Coding Agent

Use for background feature builds, PR reviews, large refactors, and issue-to-PR loops. Do not use for simple edits, read-only lookup, ACP thread-bound work, or any run inside ~/.openclaw, $OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR, or active OpenClaw state dirs.

Hard rules

• Always launch with background:true.
• Codex and OpenCode: use pty:true.
• Claude Code: no PTY; use claude --permission-mode bypassPermissions --print.
• Capture a real notification route before spawning.
• Worker must send completion/failure via openclaw message send.
• Do not rely on heartbeat, system events, or notify-on-exit.
• Monitor with process; do not kill slow workers without cause.
• If user asked for a specific agent, use that agent.
• If worker fails/hangs, respawn or ask; do not silently hand-code instead.
• Never checkout branches or run background coding agents in ~/Projects/openclaw; use an isolated checkout.
• Classify the source ref as trusted or untrusted before any checkout or worktree creation. Never materialize a contributor-controlled ref outside the repository's approved untrusted-PR sandbox/review workflow, and never launch a permission-bypassed worker in it.
• For tasks that modify a Git-backed project, prepare and verify the Git worktree before launch, then include the exact Git preparation block below in the worker prompt.