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WebChat (macOS)

docs/platforms/mac/webchat.md

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The macOS menu bar app embeds the WebChat UI as a native SwiftUI view. It connects to the Gateway and defaults to the primary session for the selected agent (main, or global when session.scope is global).

The full chat window is a native split view:

  • Sessions sidebar: searchable session list with pinned and recent sections, unread indicators, and context menus for pin/unpin, copy session key, and delete. A toolbar button (or Cmd-N) creates a real new session via sessions.create.
  • Window toolbar: context-usage ring (tokens and session cost, with a compact action), thinking-level picker, model picker, and a session actions menu (new session, refresh, copy session key, export transcript, compact, clear history).
  • Transcript and composer: assistant messages render as plain text with an avatar, user messages as accent bubbles. Typing / opens slash-command autocomplete backed by commands.list, with arrow/Tab/Return/Escape keyboard navigation. Right-click a message to copy it.

The anchored quick-chat panel from the menu bar keeps the compact single-column layout with inline pickers.

  • Local mode: connects directly to the local Gateway WebSocket.
  • Remote mode: forwards the Gateway control port over SSH and uses that tunnel as the data plane.

Launch and debugging

  • Manual: Lobster menu -> "Open Chat".

  • Auto-open for testing:

    bash
    dist/OpenClaw.app/Contents/MacOS/OpenClaw --chat

    (--webchat is accepted as a legacy alias.)

  • Logs: ./scripts/clawlog.sh (subsystem ai.openclaw, category WebChatSwiftUI).

How it is wired

  • Data plane: Gateway WS methods chat.history, chat.send, chat.abort, chat.inject, and events chat, agent, presence, tick, health.
  • chat.history returns a display-normalized transcript: inline directive tags are stripped from visible text, plain-text tool-call XML payloads (<tool_call>, <function_call>, <tool_calls>, <function_calls>, including truncated blocks) and leaked model control tokens are stripped, pure silent-token assistant rows such as exact NO_REPLY/no_reply are omitted, and oversized rows can be replaced with a truncated placeholder.
  • Session: defaults to the primary session as above; the UI can switch between sessions.
  • Onboarding uses a dedicated session to keep first-run setup separate.
  • Offline cache: the app keeps a small read-only cache of recent chat sessions and transcripts per gateway (~/Library/Application Support/OpenClaw/chat-cache.sqlite): cold opens paint the last known transcript immediately and refresh once the Gateway responds, and recent chats stay browsable while disconnected (sending stays disabled until the connection is back).

Security surface

  • Remote mode forwards only the Gateway WebSocket control port over SSH.

Known limitations

  • The UI is optimized for chat sessions, not a full browser sandbox.