directory is always resolved inside .openclaw/trajectory-exports/ under the selected workspace.

openclaw sessions --all-agents reads configured agent stores. Gateway and ACP session discovery are broader: they also include disk-only stores found under the default agents/ root or a templated session.store root. Those discovered stores must resolve to regular sessions.json files inside the agent root; symlinks and out-of-root paths are skipped.

JSON examples:

openclaw sessions --all-agents --json:

{
  "path": null,
  "stores": [
    { "agentId": "main", "path": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/sessions.json" },
    { "agentId": "work", "path": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/work/sessions/sessions.json" }
  ],
  "allAgents": true,
  "count": 2,
  "totalCount": 2,
  "limitApplied": 100,
  "hasMore": false,
  "activeMinutes": null,
  "sessions": [
    { "agentId": "main", "key": "agent:main:main", "model": "gpt-5" },
    { "agentId": "work", "key": "agent:work:main", "model": "claude-opus-4-6" }
  ]
}

Cleanup maintenance

Run maintenance now (instead of waiting for the next write cycle):

openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --agent work --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --all-agents --dry-run
openclaw sessions cleanup --enforce
openclaw sessions cleanup --enforce --active-key "agent:main:telegram:direct:123"
openclaw sessions cleanup --dry-run --fix-dm-scope
openclaw sessions cleanup --json

openclaw sessions cleanup uses session.maintenance settings from config:

• Scope note: openclaw sessions cleanup maintains session stores, transcripts, and trajectory sidecars. It does not prune cron run history, which is managed by cron.runLog.keepLines in Cron configuration and explained in Cron maintenance.

• Cleanup also prunes unreferenced primary transcripts, compaction checkpoints, and trajectory sidecars older than session.maintenance.pruneAfter; files still referenced by sessions.json are preserved.

• Cleanup reports short-lived gateway model-run probe cleanup separately as modelRunPruned. This only matches strict explicit keys shaped like agent:*:explicit:model-run-<uuid>. The fixed retention is 24h, but it is pressure-gated: it only removes stale probe rows when session-entry maintenance/cap pressure is reached. When it runs, model-run cleanup happens before global stale cleanup and capping.

• --dry-run: preview how many entries would be pruned/capped without writing.

  • In text mode, dry-run prints a per-session action table (Action, Key, Age, Model, Flags) plus a summary grouped by session label so you can see what would be kept vs removed.

• --enforce: apply maintenance even when session.maintenance.mode is warn.

• --fix-missing: remove entries whose transcript files are missing or header-only/empty, even if they would not normally age/count out yet.

• --fix-dm-scope: when session.dmScope is main, retire stale peer-keyed direct-DM rows left behind by earlier per-peer, per-channel-peer, or per-account-channel-peer routing. Use --dry-run first; applying the cleanup removes those rows from sessions.json and preserves their transcripts as deleted archives.

• --active-key <key>: protect a specific active key from disk-budget eviction. Durable external conversation pointers, such as group sessions and thread-scoped chat sessions, are also kept by age/count/disk-budget maintenance.

• --agent <id>: run cleanup for one configured agent store.

• --all-agents: run cleanup for all configured agent stores.

• --store <path>: run against a specific sessions.json file.

• --json: print a JSON summary. With --all-agents, output includes one summary per store.

When a Gateway is reachable, non-dry-run cleanup for configured agent stores is sent through the Gateway so it shares the same session-store writer as runtime traffic. Use --store <path> for explicit offline repair of a store file.

openclaw sessions cleanup --all-agents --dry-run --json:

{
  "allAgents": true,
  "mode": "warn",
  "dryRun": true,
  "stores": [
    {
      "agentId": "main",
      "storePath": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/sessions.json",
      "beforeCount": 120,
      "afterCount": 80,
      "missing": 0,
      "dmScopeRetired": 0,
      "pruned": 40,
      "capped": 0
    },
    {
      "agentId": "work",
      "storePath": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/work/sessions/sessions.json",
      "beforeCount": 18,
      "afterCount": 18,
      "missing": 0,
      "dmScopeRetired": 0,
      "pruned": 0,
      "capped": 0
    }
  ]
}

Compact a session

Reclaim context budget for a wedged or oversized session. openclaw sessions compact <key> is the first-class wrapper around the sessions.compact gateway RPC and requires a running gateway.

openclaw sessions compact "agent:main:main"
openclaw sessions compact "agent:main:main" --max-lines 200
openclaw sessions compact "agent:work:main" --agent work --json

• Without --max-lines, the gateway LLM-summarizes the transcript. This can be slow, so the default --timeout is 180000 ms.
• With --max-lines <n>, it truncates to the last n transcript lines and archives the prior transcript as a .bak sidecar.
• --agent <id>: agent that owns the session; required for global keys.
• --url / --token / --password: gateway connection overrides.
• --timeout <ms>: RPC timeout in milliseconds.
• --json: print the raw RPC payload.

The command exits non-zero when the gateway reports a failed compaction or is unreachable, so crons and scripts never mistake a silent no-op for success.

Note: openclaw agent --message '/compact ...' is not a compaction path. Slash commands from the CLI are rejected by the authorized-sender check; that invocation exits non-zero with guidance pointing here instead of silently no-opping.

sessions.compact RPC

openclaw gateway call sessions.compact --params '<json>' accepts:

Field	Type	Required	Description
key	string	yes	Session key to compact (for example agent:main:main).
agentId	string	no	Agent id that owns the session (for global keys).
maxLines	integer ≥ 1	no	Truncate to the last N lines instead of LLM summarization.

Example LLM-summarize response:

{
  "ok": true,
  "key": "agent:main:main",
  "compacted": true,
  "result": { "tokensBefore": 243868, "tokensAfter": 34941 }
}

Example truncate response (--max-lines 200):

{
  "ok": true,
  "key": "agent:main:main",
  "compacted": true,
  "archived": "/home/user/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/transcripts/<id>.jsonl.bak",
  "kept": 200
}

Related

• Session config: Configuration reference
• CLI reference
• Session management