Thinking Levels (/think directives)

What it does

Inline directive in any inbound body: /t <level>, /think:<level>, or /thinking <level>.
Levels (aliases): off | minimal | low | medium | high | xhigh | adaptive
- minimal → “think”
- low → “think hard”
- medium → “think harder”
- high → “ultrathink” (max budget)
- xhigh → “ultrathink+” (GPT-5.2 + Codex models only)
- adaptive → provider-managed adaptive reasoning budget (supported for Anthropic Claude 4.6 model family)
- x-high, x_high, extra-high, extra high, and extra_high map to xhigh.
- highest, max map to high.
Provider notes:
- Anthropic Claude 4.6 models default to adaptive when no explicit thinking level is set.
- Z.AI (zai/*) only supports binary thinking (on/off). Any non-off level is treated as on (mapped to low).
- Moonshot (moonshot/*) maps /think off to thinking: { type: "disabled" } and any non-off level to thinking: { type: "enabled" }. When thinking is enabled, Moonshot only accepts tool_choice auto|none; OpenClaw normalizes incompatible values to auto.

Inline directive on the message (applies only to that message).
Session override (set by sending a directive-only message).
Global default (agents.defaults.thinkingDefault in config).
Fallback: adaptive for Anthropic Claude 4.6 models, low for other reasoning-capable models, off otherwise.

Send a message that is only the directive (whitespace allowed), e.g. /think:medium or /t high.
That sticks for the current session (per-sender by default); cleared by /think:off or session idle reset.
Confirmation reply is sent (Thinking level set to high. / Thinking disabled.). If the level is invalid (e.g. /thinking big), the command is rejected with a hint and the session state is left unchanged.
Send /think (or /think:) with no argument to see the current thinking level.

Embedded Pi: the resolved level is passed to the in-process Pi agent runtime.

Levels: on|off.
Directive-only message toggles a session fast-mode override and replies Fast mode enabled. / Fast mode disabled..
Send /fast (or /fast status) with no mode to see the current effective fast-mode state.
OpenClaw resolves fast mode in this order:
1. Inline/directive-only /fast on|off
2. Session override
3. Per-model config: agents.defaults.models["<provider>/<model>"].params.fastMode
4. Fallback: off
For openai/*, fast mode applies the OpenAI fast profile: service_tier=priority when supported, plus low reasoning effort and low text verbosity.
For openai-codex/*, fast mode applies the same low-latency profile on Codex Responses. OpenClaw keeps one shared /fast toggle across both auth paths.
For direct anthropic/* API-key requests, fast mode maps to Anthropic service tiers: /fast on sets service_tier=auto, /fast off sets service_tier=standard_only.
Anthropic fast mode is API-key only. OpenClaw skips Anthropic service-tier injection for Claude setup-token / OAuth auth and for non-Anthropic proxy base URLs.

Levels: on (minimal) | full | off (default).
Directive-only message toggles session verbose and replies Verbose logging enabled. / Verbose logging disabled.; invalid levels return a hint without changing state.
/verbose off stores an explicit session override; clear it via the Sessions UI by choosing inherit.
Inline directive affects only that message; session/global defaults apply otherwise.
Send /verbose (or /verbose:) with no argument to see the current verbose level.
When verbose is on, agents that emit structured tool results (Pi, other JSON agents) send each tool call back as its own metadata-only message, prefixed with <emoji> <tool-name>: <arg> when available (path/command). These tool summaries are sent as soon as each tool starts (separate bubbles), not as streaming deltas.
Tool failure summaries remain visible in normal mode, but raw error detail suffixes are hidden unless verbose is on or full.
When verbose is full, tool outputs are also forwarded after completion (separate bubble, truncated to a safe length). If you toggle /verbose on|full|off while a run is in-flight, subsequent tool bubbles honor the new setting.

Levels: on|off|stream.
Directive-only message toggles whether thinking blocks are shown in replies.
When enabled, reasoning is sent as a separate message prefixed with Reasoning:.
stream (Telegram only): streams reasoning into the Telegram draft bubble while the reply is generating, then sends the final answer without reasoning.
Alias: /reason.
Send /reasoning (or /reasoning:) with no argument to see the current reasoning level.

Heartbeat probe body is the configured heartbeat prompt (default: Read HEARTBEAT.md if it exists (workspace context). Follow it strictly. Do not infer or repeat old tasks from prior chats. If nothing needs attention, reply HEARTBEAT_OK.). Inline directives in a heartbeat message apply as usual (but avoid changing session defaults from heartbeats).
Heartbeat delivery defaults to the final payload only. To also send the separate Reasoning: message (when available), set agents.defaults.heartbeat.includeReasoning: true or per-agent agents.list[].heartbeat.includeReasoning: true.

The web chat thinking selector mirrors the session's stored level from the inbound session store/config when the page loads.
Picking another level applies only to the next message (thinkingOnce); after sending, the selector snaps back to the stored session level.
To change the session default, send a /think:<level> directive (as before); the selector will reflect it after the next reload.