Progress drafts

Progress drafts make long-running agent turns feel alive in chat without turning the conversation into a stack of temporary status replies.

When progress drafts are enabled, OpenClaw creates one visible work-in-progress message only after the turn proves it is doing real work, updates it while the agent reads, plans, calls tools, or waits for approval, and then turns that draft into the final answer when the channel can do that safely.

Shelling...
📖 Read: from docs/concepts/progress-drafts.md
🔎 Web Search: for "discord edit message"
🛠️ Exec: run tests

Use progress drafts when you want one tidy status message during tool-heavy work and the final answer when the turn is done.

Quick Start

Enable progress drafts per channel with streaming.mode: "progress":

{
  channels: {
    discord: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
      },
    },
  },
}

That is usually enough. OpenClaw will pick an automatic one-word label, wait until work lasts at least five seconds or emits a second work event, add compact progress lines while useful work happens, and suppress duplicate standalone progress chatter for that turn.

What Users See

A progress draft has two parts:

The label appears after the agent starts meaningful work and either remains busy for five seconds or emits a second work event. Plain text-only replies do not show a progress draft. Progress lines are added only when the agent emits useful work updates, for example 🛠️ Exec, 🔎 Web Search, or ✍️ Write: to /tmp/file. By default they use the same compact explain mode as /verbose; set agents.defaults.toolProgressDetail: "raw" when debugging and you also want raw commands/details appended. The final answer replaces the draft when possible; otherwise OpenClaw sends the final answer normally and cleans up or stops updating the draft according to the channel's transport.

Choose A Mode

channels.<channel>.streaming.mode controls the visible in-progress behavior:

Choose progress when users care more about "what is happening" than watching the answer text stream token by token.

Choose partial when the answer itself is the progress signal.

Choose block when you want draft preview updates in larger text chunks. On Discord and Telegram, streaming.mode: "block" is still preview streaming, not normal block delivery. Use streaming.block.enabled or legacy blockStreaming when you want normal block replies.

Configure Labels

Progress labels live under channels.<channel>.streaming.progress.

The default label is auto, which chooses from OpenClaw's built-in single-word-with-ellipsis label pool:

Thinking...
Shelling...
Scuttling...
Clawing...
Pinching...
Molting...
Bubbling...
Tiding...
Reefing...
Cracking...
Sifting...
Brining...
Nautiling...
Krilling...
Barnacling...
Lobstering...
Tidepooling...
Pearling...
Snapping...
Surfacing...

Use a fixed label:

{
  channels: {
    discord: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
        progress: {
          label: "Investigating",
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Use your own automatic label pool:

{
  channels: {
    discord: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
        progress: {
          label: "auto",
          labels: ["Checking", "Reading", "Testing", "Finishing"],
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Hide the label and show only progress lines:

{
  channels: {
    discord: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
        progress: {
          label: false,
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Control Progress Lines

Progress lines are enabled by default in progress mode. They come from real run events: tool starts, item updates, task plans, approvals, command output, patch summaries, and similar agent activity.

OpenClaw uses the same formatter for progress drafts and /verbose:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      toolProgressDetail: "explain", // explain | raw
    },
  },
}

"explain" is the default and keeps drafts stable with concise labels like 🛠️ Exec: check JS syntax for /tmp/app.js. "raw" appends the underlying command/detail when available, which is useful while debugging but noisier in chat.

For example, the same command appears differently depending on the detail mode:

Limit how many lines stay visible:

{
  channels: {
    discord: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
        progress: {
          maxLines: 4,
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Progress lines are compacted automatically to reduce chat-bubble reflow while the draft is edited.

OpenClaw truncates long progress lines by default so repeated draft edits do not wrap differently on every update. The prefix stays readable, and long details such as paths or raw commands are shortened with an ellipsis.

Slack can render progress lines as structured Block Kit fields instead of a single text body:

{
  channels: {
    slack: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
        progress: {
          render: "rich",
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Rich rendering keeps the same plain-text fallback so channels and clients that do not support the richer shape can still show the compact progress text.

Keep the single progress draft but hide tool and task lines:

{
  channels: {
    discord: {
      streaming: {
        mode: "progress",
        progress: {
          toolProgress: false,
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

With toolProgress: false, OpenClaw still suppresses the older standalone tool-progress messages for that turn. The channel stays visually quiet until the final answer, except for the label if one is configured.

Channel Behavior

Each channel uses the cleanest transport it supports:

Channels without safe edit support usually fall back to typing indicators or final-only delivery.

Finalization

When the final answer is ready, OpenClaw tries to keep the chat clean:

• If the draft can safely become the final answer, OpenClaw edits it in place.
• If the channel uses native progress streaming, OpenClaw finalizes that stream when the native transport accepts the final text.
• If the final answer has media, an approval prompt, an explicit reply target, too many chunks, or a failed edit/send, OpenClaw sends the final answer through the normal channel delivery path.

The fallback path is intentional. It is better to send a fresh final answer than to lose text, mis-thread a reply, or overwrite a draft with a payload the channel cannot represent safely.

Troubleshooting

I only see the final answer.

Check that channels.<channel>.streaming.mode is set to progress for the account or channel that handled the message. Some group or quote-reply paths may disable draft previews for a turn when the channel cannot safely edit the right message.

I see the label but no tool lines.

Check streaming.progress.toolProgress. If it is false, OpenClaw keeps the single draft behavior but hides tool and task progress lines.

I see a fresh final message instead of an edited draft.

That is a safety fallback. It can happen for media replies, long answers, explicit reply targets, old Telegram drafts, missing Slack thread targets, deleted preview messages, or failed native stream finalization.

I still see standalone progress messages.

Progress mode suppresses default standalone tool-progress messages when a draft is active. If standalone messages still appear, verify that the turn is actually using progress mode and not streaming.mode: "off" or a channel path that cannot create a draft for that message.

Teams behaves differently from Discord or Telegram.

Microsoft Teams uses a native stream in personal chats instead of the generic send-and-edit preview transport. Teams also treats streaming.mode: "block" as Teams block delivery because it does not have the same draft-preview block mode used by Discord and Telegram.

Related

• Streaming and chunking
• Messages
• Channel configuration
• Discord
• Matrix
• Microsoft Teams
• Slack
• Telegram