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 sessionsopenclaw sessions --agent workopenclaw sessions --all-agentsopenclaw sessions --active 120openclaw sessions --limit 25openclaw sessions --store ./tmp/sessions.jsonopenclaw sessions --json

Flags:

openclaw sessions and the Gateway sessions.list RPC 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.

--all-agents reads configured agent stores. Gateway and ACP session discovery are broader: they also include SQLite stores resolved from configured agent roots or a templated session.store root. Legacy selector paths must resolve inside the agent root; symlinks and out-of-root paths are skipped.

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": "openai/gpt-5.6-sol" },    { "agentId": "work", "key": "agent:work:main", "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6" }  ]}

Tail trajectory progress

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

openclaw sessions tail renders recent runtime trajectory 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; default 80, and 0 starts at the current end. --follow keeps watching the selected SQLite-backed session or an explicit legacy trajectory file.

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

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.

Cleanup maintenance

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

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

openclaw sessions cleanup uses session.maintenance settings from config (Configuration reference):

• Scope note: openclaw sessions cleanup maintains session stores, transcripts, trajectory rows, and legacy trajectory sidecars. It does not prune cron run history, which automatically keeps the newest 2000 rows per job (Cron configuration).
• Cleanup also prunes unreferenced legacy/archive transcript artifacts, compaction checkpoints, and trajectory sidecars older than session.maintenance.pruneAfter; artifacts still referenced by SQLite session rows 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>. Retention is a fixed 24h and 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.

Flags:

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 legacy store selector.

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

• Without --max-lines, the Gateway LLM-summarizes the transcript. The CLI does not impose a client deadline by default; the Gateway owns the configured compaction lifecycle.
• 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>: optional client-side 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.

sessions.compact RPC

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

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
• Session management
• Compaction
• CLI reference