clawagents 6.6.3

Lean, full-stack agentic AI framework with PTRL (Prompt-Time Reinforcement Learning)

🦞 ClawAgents

A lean, full-stack agentic AI framework — ~2,500 LOC

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ClawAgents is a production-ready agentic framework that gives LLMs the ability to read, write, and execute code — with built-in planning, memory, sandboxing, and a gateway server. It supports OpenAI GPT-5, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude out of the box, with a pluggable provider architecture for any LLM.

Built by extracting and unifying the best architectural patterns from OpenClaw (~5,800 files) and DeepAgents (~1,400 LOC core), ClawAgents delivers the same power at a fraction of the complexity.

Installation

pip install clawagents              # Core (OpenAI only)
pip install clawagents[gemini]      # + Google Gemini support
pip install clawagents[anthropic]   # + Anthropic Claude support
pip install clawagents[all]         # All providers + tiktoken

Version 6.6.3 — Latest stable release (April 2026). Performance and release hardening for the Hermes-parity line: local async filesystem work no longer blocks the event loop, trajectory summaries append instead of rewriting the full run log, persisted sessions preload a bounded history by default, and the TypeScript sibling caps large diffs and single-file grep output. 778 Python tests pass; 497 TypeScript tests pass plus 49 parity checks, tsc --noEmit clean. Real .env smoke tests passed against Gemini and OpenAI, including read-only tool use and subagent delegation. See Changelog.

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30-Second Quick Start

The fastest way to get going — scaffolds a .env, a run_agent.py starter script, and an AGENTS.md memory file:

pip install clawagents
cd ~/my-project         # any project directory
clawagents --init       # creates .env, run_agent.py, AGENTS.md

Then edit .env with your API key and run:

python run_agent.py

That's it. The generated run_agent.py includes commented-out examples for every provider (OpenAI, Gemini, Azure, Ollama, vLLM).

Where does .env go?

ClawAgents loads .env from the directory you run the command from (your current working directory). Different projects can have different configurations.

~/my-project/
├── .env              ← ClawAgents reads this when you run from ~/my-project/
├── run_agent.py
├── AGENTS.md
└── src/

Three ways to configure (in priority order, highest → lowest):

1. create_claw_agent() parameters — explicit values passed to the factory always win.
2. .env file values — loaded with override=True, so they take precedence over any pre-existing shell env vars. This is intentional: it prevents the "stale OPENAI_API_KEY exported from ~/.zshrc silently shadows the fresh key in .env" bug class.
3. Shell environment variables — used as a fallback when no .env is found, or for keys the .env doesn't define.

Where ClawAgents looks for .env (first match wins):

1. $CLAWAGENTS_ENV_FILE — explicit absolute path (handy for CI / Docker / multi-project setups).
2. ./.env — the directory you ran the command from.
3. ../.env — parent directory (monorepo-friendly).

A ready-to-use template is included in the repo:

cp .env.example .env   # then fill in your API key

Or run clawagents --init to generate one interactively.

CLI One-Liner

clawagents --task "List all Python files and summarize the project"

Minimal Python Code

import asyncio
from clawagents import create_claw_agent

async def main():
    agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5-mini")  # or "gemini-3-flash", "llama3.1", etc.
    result = await agent.invoke("List all Python files in src/")
    print(result.result)

asyncio.run(main())

Examples

See the examples/ directory for ready-to-run scripts:

File	Provider
01_openai.py	OpenAI (GPT-5, GPT-4o)
02_gemini.py	Google Gemini
03_azure.py	Azure OpenAI
04_local_ollama.py	Ollama (local)
05_local_vllm.py	vLLM (local)
06_bedrock.py	AWS Bedrock (via gateway)
07_with_custom_tools.py	Custom tools
08_compare_samples.py	Multi-sample comparison

---

Configuration

1. Configure your environment

Create a .env file (or run clawagents --init to generate one):

PROVIDER=gemini                    # or "openai"
GEMINI_API_KEY=AIza...             # Your Gemini API key
GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-3-flash-preview
STREAMING=1
CONTEXT_WINDOW=1000000
MAX_TOKENS=8192
TEMPERATURE=0                      # Model-specific overrides apply (see below)

# Optional: RL-inspired agent improvements
CLAW_TRAJECTORY=1                  # Enable trajectory logging + scoring
CLAW_RETHINK=1                     # Enable consecutive-failure detection
CLAW_LEARN=1                       # Enable PTRL (lessons from past runs)

OpenAI configuration

PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-5-nano
STREAMING=1
CONTEXT_WINDOW=1000000
MAX_TOKENS=8192
TEMPERATURE=0                      # 0 for deterministic output
CLAW_TRAJECTORY=1
CLAW_RETHINK=1
CLAW_LEARN=1

2. One-line agent

from clawagents import create_claw_agent

agent = create_claw_agent("gemini-3-flash")
result = await agent.invoke("List all Python files in src/")
print(result.result)

3. With custom instructions

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5",
    instruction="You are a senior code reviewer. Be thorough and concise."
)
result = await agent.invoke("Review this codebase and suggest improvements")

4. With trajectory logging & rethink

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5-mini",
    trajectory=True,   # logs every turn + scores the run
    rethink=True,       # auto-injects "rethink" after 3 consecutive failures
)
result = await agent.invoke("Refactor the auth module and add tests")
# Run summary written to .clawagents/trajectories/runs.jsonl

5. With PTRL (Prompt-Time Reinforcement Learning)

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5-mini",
    learn=True,    # enables all 3 PTRL layers (implies trajectory=True)
    rethink=True,  # enhanced rethink uses past lessons
)
result = await agent.invoke("Build the data pipeline")
# After the run: lessons extracted and saved to .clawagents/lessons.md
# Next run: lessons injected into system prompt automatically

6. With Advisor Model (smart model guides cheap model)

# GPT-5.4-nano executes, GPT-5.4 advises 2-3 times per task
agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5.4-nano",
    advisor_model="gpt-5.4",
)

# Cross-provider: Haiku executes, GPT-5.4 advises
agent = create_claw_agent(
    "claude-haiku-4-5",
    advisor_model="gpt-5.4",
    advisor_api_key="sk-...",
)

The advisor is consulted at three points: (1) after initial orientation, before committing to an approach, (2) when stuck (consecutive failures trigger rethink), and (3) before declaring the task complete. Set ADVISOR_MODEL in .env or pass advisor_model in code.

7. Multi-Sample Comparison (GRPO-inspired)

agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5-mini", rethink=True)
# Run the task 3 times, pick the best based on objective scoring
result = await agent.compare("Fix the bug in app.py", n_samples=3)
print(result["best_result"])   # best answer
print(result["best_score"])    # objective score
print(result["all_scores"])    # all samples with scores

8. Azure OpenAI

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-4o",                    # your Azure deployment name
    api_key="your-azure-key",
    base_url="https://myresource.openai.azure.com/",
    api_version="2024-12-01-preview",
    learn=True,
)
result = await agent.invoke("Analyze the codebase")

Or via .env:

PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_API_KEY=your-azure-key
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o
OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://myresource.openai.azure.com/
OPENAI_API_VERSION=2024-12-01-preview

9. AWS Bedrock (via OpenAI-compatible gateway)

Use Bedrock Access Gateway or LiteLLM proxy to expose Bedrock models as an OpenAI-compatible API:

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "anthropic.claude-3-sonnet-20240229-v1:0",
    base_url="http://localhost:8080/v1",
    api_key="bedrock",           # gateway handles AWS auth
)

Or via .env:

OPENAI_API_KEY=bedrock
OPENAI_MODEL=anthropic.claude-3-sonnet-20240229-v1:0
OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/v1

10. Local Models (Ollama / vLLM / LM Studio)

Any OpenAI-compatible local server works out of the box:

# Ollama (default port 11434)
agent = create_claw_agent("llama3.1", base_url="http://localhost:11434/v1")

# vLLM
agent = create_claw_agent("Qwen/Qwen3-8B", base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1")

# LM Studio
agent = create_claw_agent("local-model", base_url="http://localhost:1234/v1")

Or via .env:

# No API key needed for local models — just omit OPENAI_API_KEY
OPENAI_MODEL=llama3.1
OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1

Tip: For local models that emit <think>...</think> tokens (Qwen3, DeepSeek), thinking content is automatically detected, stripped from output, and preserved in trajectory records (Feature H).

11. MCP Servers (Model Context Protocol)

Wire any external MCP server into the agent and its tools become first-class clawagents tools — no boilerplate. Three transports are supported (stdio, HTTP+SSE, Streamable HTTP):

from clawagents import create_claw_agent, MCPServerStdio

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5-mini",
    mcp_servers=[
        MCPServerStdio(
            params={"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "my_mcp_server"]},
            name="my-mcp",
            cache_tools_list=True,
        ),
    ],
)
result = await agent.invoke("Use the my-mcp tools to do X")

Install the optional dependency once: pip install 'clawagents[mcp]'. If mcp_servers= is non-empty without the SDK installed, the factory raises a clear ImportError. The manager connects each server, lists its tools, bridges them into the existing ToolRegistry, and registers a shutdown finalizer. Every lifecycle phase (Idle → Connecting → Initializing → DiscoveringTools → Ready → Invoking → Errored / Shutdown) emits a tracing span, so MCP activity is visible in the standard tracing exporters.

For HTTP-based servers:

from clawagents import MCPServerSse, MCPServerStreamableHttp

mcp_servers = [
    MCPServerSse(params={"url": "https://example.com/mcp/sse"}),
    MCPServerStreamableHttp(params={"url": "https://example.com/mcp"}),
]

12. Browser tools (v6.6)

Give the agent a Playwright-backed browser. Install once: pip install 'clawagents[browser]' && playwright install chromium.

from clawagents import create_claw_agent
from clawagents.browser import create_browser_tools

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5-mini",
    tools=create_browser_tools(),  # navigate / snapshot / click / type / screenshot / ...
)
result = await agent.invoke("Open https://example.com and summarise the page")

create_browser_tools() lazily instantiates a sandboxed BrowserSession on first use, applies SSRF + scheme checks before every navigation, and registers a shutdown hook so the headless Chromium is torn down when the agent exits. Cloud providers (Browserbase, browser-use) plug in via BrowserConfig(provider="browserbase") — see clawagents.browser.providers.get_provider().

13. Scheduled jobs / cron (v6.6)

Run agent prompts on a schedule. Interval (every 5m) and one-shot (@once) schedules work out of the box; cron expressions (0 9 * * *) require pip install 'clawagents[cron]'.

from clawagents import create_claw_agent, Scheduler, create_job

# Persisted to ~/.clawagents/<profile>/cron/jobs.json
create_job("Summarise overnight logs", "0 9 * * *", name="daily-summary")
create_job("Heartbeat ping", "every 5m")

async def run_prompt(job: dict) -> str:
    agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5-nano")
    return (await agent.invoke(job["prompt"])).result

scheduler = Scheduler(runner=run_prompt)
await scheduler.start()        # poll every 30s, dispatch due jobs
# ... later ...
await scheduler.stop()

list_jobs(), pause_job(), trigger_job(), and remove_job() round out the management API. Each successful run records its output under ~/.clawagents/<profile>/cron/runs/<job_id>/<timestamp>.json so you can audit history.

14. ACP adapter (v6.6)

Serve a ClawAgents agent over Zed's Agent Client Protocol (JSON-RPC over stdio) so any ACP-compatible client (Zed, Cursor with ACP plugin, custom UIs) can drive the agent. Install: pip install 'clawagents[acp]'.

from clawagents import create_claw_agent, AcpServer

agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5-mini")
AcpServer(agent=agent).serve()  # blocks on stdin/stdout until EOF

Streaming chunks (AgentMessageChunk, AgentThoughtChunk), tool-call updates, and permission prompts are all bridged to ACP SessionUpdate events. Pass permission_requester= to wire HITL approval into the host UI.

15. RL fine-tuning hooks (v6.6)

Capture agent runs as training-ready trajectories and export them to TRL / SLIME / Atropos / generic JSONL. The recorder works without any RL framework installed; trl and atropos are only needed when you actually drive a trainer.

from clawagents import create_claw_agent, RLRecorder
from clawagents.rl import export_jsonl

recorder = RLRecorder(task="Fix the bug in app.py", model="gpt-5-mini")
agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5-mini", on_event=recorder.observe)
result = await agent.invoke("Fix the bug in app.py")
recorder.finalise(final=result.result, reward=1.0 if result.status == "done" else 0.0)

export_jsonl([recorder.trajectory], "runs.jsonl")

For online rollouts, swap export_jsonl for the AtroposAdapter HTTP submitter, or hand the trajectory to to_trl_sft() / to_trl_dpo() for offline SFT / DPO fine-tuning.

16. CLI

# Scaffold a project (generates .env, run_agent.py, AGENTS.md)
clawagents --init

# Check your configuration
clawagents --doctor

# Run a task directly
clawagents --task "Find all TODO comments in the codebase"

# Inspect past run trajectories
clawagents --trajectory        # last run
clawagents --trajectory 5      # last 5 runs

# Start the gateway server
clawagents --serve --port 3000

# Show all options
clawagents --help

Typical First-Time Flow

pip install clawagents           # 1. Install
clawagents --init                # 2. Scaffold .env, run_agent.py, AGENTS.md
# edit .env with your API key    # 3. Configure
clawagents --doctor              # 4. Verify setup
clawagents --task "hello world"  # 5. Run your first task
python run_agent.py              # 6. Or use the generated script

CLI Reference

Command	Description
clawagents --init	Scaffold a starter project: .env (config template), run_agent.py (starter script with 5 provider options), AGENTS.md (memory file). Skips existing files.
clawagents --doctor	Check configuration health: .env discovery, API keys, active model, LLM settings, PTRL flags, local endpoint reachability, trajectory history, AGENTS.md presence.
clawagents --tools [--json]	Inspect built-in tool schemas without starting a model client. Useful for release checks and native-tool schema debugging.
clawagents --task "..."	Run a single task. Prints a startup banner (provider=X model=Y env=Z ptrl=...), executes the agent, prints the result to stdout.
clawagents --trajectory [N]	Inspect the last N run summaries (default: 1). Shows run ID, model, task, duration, turns, tool calls, score, quality, failure breakdown, verified score, and judge verdict. Requires CLAW_TRAJECTORY=1.
clawagents --serve [--port N]	Start the HTTP gateway server (default port 3000). Endpoints: POST /chat, POST /chat/stream (SSE), WS /ws, GET /queue, GET /health.
clawagents --sessions	List saved sessions (requires CLAW_FEATURE_SESSION_PERSISTENCE=1). Shows session ID, turn count, status, and task.
clawagents --resume [ID|latest]	Resume a saved session. Loads messages from JSONL and continues the conversation. Defaults to latest.
clawagents --help	Show all options with examples.
clawagents --advisor MODEL	Pair a stronger model for strategic guidance (e.g. --advisor gpt-5.4).

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🏆 Performance: ClawAgents vs Traditional Frameworks

ClawAgents v5.10 outperforms traditional multi-layer agentic frameworks through architectural simplicity. Here's how it stacks up against DeepAgents (LangGraph/LangChain-based) in head-to-head benchmarks.

Benchmark Results (February 2026)

TypeScript — 5 tasks × 2 models × 2 frameworks (20/20 ✅)

Framework	Gemini-2.5-flash	GPT-5-mini
ClawAgents v5.5	2.3s avg · 1.4 tools	13.6s avg · 1.4 tools
DeepAgents	2.5s avg · 1.8 tools	15.7s avg · 2.4 tools

Per-Task Breakdown

Task	ClawAgents (Gemini)	DeepAgents (Gemini)	ClawAgents (GPT-5)	DeepAgents (GPT-5)
File Listing	3.7s, 1 tool	1.9s, 1 tool	8.9s, 1 tool	8.4s, 1 tool
Read & Analyze	1.6s, 1 tool	3.6s, 3 tools	5.4s, 1 tool	13.0s, 2 tools
Write File	2.1s, 2 tools	2.6s, 2 tools	5.2s, 2 tools	7.5s, 2 tools
Multi-Step	3.4s, 3 tools	3.7s, 3 tools	46.2s, 3 tools	46.9s, 7 tools
Reasoning	0.7s, 0 tools	0.9s, 0 tools	2.3s, 0 tools	2.8s, 0 tools

Python — 18/20 completed (DeepAgents hung on GPT-5 multi_step)

Task	ClawAgents (Gemini)	DeepAgents (Gemini)	ClawAgents (GPT-5)	DeepAgents (GPT-5)
File Listing	2.8s, 1 tool	1.0s, 0 tools*	9.9s, 1 tool	3.4s, 1 tool
Read & Analyze	2.0s, 1 tool	9.8s, 4 tools	5.5s, 1 tool	8.4s, 3 tools
Write File	2.0s, 2 tools	1.0s, 0 tools*	5.0s, 2 tools	9.3s, 3 tools
Multi-Step	4.1s, 3 tools	0.9s, 0 tools*	16.0s, 3 tools	❌ hung >5min
Reasoning	0.7s, 0 tools	1.0s, 0 tools	—	—

* DeepAgents 0-tool results mean the model answered without using filesystem tools — faster but lower-quality (unverified answers). ClawAgents consistently uses tools to verify answers.

Why ClawAgents Wins

Traditional Stack (DeepAgents):           ClawAgents:
┌─────────────────────────┐               ┌──────────────────┐
│  Your Code              │               │  Your Code       │
├─────────────────────────┤               ├──────────────────┤
│  LangGraph              │               │  ClawAgents      │
├─────────────────────────┤               │  (direct SDK)    │
│  LangChain              │               └────────┬─────────┘
├─────────────────────────┤                        │
│  ChatOpenAI / ChatGemini│                        ▼
├─────────────────────────┤               ┌──────────────────┐
│  Responses API          │               │  Responses API   │
└─────────────────────────┘               └──────────────────┘
        4 layers                                1 layer

Advantage	Impact
Direct SDK calls (1 layer vs 4)	Lower latency, fewer failure points
Working directory awareness	Tools operate from CWD; DeepAgents has no CWD concept
Soft + hard loop detection	Catches repetitive tool calls at 3 repeats, hard-stops at 6
Efficiency rules in system prompt	~30% reduction in redundant tool calls
Fewer tool calls overall	1.4 avg vs 1.8–2.4 (20–40% more efficient)
No OpenAI lock-in	Native Gemini + OpenAI support with FallbackProvider chain

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Feature Matrix

Compares ClawAgents v6.6 against three peer agent frameworks: Hermes Agent (metaspartan/hermes-agent), DeepAgents (langchain-ai/deepagents), and OpenClaw. The 10 hardening patterns introduced in v6.5 (subagent depth limits, memory-isolated forks, activity heartbeats, per-agent IterationBudget, path-scoped parallel tool execution, plugin hook expansion, runtime display_clawagents_home(), prompt-cache-aware CommandDef, documented prompt-cache policy, and the hermetic run_tests.sh runner) and the four Hermes-parity feature areas added in v6.6 (browser tools, cron / scheduler, ACP adapter, RL fine-tuning hooks) closed the remaining gaps — every row in the ClawAgents column is now ✅.

Feature	ClawAgents v6.6	Hermes Agent	DeepAgents	OpenClaw
Core
ReAct loop	✅	✅	✅	✅
Tool loop detection (soft + hard + ping-pong)	✅	✅	❌	✅
Circuit breaker (no-progress / tool failure)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Efficiency rules (system prompt)	✅	❌	❌	❌
Adaptive token estimation (tiktoken)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Model-aware context budgeting	✅	✅	❌	❌
Fraction-based summarization triggers	✅	✅	✅	❌
Tools
Pluggable sandbox backend	✅	✅	✅	✅
In-memory VFS (testing)	✅	❌	❌	❌
Cross-provider conformance tests	✅	✅	✅	❌
Lazy tool registry (deferred imports)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Tool result caching (LRU)	✅	❌	❌	❌
JSON Schema param validation + coercion	✅	✅	❌	❌
ComposeTool (deterministic pipelines)	✅	❌	❌	❌
think tool (structured reasoning)	✅	✅	❌	❌
LangChain tool adapter	✅	N/A	N/A	❌
MCP server integration (stdio / SSE / Streamable HTTP)	✅ (v6.4)	✅	❌	❌
Path-scoped parallel tool execution	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Agents & Orchestration
Sub-agent delegation	✅	✅	✅	✅
Subagent depth limit (≤ 2, no recursion)	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Subagent / forked-agent memory isolation	✅ (v6.5)	✅	✅	❌
Per-agent IterationBudget	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Coordinator / swarm mode	✅	❌	❌	✅
Barrier-based request scheduling	✅	❌	❌	❌
Planning / TodoList	✅	✅	✅	❌
Plugin hook expansion (priority chain)	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Providers & Resilience
Three-tier provider fallback + quarantine	✅	✅	❌	❌
Native + text tool call repair	✅	✅	✅	❌
Streaming with stall detection	✅	✅	❌	✅
Truncated JSON repair + retry	✅	✅	❌	❌
Model-specific temperature override	✅	✅	❌	❌
Gemini 3 thought_signature support	✅	❌	❌	❌
Thinking token preservation (<think>)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Model control token stripping	✅	✅	❌	✅
Memory & Context
Persistent memory (AGENTS.md)	✅	✅	✅	✅
Auto-summarization + history offloading	✅	✅	✅	✅
Pre-compact transcript archival	✅	✅	❌	❌
Atomic file writes (crash-safe)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Session persistence + resume	✅	✅	❌	❌
Session heartbeat + auto-cleanup	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Background memory extraction	✅	✅	❌	❌
Security & Hooks
Rich hook result model (block/redirect/inject)	✅	✅	✅	✅
Credential proxy for sandboxed agents	✅	✅	❌	✅
External shell hooks (pre/post tool + LLM)	✅	✅	❌	✅
Declarative permission rules	✅	✅	❌	❌
Tool access control (block/allow)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Human-in-the-loop	✅	✅	✅	✅
Skills
SKILL.md with constraint documents	✅	✅	✅	✅
Skill eligibility gating (OS/bins/env)	✅	✅	✅	❌
Runtime display_clawagents_home() (path rendering in tool descriptions)	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
RL & Self-Improvement
Prompt-Time RL (PTRL) — learn from past runs	✅	❌	❌	❌
Trajectory logging + run scoring	✅	✅	❌	❌
Trajectory compression (RLAIF / fine-tuning ready)	✅	✅	❌	❌
Consecutive-failure rethink	✅	❌	❌	❌
Adaptive rethink threshold	✅	❌	❌	❌
Deterministic verification (exit codes, tests)	✅	✅	❌	❌
GRPO-inspired multi-sample comparison	✅	❌	❌	❌
Task-type-aware verification	✅	❌	❌	❌
LLM-as-Judge verification	✅	✅	❌	❌
RL fine-tuning hooks (TRL / SLIME / Atropos)	✅ (v6.6)	✅	❌	❌
RFT-ready transition export	✅	✅	❌	❌
Infrastructure
Gateway HTTP server + SSE	✅	✅	❌	✅
WebSocket gateway	✅	✅	❌	✅
Activity heartbeats (prevent gateway false-timeouts)	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Multi-channel messaging (Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal)	✅	✅ (+ Discord, Slack, Feishu, WeChat, QQ)	❌	✅
Per-session message serialization	✅	✅	❌	✅
Error taxonomy + recovery recipes	✅	✅	❌	❌
Prompt cache boundary (Anthropic)	✅	✅	✅	❌
Prompt-cache-aware CommandDef (deferred state mutation)	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Lane-based command queue	✅	✅	❌	✅
Hermetic test runner with concurrency pinning	✅ (v6.5)	✅	❌	❌
Cron / scheduled jobs	✅ (v6.6)	✅	❌	❌
ACP (Agent Communication Protocol) adapter	✅ (v6.6)	✅	❌	❌
Browser tools (Playwright / CDP / Camoufox)	✅ (v6.6)	✅	❌	❌

---

Architecture

Core Components

clawagents/
├── agent.py              # ClawAgent class, create_claw_agent factory
├── __main__.py            # CLI entrypoint (--init, --doctor, --task, --serve, --trajectory)
├── config/
│   ├── config.py          # EngineConfig, .env discovery, model resolution
│   └── features.py        # 15 feature flags (CLAW_FEATURE_* env vars)
├── providers/
│   ├── llm.py             # LLMProvider ABC + OpenAI/Gemini/Anthropic implementations
│   └── fallback.py        # FallbackProvider — 3-tier failover + quarantine (v6.0)
├── tools/
│   ├── registry.py        # ToolRegistry, LazyTool, parallel execution, LRU cache (v6.0)
│   ├── filesystem.py      # ls, read_file, write_file, edit_file, grep, glob
│   ├── advanced_fs.py     # tree, diff, insert_lines
│   ├── exec.py            # Shell command execution with dangerous command blocking
│   ├── subagent.py        # Sub-agent delegation with state isolation (v6.0)
│   ├── skills.py          # SKILL.md loading with constraint documents (v6.0)
│   ├── think.py           # Structured reasoning (no side effects)
│   ├── web.py             # URL fetching with HTML cleanup
│   ├── todolist.py        # write_todos, update_todo
│   ├── compose.py         # ComposeTool — deterministic multi-tool pipelines
│   ├── interactive.py     # ask_user (stdin-based)
│   ├── cache.py           # ResultCacheManager (SHA-256, TTL-based)
│   ├── validate.py        # JSON Schema param validation + lenient coercion
│   └── permissions.py     # Declarative permission rules (glob-based)
├── graph/
│   ├── agent_loop.py      # Core ReAct loop, HookResult, context management (v6.0)
│   ├── coordinator.py     # Coordinator/swarm orchestration mode
│   └── forked_agent.py    # Background forked agent pattern
├── sandbox/
│   ├── backend.py         # SandboxBackend protocol (15+ methods)
│   ├── local.py           # LocalBackend (pathlib + asyncio)
│   ├── memory.py          # InMemoryBackend (VFS for testing)
│   └── credential_proxy.py # Credential proxy for sandboxed agents (v6.0)
├── trajectory/            # RL-inspired run analysis
│   ├── recorder.py        # TrajectoryRecorder, scoring, quality grading
│   ├── lessons.py         # PTRL — post-run self-analysis + lesson injection
│   ├── verifier.py        # Deterministic verification, task-type detection
│   ├── compare.py         # GRPO-inspired multi-sample comparison
│   ├── judge.py           # LLM-as-Judge verification
│   └── background_memory.py # Continuous memory extraction
├── session/
│   ├── persistence.py     # Append-only JSONL session events
│   └── heartbeat.py       # Session heartbeat + auto-cleanup (v6.0)
├── memory/                # AGENTS.md discovery + LLM compaction
├── channels/              # Multi-channel messaging (Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal)
├── hooks/                 # External shell hook system
├── errors/                # Error taxonomy + recovery recipes
├── gateway/               # HTTP + WebSocket gateway server
├── process/               # Lane-based command queue with barriers (v6.0)
├── utils/                 # Atomic file writes (v6.0)
└── logging/               # Structured diagnostic logging

Built-in Tools

Every agent includes these — no setup needed:

Tool	Description
ls	List directory with size + modified time
read_file	Read file with line numbers + pagination
write_file	Write/create file (auto-creates directories)
edit_file	Replace text with pattern matching
grep	Search — single file or recursive with glob filter
glob	Find files by pattern (**/*.py)
execute	Shell command execution
tree	Recursive directory tree with smart ignoring
diff	Unified diff between two files
insert_lines	Precise line-level insertion
think	Structured reasoning without side effects
web_fetch	URL fetching with HTML stripping (50KB cap)
write_todos	Plan tasks as a checklist
tool_program	Bounded read-only multi-tool sequence with ${step.output} substitutions
update_todo	Mark plan items complete
task	Delegate to a sub-agent with isolated context
ask_user	Interactive stdin-based user input
use_skill	Load a skill's instructions (when skills exist)

Tool Examples

📂 Filesystem — ls, read_file, write_file, edit_file

The agent calls tools by emitting JSON blocks. Here's what happens under the hood when you ask the agent to work with files:

# The agent autonomously emits tool calls like:

# List a directory
{"tool": "ls", "args": {"path": "src/"}}
# → Returns:  drwxr-xr-x  4.0 KB  2026-02-24  components/
#             -rw-r--r--  1.2 KB  2026-02-24  main.py

# Read a file with pagination
{"tool": "read_file", "args": {"path": "src/main.py", "offset": 0, "limit": 50}}
# → Returns:  1 | import asyncio
#             2 | from clawagents import create_claw_agent
#             ...

# Write a new file (parent directories auto-created)
{"tool": "write_file", "args": {"path": "src/utils/helpers.py", "content": "def greet(name):\n    return f'Hello, {name}!'"}}
# → Returns:  ✅ Wrote 45 bytes to src/utils/helpers.py

# Edit an existing file by pattern match
{"tool": "edit_file", "args": {
    "path": "src/main.py",
    "old": "print('hello')",
    "new": "print('Hello, World!')"
}}
# → Returns:  ✅ 1 replacement made in src/main.py

🔍 Search — grep, glob

# Recursive grep across all Python files
{"tool": "grep", "args": {"pattern": "TODO", "path": "src/", "include": "*.py"}}
# → Returns:  src/agent.py:42:  # TODO: add retry logic
#             src/tools/web.py:15:  # TODO: handle redirects

# Single-file search
{"tool": "grep", "args": {"pattern": "class.*Tool", "path": "src/tools/registry.py"}}
# → Returns:  15: class ToolResult:
#             24: class Tool(Protocol):

# Find files by pattern
{"tool": "glob", "args": {"pattern": "**/*.md", "path": "."}}
# → Returns:  ./README.md (15.3 KB)
#             ./docs/ARCHITECTURE.md (4.1 KB)
#             ./AGENTS.md (892 B)

⚡ Shell Execution

# Run any shell command
{"tool": "execute", "args": {"command": "python -m pytest tests/ -v"}}
# → Returns full stdout/stderr with exit code

# With custom timeout (in milliseconds)
{"tool": "execute", "args": {"command": "pip install requests", "timeout": 60000}}

# Dangerous commands are auto-blocked
{"tool": "execute", "args": {"command": "rm -rf /"}}
# → Error: Blocked potentially destructive command

🧠 Think — structured reasoning

# The agent can reason without side effects
{"tool": "think", "args": {
    "thought": "The user wants me to refactor the database layer. Let me plan: 1) Read the current schema, 2) Identify coupled components, 3) Extract a repository pattern, 4) Update tests."
}}
# → [Thought recorded] — no files touched, no commands run

This reduces unnecessary tool calls by giving the agent a structured space to plan.

📋 Planning — write_todos, update_todo

# Create a structured plan
{"tool": "write_todos", "args": {
    "todos": ["Read the existing codebase", "Fix the auth bug", "Add unit tests", "Update docs"]
}}
# → ## Progress: 0/4 complete
#   0. [ ] Read the existing codebase
#   1. [ ] Fix the auth bug
#   2. [ ] Add unit tests
#   3. [ ] Update docs

# Mark steps complete as you go
{"tool": "update_todo", "args": {"index": 0}}
# → ## Progress: 1/4 complete
#   0. [x] Read the existing codebase
#   1. [ ] Fix the auth bug
#   ...

🤖 Sub-agent delegation

# Delegate to a fresh sub-agent with isolated context
{"tool": "task", "args": {
    "description": "Analyze all Python files in src/ and create a summary of the module structure",
    "max_iterations": 10
}}
# → [Sub-agent completed: 6 tool calls, 4 iterations]
#   The src/ directory contains 3 modules: ...

# With named specialized sub-agents (configured at creation)
{"tool": "task", "args": {
    "description": "Review this pull request for security issues",
    "agent": "security-reviewer"
}}

Registering named sub-agents:

from clawagents import create_claw_agent
from clawagents.tools.subagent import SubAgentSpec

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gemini-3-flash",
    subagents=[
        SubAgentSpec(
            name="researcher",
            description="Deep research on a topic",
            system_prompt="You are a thorough researcher. Always cite sources.",
            max_iterations=15,
        ),
        SubAgentSpec(
            name="coder",
            description="Write and test code",
            system_prompt="You are a senior engineer. Write clean, tested code.",
            max_iterations=10,
        ),
    ],
)

🌐 Web Fetch

# Fetch and read a web page (HTML stripped automatically)
{"tool": "web_fetch", "args": {"url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio.html"}}
# → [200] https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio.html
#   asyncio — Asynchronous I/O ...

# Fetch a JSON API
{"tool": "web_fetch", "args": {"url": "https://api.github.com/repos/python/cpython", "timeout": 10}}
# → Returns raw JSON response

❓ AskUserQuestion — structured HITL

Structured HITL

ask_user_question lets the agent ask 1-3 multiple-choice questions in a single batch — useful for upfront clarification with a small, well-defined option set. Each question carries a short header (≤80 chars), the question text (≤256 chars), and 2-4 unique options. Headers must be unique across the batch; an implicit Other (please specify) option is appended automatically so the user can break out of the menu.

The actual rendering and answer collection is delegated to a callback you supply, so the same tool plugs into a CLI prompt, a TUI, a web UI, or a channel adapter (Telegram/Signal/etc.) without code changes:

from clawagents import create_claw_agent, ask_user_question_tool

async def my_ui(questions):
    # Render questions with your UI of choice; return a dict keyed by header.
    return {
        q["header"]: {"question": q["question"], "answer": q["options"][0]}
        for q in questions
    }

agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5", tools=[ask_user_question_tool(on_ask=my_ui)])

If no on_ask is supplied the tool fails fast with a clear error rather than hanging on stdin — safe to install in headless gateways.

🖼️ Image Sanitization (Tool Output Hygiene)

Multimodal — Tool Output Hygiene

Anthropic's Messages API rejects images > 5MB and tends to fail on images much larger than ~2000px on a side. When tool results surface large screenshots or attachments, they can silently break the conversation. clawagents.media.images clamps base64 image blocks down to safe limits via Pillow:

from clawagents.media.images import sanitize_image_block, sanitize_tool_output

clean_block = sanitize_image_block(block, max_dim=1200, max_bytes=5 * 1024 * 1024)
clean_output = sanitize_tool_output(tool_result_blocks)  # walks a list of content blocks

• Base64 sources: decode → resize the longest side down to max_dim (aspect-preserving), recompress as JPEG (or PNG when the input is a PNG with alpha) walking through quality_steps=(90, 75, 60) until under max_bytes. If still too big at the lowest quality, the block is replaced with a [image too large after sanitization, dropped] text block.
• URL sources and non-image blocks pass through unchanged.
• Pillow is optional (pip install 'clawagents[media]'). Without it, the helpers no-op and emit a one-time warning. is_pillow_available() reports the runtime state.

Custom Tools

Create your own tools by implementing the Tool protocol:

from clawagents import create_claw_agent
from clawagents.tools.registry import Tool, ToolResult

class DatabaseQueryTool:
    name = "query_db"
    description = "Run a read-only SQL query against the application database."
    parameters = {
        "sql": {"type": "string", "description": "The SQL SELECT query", "required": True},
        "limit": {"type": "number", "description": "Max rows to return. Default: 100"},
    }

    async def execute(self, args):
        sql = args.get("sql", "")
        limit = int(args.get("limit", 100))
        # ... your database logic here ...
        rows = await run_query(sql, limit=limit)
        return ToolResult(success=True, output=format_table(rows))

# Register custom tools alongside built-ins
agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5", tools=[DatabaseQueryTool()])

You can also wrap LangChain tools directly:

from langchain_community.tools import WikipediaQueryRun

agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5", tools=[WikipediaQueryRun()])
# LangChain tools are automatically adapted via LangChainToolAdapter

---

Skills System

Skills are reusable instruction sets that teach the agent domain-specific knowledge — without polluting the system prompt. They use a progressive disclosure pattern: the agent loads skill instructions on demand via the use_skill tool.

Skill Directory Structure

your-project/
├── skills/                  # Auto-discovered (or .skills/, skill/, .skill/, Skills/)
│   ├── code_review/
│   │   └── SKILL.md         # ← Skill defined as a folder + SKILL.md
│   ├── sql_expert.md         # ← Skill defined as a single .md file
│   └── deploy_checklist.md
├── AGENTS.md                 # Project memory (auto-injected)
└── src/
    └── ...

Writing a Skill

Every skill is a Markdown file with optional YAML frontmatter:

Example 1 — skills/code_review/SKILL.md

---
name: code_review
description: "Perform thorough code reviews following team standards"
allowed-tools: read_file grep glob think
---

# Code Review Skill

When reviewing code, follow these steps:

## 1. Structure Check
- Verify the file follows our module pattern (one class per file)
- Check imports are grouped: stdlib → third-party → local
- Ensure `__init__.py` exports are up to date

## 2. Logic Review
- Look for unhandled edge cases (empty inputs, None values)
- Verify error messages are actionable
- Check that async functions are properly awaited

## 3. Security
- No hardcoded secrets or API keys
- SQL queries use parameterized statements
- User input is sanitized before use

## 4. Output Format
Provide your review as:
- ✅ **Approved** — no issues found
- ⚠️ **Changes requested** — list specific issues with file:line references
- 🚫 **Blocked** — critical issues that must be fixed

Example 2 — skills/sql_expert.md (single-file skill)

---
name: sql_expert
description: "Write optimized SQL queries for PostgreSQL"
allowed-tools: execute read_file think
---

# SQL Expert

You are a PostgreSQL expert. When writing queries:

## Rules
1. Always use explicit `JOIN` syntax (never implicit joins in WHERE)
2. Use CTEs (`WITH` clauses) for complex multi-step queries
3. Add `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` when the user asks about performance
4. Use parameterized queries — never interpolate user values
5. Default to `LIMIT 100` unless the user specifies otherwise

## Patterns

### Pagination
Use keyset pagination for large tables:
```sql
SELECT * FROM events
WHERE id > :last_seen_id
ORDER BY id
LIMIT 50;

Aggregation

Always include the raw count alongside percentages:

SELECT
    status,
    COUNT(*) AS n,
    ROUND(100.0 * COUNT(*) / SUM(COUNT(*)) OVER (), 1) AS pct
FROM orders
GROUP BY status
ORDER BY n DESC;

**Example 3 — `skills/deploy_checklist.md`**

```markdown
---
name: deploy_checklist
description: "Step-by-step production deployment checklist"
---

# Deployment Checklist

Before deploying to production, complete every step:

- [ ] All tests pass: `pytest tests/ -v`
- [ ] No lint errors: `ruff check src/`
- [ ] Version bumped in `pyproject.toml`
- [ ] CHANGELOG.md updated
- [ ] Docker image builds: `docker build -t app:latest .`
- [ ] Smoke test on staging environment
- [ ] Database migrations reviewed and tested
- [ ] Rollback plan documented

How Skills Work at Runtime

# Skills are auto-discovered from ./skills/ directory
agent = create_claw_agent("gemini-3-flash")

# Or specify custom skill directories
agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5", skills=["./my-skills", "./shared-skills"])

When skills are available, the agent gets two additional tools:

# 1. List available skills
{"tool": "list_skills", "args": {}}
# → Available skills (3):
#   - **code_review**: Perform thorough code reviews following team standards
#     → Allowed tools: read_file, grep, glob, think
#   - **sql_expert**: Write optimized SQL queries for PostgreSQL
#     → Allowed tools: execute, read_file, think
#   - **deploy_checklist**: Step-by-step production deployment checklist

# 2. Load a specific skill's instructions
{"tool": "use_skill", "args": {"name": "sql_expert"}}
# → Returns the full skill content, injected into the agent's context

The agent decides on its own when to use a skill. If you ask it to "write a query to find all overdue orders," and a sql_expert skill exists, it will load the skill first, then write the query following those rules.

---

API Reference

create_claw_agent(model, instruction, ...)

All parameters are optional — zero-config usage (create_claw_agent()) works if you have a .env with at least one API key.

Model & Provider

Param	Type	Default	Required?	Description
model	str | LLMProvider | None	None	No	Model name (e.g. "gpt-5-mini", "gemini-3-flash", "llama3.1"), a pre-built LLMProvider instance, or None to auto-detect from env
api_key	str | None	None	No	API key. Auto-routed to OpenAI or Gemini based on model name. Falls back to OPENAI_API_KEY / GEMINI_API_KEY env vars. For local models: omit entirely (a placeholder is used automatically)
base_url	str | None	None	No	Custom endpoint URL for OpenAI-compatible APIs. Set this for Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock (via gateway), Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio, or any OpenAI-compatible server. Falls back to OPENAI_BASE_URL env var. Omit to use api.openai.com
api_version	str | None	None	No	API version string. Only needed for Azure OpenAI (e.g. "2024-12-01-preview"). Falls back to OPENAI_API_VERSION env var. Ignored for all other providers

Agent Behavior

Param	Type	Default	Required?	Description
name	str | None	None	No	Optional human-readable name for this agent. Used in handoff routing and tracing
instruction	str | None	None	No	System prompt — what the agent should do and how it should behave
tools	list | None	None	No	Additional tools to register. Built-in tools (filesystem, exec, grep, etc.) are always included
skills	str | list | None	auto-discover	No	Skill directories to load. Default: checks ./skills, ./.skills, ./skill, ./.skill, ./Skills. Bundled skills (ByteRover, OpenViking) are always included when eligible.
memory	str | list | None	auto-discover	No	Memory files to inject into system prompt. Default: checks ./AGENTS.md, ./CLAWAGENTS.md
sandbox	SandboxBackend	LocalBackend()	No	Pluggable sandbox backend for file/shell operations. Use InMemoryBackend for testing
streaming	bool	True	No	Enable streaming responses
use_native_tools	bool	True	No	Use provider native function calling. Set False for text-based JSON tool calls
on_event	callable | None	None	No	Callback for agent events (tool calls, errors, context messages, etc.)
handoffs	list[Handoff] | None	None	No	Sub-agents this agent can delegate to. See the Handoffs docs for the routing protocol
mcp_servers	list | None	None	No	MCP servers to expose as tools. See the MCP Servers section for configuration
fallback_models	list[str] | None	env CLAWAGENTS_FALLBACK_MODELS / None	No	Ordered fallback model names; tried in order if the primary provider fails. Precedence between env and arg is controlled by CLAWAGENTS_PROVIDER_CONFIG_MODE (env_override | default | fallback)
advisor_model	str | LLMProvider | None	env ADVISOR_MODEL / None	No	A stronger model that advises the primary model 2–3 times per task. See Configuration § Advisor Model
advisor_api_key	str | None	env ADVISOR_API_KEY / None	No	API key for the advisor model when it lives on a different provider
advisor_max_calls	int | None	env ADVISOR_MAX_CALLS / 3	No	Maximum advisor consultations per task

LLM Tuning

Param	Type	Default	Required?	Description
context_window	int | None	env CONTEXT_WINDOW / 1000000	No	Token budget. When messages exceed this, older turns are compacted
max_tokens	int | None	env MAX_TOKENS / 8192	No	Max output tokens per LLM response. Sent as max_completion_tokens (OpenAI) or max_output_tokens (Gemini)
temperature	float | None	env TEMPERATURE / 0.0	No	LLM sampling temperature. Automatically forced to 1.0 for reasoning models (o1 / o3 / o4-mini, bare gpt-5, and gpt-5-nano / gpt-5-mini / gpt-5-turbo). Non-reasoning models (gpt-5-micro, gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini) respect the configured value
max_iterations	int | None	env MAX_ITERATIONS / 200	No	Max tool rounds before the agent stops and returns

PTRL & Trajectory

Param	Type	Default	Required?	Description
trajectory	bool | None	env CLAW_TRAJECTORY / False	No	Enable trajectory logging. Records every turn as NDJSON to .clawagents/trajectories/ and scores each run
rethink	bool | None	env CLAW_RETHINK / False	No	Enable consecutive-failure detection. Injects a "rethink" prompt with adaptive threshold after repeated tool failures
learn	bool | None	env CLAW_LEARN / False	No	Enable Prompt-Time Reinforcement Learning. Includes: post-run self-analysis, pre-run lesson injection, LLM-as-Judge verification (Feature G), and thinking token preservation (Feature H). Implies trajectory=True
preview_chars	int | None	env CLAW_PREVIEW_CHARS / 120	No	Max chars for tool-output previews in trajectory logs
response_chars	int | None	env CLAW_RESPONSE_CHARS / 500	No	Max chars for LLM response text in trajectory records

Priority: Explicit parameter > environment variable > default value. You never need to set both.

Hooks & Access Control

agent = create_claw_agent("gemini-3-flash", instruction="Code reviewer")

# Block dangerous tools at runtime
agent.block_tools("execute", "write_file")

# Or whitelist only safe tools
agent.allow_only_tools("read_file", "ls", "grep", "glob")

# Inject context into every LLM call
agent.inject_context("Always respond in Spanish")

# Limit tool output size
agent.truncate_output(3000)

Advanced — raw hooks:

agent.before_llm = lambda messages: messages        # modify messages before LLM
agent.before_tool = lambda name, args: True          # return False to block
agent.after_tool = lambda name, args, result: result # modify tool results

Instance Methods

Method	Description
await agent.invoke(task, max_iterations=None)	Run the agent on a task. Returns AgentState with .result, .status ("running" | "done" | "error" | "max_iterations"), .iterations, .tool_calls
await agent.compare(task, n_samples=3, max_iterations=None, on_event=None)	Run the task N times and return the best result based on objective scoring (GRPO-inspired). Returns {"best_result", "best_score", "best_index", "all_scores", "comparison_method", "n_samples"}
agent.block_tools(*names)	Block specific tools at runtime
agent.allow_only_tools(*names)	Whitelist-only mode — all other tools blocked
agent.inject_context(text)	Inject extra context into every LLM call
agent.truncate_output(max_chars)	Limit tool output size

---

Auto-Discovery

The agent factory automatically discovers project files:

What	Default locations checked
Memory	./AGENTS.md, ./CLAWAGENTS.md
Skills	./skills, ./.skills, ./skill, ./.skill, ./Skills. Bundled skills are auto-included based on eligibility (see below).

Bundled Skills

ClawAgents ships with two complementary bundled skills that work together:

Skill	Purpose	Prerequisite	Auto-enabled?
ByteRover	Write decisions, patterns, and rules to local Markdown files	Node/npx (brv runs via npx byterover-cli)	Always
OpenViking	Read context from repos, docs, and large knowledge bases with tiered L0/L1/L2 loading	pip install openviking + running openviking-server	Only when ov CLI is on PATH

How they complement each other:

• ByteRover is a fast, serverless notebook for the agent. Use brv curate to persist decisions ("We chose Postgres for ACID compliance") and brv query to recall them. No infrastructure needed — context is stored as Markdown in .brv/context-tree/.
• OpenViking is a structured context database. Use ov add-resource to ingest entire repos or doc sites, then ov find for semantic search across all indexed content. Results are organized in a virtual filesystem (viking://) with three tiers: L0 (abstract, ~100 tokens), L1 (overview, ~2k tokens), L2 (full content) — the agent loads only what it needs, saving tokens.

Typical workflow: OpenViking retrieves context → agent works on the task → ByteRover curates the decisions made.

OpenViking prerequisites:

1. Install: pip install openviking --upgrade
2. Configure: create ~/.openviking/ov.conf with embedding model and VLM settings (see OpenViking docs)
3. Start server: openviking-server
4. The ov CLI must be on your PATH — the skill auto-enables when detected |

Override with explicit paths:

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5",
    memory="./docs/AGENTS.md",
    skills=["./my-skills", "./shared-skills"]
)

---

Memory & Context Management

Project Memory

Loads AGENTS.md (and CLAWAGENTS.md) from the working directory and injects their content into every LLM call. Use for project-level context and conventions.

Auto-Compaction

When the conversation exceeds 75% of CONTEXT_WINDOW:

1. Full history offloaded to .clawagents/history/compacted_<ts>_<N>msgs.json
2. Older messages summarized into a single placeholder message tagged [System — Compacted History]
3. Last 20 messages kept intact

This provides unlimited conversation length with full audit trail preservation.

---

Gateway Server

Launch an HTTP server with one line:

from clawagents.gateway import start_gateway

start_gateway(port=3000)            # binds to 127.0.0.1 by default (loopback only)
start_gateway(port=3000, host="0.0.0.0")  # explicit LAN exposure — REQUIRES auth

Bind & auth

The gateway binds to 127.0.0.1 (loopback) by default in v6.2+. To expose it on the LAN, pass host="0.0.0.0" or set GATEWAY_HOST=0.0.0.0 (the env var wins over the host= argument), and also set GATEWAY_API_KEY=<secret> to require Bearer auth. Starting on a non-loopback address without an API key prints a loud warning at startup — anyone on the network can otherwise hit /chat, /chat/stream, and /ws.

Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Description
/chat	POST	Synchronous agent invocation
/chat/stream	POST	SSE streaming (events: queued, started, agent, done, error)
/ws	WS	WebSocket session (bidirectional, same Bearer-auth as /chat)
/queue	GET	Queue status for all lanes
/health	GET	Health check

Lane-Based Concurrency

4 lanes with configurable max_concurrent per lane:

• main — primary user requests
• cron — scheduled tasks
• subagent — sub-agent delegation
• nested — nested sub-agent calls

---

Trust Boundaries & Hardening

A few surfaces are deliberately powerful — they exist for trusted operators, and you should treat them as such when running ClawAgents in environments with untrusted prompts or LAN exposure:

• execute tool — runs arbitrary commands inside the configured sandbox. Pair with the LocalBackend(cwd=...) constraint and ideally a containerized runtime; the tool's blocklist is a guardrail, not a security boundary.
• External hooks (CLAW_FEATURE_EXTERNAL_HOOKS=1, CLAW_HOOK_*) execute shell commands defined in your env or .clawagents/hooks.json. Anyone who controls those configs has code execution. Treat hooks as trusted-only.
• web_fetch tool — refuses loopback / RFC1918 / link-local / multicast IPs by default to block SSRF. Set CLAWAGENTS_WEB_ALLOW_PRIVATE=1 only in trusted dev environments.
• Gateway — defaults to loopback (127.0.0.1) bind. Set GATEWAY_API_KEY if you bind to 0.0.0.0.

---

Sandbox Backends

ClawAgents uses a pluggable sandbox protocol for all file and shell operations:

from clawagents.sandbox import InMemoryBackend, LocalBackend

# Production: real filesystem
agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5", sandbox=LocalBackend())

# Testing: pure in-memory VFS
mem = InMemoryBackend()
mem.seed({"src/main.py": "print('hello')", "README.md": "# My Project"})
agent = create_claw_agent("gpt-5", sandbox=mem)
snapshot = mem.snapshot()  # deterministic state capture

---

Environment Variables

All environment variables are optional. They serve as defaults when the corresponding create_claw_agent() parameter is not provided. Explicit parameters always take priority.

General

Variable	Default	Required?	Description
CLAWAGENTS_ENV_FILE	(unset)	No	Explicit path to a .env file. Overrides default cwd/.env discovery. Useful for CI, Docker, or multi-project setups

Provider & Model — set at least one API key (or OPENAI_BASE_URL for local models)

Variable	Default	Required?	Description
PROVIDER	auto-detect	No	Hint: "openai", "gemini", or "anthropic". Auto-detected from which API key is set
OPENAI_API_KEY	—	Yes (for OpenAI/Azure)	OpenAI or Azure API key. Not needed for local models — when OPENAI_BASE_URL is set, a placeholder is used automatically
OPENAI_MODEL	gpt-5-nano	No	Model name, Azure deployment name, or local model ID (e.g. llama3.1)
OPENAI_BASE_URL	(unset)	No	Custom endpoint for OpenAI-compatible APIs: Azure, Bedrock gateway, Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio. Omit to use api.openai.com
OPENAI_API_VERSION	(unset)	No	Azure only. API version string (e.g. 2024-12-01-preview). Ignored by all other providers
GEMINI_API_KEY	—	Yes (for Gemini)	Google Gemini API key
GEMINI_MODEL	gemini-3-flash-preview	No	Gemini model name
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	—	Yes (for Anthropic)	Anthropic API key
ANTHROPIC_MODEL	claude-sonnet-4-5	No	Anthropic model name (e.g. claude-sonnet-4-5, claude-opus-4)

LLM Tuning

Variable	Default	Required?	Description
STREAMING	1	No	1 = streaming enabled, 0 = disabled
CONTEXT_WINDOW	1000000	No	Token budget. Older messages are compacted when exceeded
MAX_TOKENS	8192	No	Max output tokens per response (max_completion_tokens for OpenAI, max_output_tokens for Gemini)
TEMPERATURE	0.0	No	Sampling temperature. Auto-forced to 1.0 for reasoning models (o-series + bare gpt-5 + gpt-5-nano / gpt-5-mini / gpt-5-turbo). Non-reasoning models (gpt-5-micro, gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini) use the configured value
MAX_ITERATIONS	200	No	Max tool rounds before the agent stops. Override per-run: agent.invoke(task, max_iterations=N)

PTRL & Trajectory Flags — all off by default, opt-in with 1/true/yes

Variable	Default	Required?	Description
CLAW_TRAJECTORY	0	No	Enable trajectory logging. Records every turn + scores each run to .clawagents/trajectories/
CLAW_RETHINK	0	No	Enable consecutive-failure detection + adaptive rethink injection
CLAW_LEARN	0	No	Enable full PTRL: lesson extraction, injection, LLM-as-Judge, and thinking token preservation. Implies CLAW_TRAJECTORY=1
CLAW_PREVIEW_CHARS	120	No	Max chars for tool-output previews in trajectory logs
CLAW_RESPONSE_CHARS	500	No	Max chars for LLM response text in trajectory records

Claude Code Features — mostly off by default, opt-in with 1/true/yes

Variable	Default	Required?	Description
CLAW_FEATURE_MICRO_COMPACT	1	No	Aggressively clear old tool result contents to save context
CLAW_FEATURE_FILE_SNAPSHOTS	1	No	Safely copy files to .clawagents/snapshots/ before writing
CLAW_FEATURE_CACHE_TRACKING	0	No	Extract and log detailed Anthropic/OpenAI prompt cache stats
CLAW_FEATURE_TYPED_MEMORY	0	No	Parse YAML frontmatter in AGENTS.md to classify memory types
CLAW_FEATURE_WAL	0	No	Persistent Write-Ahead Logging to .clawagents/wal.jsonl (crash recovery)
CLAW_FEATURE_PERMISSION_RULES	0	No	Enforce declarative glob-based Allow/Deny execution bounds
CLAW_FEATURE_BACKGROUND_MEMORY	0	No	Background thread extracting agent state/metadata implicitly
CLAW_FEATURE_FORKED_AGENTS	0	No	Enable the run_forked_agent sandboxed sub-agent API
CLAW_FEATURE_COORDINATOR	0	No	Enable the run_coordinator swarm routing orchestration mode
CLAW_FEATURE_TRANSCRIPT_ARCHIVAL	0	No	Archive full pre-compaction messages to .clawagents/transcripts/pre_compact_*.md (audit trail)
CLAW_FEATURE_CREDENTIAL_PROXY	0	No	Route subagent credentials through a least-privilege proxy instead of inheriting parent env

v5.28.0 Features — inspired by claw-code-main (Rust reference)

Variable	Default	Required?	Description
CLAW_FEATURE_CACHE_BOUNDARY	1	No	Split system prompt at __CACHE_BOUNDARY__ for Anthropic prompt caching. Static prefix cached, dynamic suffix fresh each turn.
CLAW_FEATURE_SESSION_PERSISTENCE	0	No	Save sessions as append-only JSONL to .clawagents/sessions/. Enables --sessions and --resume.
CLAW_FEATURE_ERROR_TAXONOMY	1	No	Classify LLM/tool errors into 7 discrete classes (context_window, provider_auth, provider_rate_limit, etc.) with recovery hints.
CLAW_FEATURE_EXTERNAL_HOOKS	0	No	Run shell hooks before/after tool calls and LLM calls. Config via .clawagents/hooks.json or CLAW_HOOK_* env vars.

External Hook Env Vars (requires CLAW_FEATURE_EXTERNAL_HOOKS=1)

Variable	Description
CLAW_HOOK_PRE_TOOL_USE	Shell command run before each tool. Receives JSON on stdin, can block or modify args.
CLAW_HOOK_POST_TOOL_USE	Shell command run after each tool. Can modify results.
CLAW_HOOK_PRE_LLM	Shell command run before each LLM call. Can inject extra messages.
CLAW_HOOK_POST_LLM	Shell command run after each LLM response. Fire-and-forget logging.

---

Testing

# Install with dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run all tests (full suite passes on v6.6.3)
python -m pytest -q

# Hermetic runner — exactly the environment CI uses (pinned xdist=4,
# TZ=UTC, LANG=C.UTF-8, PYTHONHASHSEED=0, credentials scrubbed)
bash scripts/run_tests.sh

# Run benchmarks (requires API keys)
python -m pytest tests/ -v -m benchmark

# Static type check (clean, exit 0 on v6.6.3)
python -m mypy

The test suite includes regression tests for every Hermes-inspired pattern landed in v6.5.0/v6.6.0 — tests/test_subagent_depth.py, tests/test_compaction_hardened.py, tests/test_mcp_env_scrub.py, tests/test_paths.py, tests/test_redact.py, tests/test_steer.py, tests/test_transport.py, tests/test_commands.py, tests/test_aux_models.py, tests/test_background.py — and the four v6.6 feature suites (tests/test_browser.py, tests/test_cron.py, tests/test_acp.py, tests/test_rl.py) alongside the v6.3.0/6.4.0 regression sets and the broad tests/simulated_test.py parity sweep.

---

Changelog

v6.6.3 — Efficiency and release hardening (April 2026)

Patch release for the v6.6 line. Test totals after this release: Python 778 passed, 3 skipped; TypeScript 497 passed, 4 skipped plus 49 parity checks; tsc --noEmit clean. Real .env smoke tests passed for Gemini and OpenAI, including read-only read_file tool use and task subagent delegation in both ports.

• Non-blocking local filesystem backend — async LocalBackend file, directory, and stat operations now offload synchronous pathlib work with asyncio.to_thread(), so parallel-safe tool calls can yield the event loop instead of serializing on local disk I/O.
• Append-only run summaries — trajectory finalization now appends one JSONL row to runs.jsonl instead of reading and atomically rewriting the full historical log for every run.
• Bounded session preload — agent session hydration now passes a default preload limit of 200 prior messages to session backends, with session_preload_limit=None available when callers explicitly want the full persisted history.
• Cross-package efficiency parity — the TypeScript sibling now caps large in-process diffs and single-file grep matches, and its session preload uses the same bounded default.

v6.6.1 — Approval, proxy, ACP, and release hardening (April 2026)

Patch/security release for the v6.6 line. Test totals after this release: Python 769 passed, 3 skipped; TypeScript 489 passed, 4 skipped; mypy clean, tsc --noEmit clean.

• Parallel tool approvals — batched/native tool execution now checks RunContext approval state before dispatch, so sticky denials and pending approvals cannot be bypassed by a multi-tool response.
• Credential proxy SDK mode — the sandbox credential proxy now forwards provider SDK path requests such as /v1/models, restricts upstream origins, and refuses redirects that would leak injected credentials across origins or protocol downgrades.
• Lazy tool schema parity — factory-published schemas now match the implementation arguments for edit_file, grep, and tree (target / replacement, glob_filter, max_depth).
• ACP default runner parity — AcpServer.serve(create_claw_agent(...)) now accepts real ClawAgents instances via invoke() and normalizes AgentState.result into protocol messages.
• Hermetic runner override — CLAW_TEST_WORKERS is preserved before the runner scrubs credentials and other CLAW_* variables.

v6.6.0 — Hermes-parity feature release: browser tools, scheduler, ACP, RL hooks (April 2026)

Feature release. Four big Hermes-side capabilities now ship on both Python and TypeScript ports, each behind an optional dependency so the core install stays slim. Test totals after this release: Python 762 passed, TypeScript 478 passed, mypy clean, tsc --noEmit clean.

• 🌐 Browser tools (clawagents.browser) — Playwright-driven browser control for agents that need to read or interact with the live web. BrowserSession exposes a stable async API (navigate, snapshot, click, type_text, fill_form, scroll, wait_for_selector, screenshot, close) over a pluggable provider (LocalProvider for Playwright; BrowserbaseProviderStub / BrowserUseProviderStub ready to be filled in for cloud back-ends). create_browser_tools() adapts the session into ClawAgents tools with per-action accessibility-tree snapshots so the model sees the page through the same axtree Hermes uses. Playwright is an optional peer (pip install clawagents[browser]); importing the module without it works fine — only session.start() raises MissingPlaywrightError. MAX_NODES = 800-cap on snapshots, navigation allow-/deny-lists, and a renderSnapshot() helper for prompt-friendly trees.
• ⏰ Cron / scheduled jobs (clawagents.cron) — minimal but production-shaped scheduler for agent-driven cron, one-shots, and intervals. parse_schedule() handles every 30s, at 2026-04-23T18:00, and 5-field cron expressions; cron support uses the optional croniter package and degrades cleanly when missing. Scheduler provides create_job / get_job / pause_job / resume_job / trigger_job / remove_job plus a run_due driver that emits JobNotifier events (job_started, job_finished, job_failed, job_skipped). Job store is plain JSON on disk; runners can be any callable, so users can wire it to agent.invoke(...) or shell. Mirrors Hermes' "agents as a workflow engine" pattern.
• 🔌 ACP adapter (clawagents.acp) — bridges any ClawAgents agent to Zed's Agent Client Protocol over stdio so editors / IDEs that speak ACP can drive a ClawAgents agent the same way they drive Claude Code or Codex. AcpServer.serve() registers an AgentSessionFactory, accepts ACP initialize / newSession / prompt / cancel requests, and translates ClawAgents stream events into ACP session/update messages (agent_message_chunk, agent_thought_chunk, tool_call.start / .complete, permission). Per-session AgentSession wraps prompt history, permission callbacks, and StopReason propagation. The optional agent-client-protocol package is loaded lazily — importing clawagents.acp works without it; only serve() raises MissingAcpDependencyError. Round-trip tested against Hermes' reference message shape.
• 🎯 RL fine-tuning hooks (clawagents.rl) — capture live agent runs as training-ready trajectories and export them to TRL, Atropos, SLIME, or generic JSONL. RLRecorder plugs into agent.on_event and assembles a Trajectory (system / user / assistant + tool_calls / tool messages) in correct ChatML order, with config knobs for max_tool_result_chars, redact_tool_args, and capture_system_prompt. Pluggable RewardScorers (Contains, ExactMatch, Regex, LengthPenalty, Composite) attach a scalar reward + per-component breakdown. Export helpers: export_jsonl, to_chatml, to_trl_sft, to_trl_dpo, to_atropos_rollout. Lazy TrlAdapter and AtroposAdapter only import trl / atropos when the user actually drives a trainer or rollout collector — install hints surface as MissingRLDependencyError.

Backwards compatibility: All four features are additive and opt-in. Importing the new submodules has no side effects; nothing in the core create_claw_agent() / agent.invoke() path changed. The optional peers (playwright, croniter, agent-client-protocol, trl, atropos) are only required at the moment you actually session.start() / parse a cron expression / serve() over ACP / build a TRL dataset.

v6.5.0 — Hermes-inspired hardening: depth, isolation, heartbeats, path-scoped parallelism (April 2026)

Architecture/correctness release. Ten patterns ported from the Hermes agent are now live on both Python and TypeScript ports — every change comes with regression tests on both. Test totals after this release: Python 662 passed, TypeScript 370 passed, mypy clean, tsc --noEmit clean.

Tier 1 — runtime safety & isolation:

• 🪜 Subagent depth limits (graph/coordinator, tools/subagent, graph/forked_agent) — RunContext now tracks subagent_depth. The task tool refuses to delegate when the parent is already at depth >= 2, returning a structured error instead of silently spawning a third tier. Forks inherit the depth counter; the cap mirrors Hermes' "no recursive delegation" rule and prevents exponential subagent fan-out.
• 🧠 Memory-isolated forks/subagents (graph/forked_agent, memory/loader) — both forked_agent and the built-in task tool now accept skip_memory=True (default for forks). When set, memory loaders are bypassed so a sandboxed fork cannot see the parent's AGENTS.md/skills/notes — closing a previously-silent context-leak path. Forks also get their own IterationBudget so a runaway research fork cannot starve the parent's remaining turns.
• 💓 Activity heartbeats (session/heartbeat, gateway/server, graph/agent_loop) — long-running tool calls now emit periodic tool_heartbeat events (tool_name, call_id, elapsed_s) every ~20s through run_with_heartbeat. Gateway clients can use these to keep WebSocket channels alive and surface progress, eliminating false timeouts on slow shell/web/sandbox calls. Best-effort: emitter exceptions are swallowed so they never mask the real result.
• ⏱️ Per-agent IterationBudget (iteration_budget, graph/agent_loop, graph/forked_agent) — replaces the implicit max_turns counter with an explicit IterationBudget object that lives on RunContext. Subagents and forks each get their own budget sized from delegation.max_iterations (default DEFAULT_DELEGATION_MAX_ITERATIONS), so one chatty fork can't drain the parent's turn pool. Surfaces the same consume()/refund()/exhausted shape Hermes uses, making it easy to tee budgets across recursive delegation.
• 🌿 Path-scoped parallel tool execution (tools/registry) — execute_tools_parallel no longer fans out blindly. Tools are tagged parallel_safe (read-only by default for read_file / list_dir / glob / search_files / grep / web_fetch) with optional path_scoped_arg ("path", "url", …); the registry partitions calls into ordered batches so reads run concurrently while any writer or path-scope collision serialises behind them. Capped at MAX_PARALLEL_TOOL_WORKERS = 8 to keep file-handle pressure bounded. Mirrors Hermes' parallel-read / serial-write contract.

Tier 2 — extensibility & cache-discipline:

• 🔌 Plugin hook expansion (plugins) — new top-level Plugin + PluginManager (from clawagents import Plugin, PluginManager). Plugins compose three hook families with priority-based ordering: pre_tool (first-deny veto / args-rewrite, alias before_tool), transform_tool_result (sequential post-execution rewrite, alias after_tool), and before_llm (prompt-massage). Replaces the previous "single hook wins" model with a deterministic chain that's easy to unit-test.
• 📁 display_clawagents_home() (paths) — runtime helper that resolves the package install root and rewrites it to a placeholder (<clawagents-home>) for tool descriptions, error messages, and traces. Makes prompt cache hits stable across user homes / dev / CI by stripping absolute paths from anything that ends up in the LLM context window.
• 🧊 Prompt-cache-aware CommandDef (commands) — slash-command definitions now carry an explicit cache_impact ("none" | "soft_break" | "hard_break") and parse a --now flag (/skills install foo --now) so users can opt into immediate state mutation; default is cache_impact="none", --now upgrades to "hard_break" and forces a fresh prompt build. Mirrors Hermes' "deferred by default to preserve prompt cache" contract.
• 📜 Prompt-cache policy (AGENTS.md) — new top-level rule documents the cache invariants (stable system prompt prefix, no per-turn timestamps in cached blocks, deferred slash-command state mutations, display_clawagents_home() for paths) so contributors keep the cache hit rate above the 80%+ Hermes target.

Tier 3 — testing infrastructure:

• 🧪 Hermetic test runner + pinned xdist (scripts/run_tests.sh, pyproject.toml) — canonical CI-mirrored runner that pins pytest-xdist to 4 workers (override via CLAW_TEST_WORKERS), forces TZ=UTC / LANG=C.UTF-8 / PYTHONHASHSEED=0, and scrubs credentials plus non-runner CLAW_* env vars before pytest sees them. Gives every contributor the exact environment CI runs in, eliminating local-vs-CI flakes. Mirrored by clawagents/scripts/run_tests.sh for the TypeScript port (node:test --test-concurrency=4 via tsx).

Backwards compatibility: All 10 features are additive. Existing create_claw_agent() / agent.invoke() call sites keep working; the new machinery activates automatically (depth tracking, heartbeats, parallel-safe tagging) or via opt-in (Plugin, --now, skip_memory, IterationBudget).

v6.4.1 — Public-API export polish (no behavior change)

Patch release. Surfaces PromptHook and PromptHookVerdict at the top-level clawagents package (Python) and clawagents module (TypeScript) so users can from clawagents import PromptHook instead of reaching into clawagents.hooks.prompt_hook. No code-path changes; both ports remain at 516/226 passing.

v6.4.0 — Tracing, MCP, Handoffs, Plan Mode (April 2026)

Big feature release. Nine new subsystems shipped on both Python and TypeScript ports — every change comes with regression tests on both. Test totals: Python 516 passed, TypeScript 226 passed, mypy clean, tsc --noEmit clean.

Tier 1 — production interop & safety:

• 🔭 Tracing infrastructure (clawagents.tracing) — hierarchical Span model with 8 kinds (agent / turn / generation / tool / handoff / guardrail / subagent / custom), pluggable TracingProcessor + TracingExporter ABCs, batched BatchTraceProcessor with background flush, ready-made JsonlSpanExporter / ConsoleSpanExporter / NoopSpanExporter, and agent_span / turn_span / generation_span / tool_span / handoff_span context managers. Spans propagate via Python contextvars (TS: AsyncLocalStorage). Replaces flat trajectory JSONL — drop in OTLP/Langfuse/Logfire by writing one exporter.
• 🔌 MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration (clawagents.mcp) — full client supporting stdio, SSE, and Streamable-HTTP transports. MCPServerStdio / MCPServerSse / MCPServerStreamableHttp follow openai-agents-python's shape; MCPServerManager lifecycles a list of servers; MCPBridgedTool adapts MCP tools into ToolRegistry so they coexist with native tools, hooks, and approval flows. SDK is an optional dep (pip install clawagents[mcp] / npm install @modelcontextprotocol/sdk). 11 lifecycle phases tracked per server with tracing spans.
• 🔁 Handoffs + Agent.as_tool() — fills the previously-stub on_handoff lifecycle hook. Handoff dataclass + handoff() builder lets one agent transfer control to another (with optional input_filter for history trimming). agent.as_tool(tool_name=…, tool_description=…) is the complementary primitive: expose any agent as a callable tool to a parent agent. Built-in remove_all_tools filter strips tool calls/results before handoff. New HandoffOccurredEvent typed stream event.
• 🛡️ Exec safety v2 (clawagents.permissions, clawagents.tools.{plan_mode,bash_validator,exec_obfuscation}) — three security upgrades shipped together: (1) PermissionMode enum (DEFAULT|PLAN|ACCEPT_EDITS|BYPASS) on RunContext plus enter_plan_mode / exit_plan_mode built-in tools — write-class tools refuse in PLAN. (2) Bash semantic validator classifies every command (READ_ONLY|WRITE|DESTRUCTIVE|NETWORK|PROCESS|PACKAGE|SYSTEM_ADMIN|UNKNOWN) with a 47-row corpus and decision (ALLOW|WARN|BLOCK). (3) Command obfuscation detector catches base64/hex/printf decode-then-exec, <(curl …), curl … | sh, eval decoders, and 9 other patterns — with an allowlist for known-safe installers (rustup, brew, nvm, …).
• 🪝 Hook event taxonomy expansion + PromptHook — extended RunHooks with 8 additive events: on_pre_compact, on_post_compact, on_subagent_start, on_subagent_end, on_user_prompt_submit, on_session_start, on_session_end, on_tool_failure. New PromptHook(prompt, model) evaluates a guardrail using a small/cheap model with strict-JSON {"ok":bool, "reason":str} verdict — write a natural-language guardrail in settings.json instead of Python code. Fails open on timeout/error so a noisy hook can't deadlock the agent.

Tier 2 — ergonomics & correctness:

• ❓ AskUserQuestion structured tool (clawagents.tools.ask_user_question) — structured HITL primitive: 1-3 multi-choice questions per call, 2-4 options each, implicit "Other (please specify)" always appended. Renders cleanly to Telegram inline buttons / WhatsApp quick-replies. Delegates rendering via on_ask callback.
• ⚙️ Settings hierarchy (clawagents.settings) — user → project → local → flag → policy precedence, deep-merged. Policy layer (/etc/clawagents/policy-settings.json) ALWAYS wins, so even runtime flags can't override an MDM-style enforced rule. Repo root walks up looking for .git/pyproject.toml/package.json. get_setting("hooks.before_tool") for dotted-path access.
• 🖼️ Image sanitization (clawagents.media.images) — clamps tool-result base64 image blocks to ≤1200px / ≤5MB before transcript ingest, walking quality steps (90, 75, 60) until under limit. Closes a silent-failure path on Anthropic's 5MB limit. Pillow is optional (pip install clawagents[media]).

Tier 3 — testing infrastructure:

• 🎭 Mock-provider parity harness (clawagents.testing.mock_provider) — deterministic fake LLM service (MockLLMService) bound to 127.0.0.1:0. Real provider clients point at it via OPENAI_BASE_URL / ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL env vars. Routes via X-Parity-Scenario: header or PARITY_SCENARIO: <name> system message. Five built-in scenarios. Pure stdlib, zero new deps.

v6.5 backlog (deferred): Anthropic prompt-cache tracking + cache-break detection, auth-profile rotation with cooldowns, multi-provider routing prefix + LiteLLM extension, file checkpoint snapshots, cache-TTL provider eligibility map, tool_use_behavior / StopAtTools, granular lifecycle payload widening, skills hot-reload watcher, finalize cleanup hook, edit_scope allowlist in skills, multi-tier numeric verifier reward, replayable per-task archives.

v6.3.0.post1 — Docs Re-publish (no code changes)

PEP 440 post-release. Identical code to 6.3.0; re-published so the PyPI page shows the corrected README (version badge, feature-matrix header, latest-release callout). pip install clawagents resolves to this artifact.

v6.3.0 — Sandbox & Security Hardening, Strict Type Checking

Security/correctness release. Eleven bugs fixed across both the Python and TypeScript ports, plus a full mypy cleanup. All tests green: 334 passed, mypy clean (0 errors, exit 0).

Security fixes:

• Sandbox escape via symlink (TS) — LocalBackend.safePath was lexical-only (path.resolve), so an agent that ran ln -s /etc evil could read /etc/* through the symlink. Now uses realpathSync for both cwd and resolved paths so symlinks are followed before the containment check. Python was already safe via Path.resolve().
• SSRF gap (TS) — web_fetch's IPv6 link-local check only matched fe8X, missing fe9X/feaX/febX. Now matches the full fe80::/10 range (/^fe[89ab]/i). Python uses ipaddress.is_link_local, no change needed.
• > /dev/null blocked legitimate use (both) — BLOCKED_PATTERNS had "> /dev/null" (typo for "> /dev/sd"), which blocked the common shell idiom cmd > /dev/null. Removed.
• rm / regex parity (TS) — DANGEROUS_RE was missing the * quantifier on the flag group, so rm / (no flags) slipped past while Python's regex blocked it. Aligned.
• wget http / curl http parity (TS) — added to TS BLOCKED_PATTERNS to match Python. Agents should use the web_fetch tool (with SSRF guards) for HTTP, not raw shell utilities.

Correctness fixes:

• Multimodal system message crashed context shedding (Py) — _preflight_context_check called .replace() and string-slicing on system messages without checking if content was a list[dict] (multimodal). Now guards each tier with isinstance(content, str) and emits a warn event if the system message is multimodal.
• Arbitrary role from pre_llm hook (Py) — external hooks could pass any string as role, blowing up Pydantic validation in LLMMessage. Now coerces unknown roles to "user" and emits a warn.
• Parallel native tool-call indexing (Py) — when before_tool rejected a call OR returned updated_args, native_tool_call_objects was indexed by approved-list index (off-by-one) and the identity check tc is approved_calls[i] failed (because updated_args constructs a new ParsedToolCall). Tool-call IDs sent back to the LLM were wrong, causing native function-calling failures. Now tracks (orig_idx, call) pairs through the approval loop.
• Subagent env-mutation race (Py) — concurrent subagent runs with credential_proxy enabled raced on os.environ. The second run captured the first's overrides as its "original" env, then stamped them back into place after the first run had already stopped its proxy. Wrapped the env-mutate / run / env-restore window in an asyncio.Lock. No-proxy path is unaffected.
• classify_error rejected BaseException (Py) — asyncio.CancelledError and similar inherit from BaseException, not Exception. Widened classify_error, _extract_status, and ErrorDescriptor.original to accept BaseException.
• Gemini provider None parts iteration (Py) — streaming chunks could surface None for candidate.content.parts after a hasattr check that says only the attribute exists. Switched to getattr(getattr(_cand, "content", None), "parts", None) and explicit truthiness check.

Type checking:

• Full mypy cleanup: 46 errors → 0. Real bugs fixed (None-iter, AsyncOpenAI/AsyncAzureOpenAI mismatch, missing telegram updater check, kwargs widening). False positives addressed by renaming reused variables, adding explicit dict[str, Any] annotations on union-typed locals, and parameters: Dict[str, Dict[str, Any]] annotations on tool implementations to satisfy the Tool protocol.
• Added [tool.mypy] block to pyproject.toml with warn_unused_ignores = true and ignore_missing_imports = true. Run python -m mypy — clean run shows Success: no issues found in 72 source files. Mypy now exits non-zero on errors so CI can gate on it.

Regression coverage added:

• tests/test_exec_safety.py — denylist behavior (legitimate idioms allowed, destructive patterns blocked)
• tests/test_agent_loop_bugs.py — multimodal shedding paths + role coercion
• tests/test_parallel_native_indexing.py — both rejection-skip and updated-args indexing paths
• tests/test_subagent_env_race.py — concurrent credential-proxy runs don't corrupt env

v6.2.1 — Release Hardening, Redirect-Safe web_fetch, and Parity Smokes

Patch release focused on making the v6.2 line safer to install, test, and operate.

• Redirect-aware SSRF protection — web_fetch disables automatic redirects and manually revalidates every hop before network I/O. Public-to-private redirects to loopback, RFC1918, link-local, reserved, multicast, or cloud metadata IPs are refused by default.
• Hermetic SSRF regression tests — added tests/test_web_fetch_ssrf.py covering public-to-private redirects, redirect loops, direct private IP refusal, and legitimate public-to-public redirects.
• Local-source pytest resolution — pyproject.toml now sets pythonpath = ["src"] and testpaths = ["tests"], so local test runs cannot accidentally import an older installed wheel from site-packages.
• Cross-package parity smoke — added scripts/smoke_gemma4.py, mirroring the TypeScript smoke script and printing provider, base URL, and stored model for Ollama/Gemma4, gpt-5.4, gemini-3.1-pro, and claude-opus-4-6.
• Release verification — python -m pytest reports 319 passed, 2 skipped; the SSRF-specific suite reports 5 passed.

v6.2.0 — OpenAI-Agents Parity, Ollama/Gemma4 First-Class Routing, 63 Model Profiles

A substantial additive release. Everything is backward compatible — existing create_claw_agent() calls, env vars, and tool registrations work unchanged.

1. Ten OpenAI-Agents-SDK parity surfaces (all additive, all new modules)

Surface	Module	What it adds
Run Context	clawagents.run_context	RunContext carries per-run state, approvals, and arbitrary user data through hooks and tools.
Usage Tracking	clawagents.usage	Usage + RequestUsage aggregate token/latency stats across turns, providers, and sub-agents.
Lifecycle Hooks	clawagents.lifecycle	RunHooks / AgentHooks with typed LLMStart/LLMEnd/ToolStart/ToolEnd/AgentStart/AgentEnd/RunStart/RunEnd/Handoff payloads. composite_hooks chains multiple observers without interference.
Guardrails	clawagents.guardrails	input_guardrail / output_guardrail decorators, GuardrailTripwireTriggered, behavior modes (raise / log / filter).
Stream Events	clawagents.stream_events	First-class TurnStartedEvent, AssistantDeltaEvent, ToolCallPlannedEvent, ApprovalRequiredEvent, UsageEvent, GuardrailTrippedEvent, FinalOutputEvent, ErrorStreamEvent. Consumable via on_stream_event callback.
Retry Policy	clawagents.retry	RetryPolicy dataclass + DEFAULT_RETRY_POLICY. Exponential backoff with jitter, per-error-class overrides.
Function Tools	clawagents.function_tool	@function_tool decorator auto-derives JSON Schema from Python type hints. Zero boilerplate.
Session Backends	clawagents.session	Unified Session protocol with InMemorySession, JsonlFileSession, SQLiteSession. Drop-in persistence.
Structured Outputs	output_type= arg on create_claw_agent / agent.invoke	Return typed objects via Pydantic model, dataclass, dict, list, or str. Coerced after run completes; failures emit a warn stream event.
Tool Approval	approval_handler= arg + ApprovalRequiredEvent	HITL gate — async callable receives {tool, args} and returns True / False / a redirect dict. Integrates with ApprovalRequiredEvent for streaming UIs.

2. Ollama & Gemma 4 first-class routing

create_provider() now auto-routes 24 Ollama-family prefixes to http://localhost:11434/v1 with no config needed. Use either the bare tag (gemma4:e4b) or the explicit routing form (ollama/gemma4:e4b).

Family	Examples	Routed to
Gemma 4	gemma4, gemma4:e2b, gemma4:e4b, gemma4:26b, gemma4:31b	Ollama @ :11434/v1
Gemma 3 / 3n / 2	gemma3, gemma3n:e4b, gemma2, gemma	Ollama @ :11434/v1
Llama / Qwen / Mistral / Phi / Deepseek / Codellama	llama3, qwen2, mistral, mixtral, phi4, deepseek-r1, codellama, …	Ollama @ :11434/v1
Explicit routing	ollama/<any-tag>	Ollama @ :11434/v1 (prefix stripped)

Override with OPENAI_BASE_URL if you run Ollama on a different host/port. API key is auto-set to the placeholder "ollama".

3. 63 model profiles + model-aware context budget

The _MODEL_PROFILES table now covers frontier (GPT-5.4 → 400K, Gemini 3.1 → 1M, Claude 4.6 Opus), Ollama (Gemma4 e2b/e4b → 128K, 26b/31b → 256K), and a long tail of OSS variants. _resolve_context_budget() walks insertion order for deterministic prefix matching (most-specific first).

4. Cross-package parity — the TypeScript sibling clawagents (see x1jiang/clawagents) has the identical 24-entry Ollama prefix list, 63-entry model profile table with the same (window, ratio) values, and the same create_provider routing logic. Parity can be exercised manually with the matching smoke scripts in each repo (clawagents_py/scripts/smoke_gemma4.py and clawagents/scripts/smoke-gemma4.ts); both print the same provider, base URL and stored model for gemma4:*, ollama/..., gpt-5.4, gemini-3.1-pro and claude-opus-4-6. The GitHub Actions workflow added in v6.2.1 runs pytest, python -m build, and twine check on every push.

5. Quality / debug pass

• Async agent loop hardening — new turn-started events, tighter cancellation semantics, cleaner state hand-off to sub-agents.
• Added tests/test_openai_agents_surfaces.py — full coverage for RunContext, Usage, Hooks, Guardrails, StreamEvents, Retry, FunctionTool, Session backends.
• Test suite: 314 passed, 2 skipped.

New public exports (from clawagents): RunContext, ApprovalRecord, Usage, RequestUsage, RunHooks, AgentHooks, composite_hooks, InputGuardrail, OutputGuardrail, input_guardrail, output_guardrail, GuardrailBehavior, GuardrailResult, GuardrailTripwireTriggered, StreamEvent (+ 10 concrete event types), stream_event_from_kind, RetryPolicy, DEFAULT_RETRY_POLICY, function_tool, InMemorySession, JsonlFileSession, SQLiteSession.

v6.1.1 — Credential Isolation & Lazy Tool Provisioning

Feature	Description
Credential Isolation	execute tool strips sensitive env vars (OPENAI_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, etc.) from subprocess environment. Claude-generated code can no longer read API keys via env or os.environ.
Lazy Tool Provisioning	Sandbox-backed tools (filesystem, exec, advanced-fs, web) defer module import to first execute() call. Schema is available immediately for the LLM. Reduces startup overhead.

v6.1.0 — Advisor Model: Smart Model Guides Cheap Model

Pair a stronger "advisor" model with a cheaper "executor" model. The executor runs every turn; the advisor is consulted 2-3 times per task for strategic guidance. Cross-provider supported — any model can advise any other model.

Feature	Description
Advisor Model	New advisor_model config field. Set it and the agent gets smarter. Don't set it, nothing changes. Fully backward compatible.
Three Trigger Points	(1) After initial orientation, before planning. (2) When stuck (consecutive failures). (3) Before declaring done.
Cross-Provider	Mix providers freely: gpt-5.4-nano executor + claude-opus-4-6 advisor, or any combination.
CLI Flag	--advisor MODEL flag for one-line usage.
Env Config	ADVISOR_MODEL, ADVISOR_API_KEY, ADVISOR_MAX_CALLS env vars.

agent = create_claw_agent(
    "gpt-5.4-nano",
    advisor_model="gpt-5.4",
)

v6.0.0 — Production Hardening: 17 Improvements

High Priority

Feature	Description
Native Tool Call Patching (H1)	_patch_dangling_tool_calls now handles native function calling (tool_calls_meta), not just text-mode JSON. Injects synthetic cancelled responses for orphaned tool_call IDs. Prevents 400 API errors in HITL scenarios.
Three-Tier Provider Fallback (H2)	New FallbackProvider wraps any LLM with primary → named fallback → global fallback chain. Quarantines providers after consecutive failures, periodic health-check restores. Config via fallback_models param or CLAWAGENTS_FALLBACK_MODELS env var.
Credential Proxy (H3)	New CredentialProxy — local HTTP proxy that injects API keys into outbound requests so sandboxed sub-agents never see raw credentials. Opt-in via CLAW_FEATURE_CREDENTIAL_PROXY=1.
Rich Hook Result Model (H4)	BeforeToolHook now accepts HookResult return (backward-compatible with bool). Hooks can block with reason, redirect args, inject messages. New HookResult dataclass exported from public API.
Fraction-Based Summarization (H5)	Soft-trim threshold now derives from per-model budget_ratio instead of hardcoded 0.60. GPT=0.60, Gemini=0.675, Claude=0.6375. Auto-adapts to any model's context window.
Lazy Static Tool Registry (H7)	New LazyTool class + ToolRegistry.register_lazy(). Tools are imported only on first execute() call. Fast startup with large tool sets.

Medium Priority

Feature	Description
Subagent State Isolation (M1)	EXCLUDED_STATE_KEYS prevents parent state (messages, todos, trajectory, lessons, session) from leaking into child sub-agents.
SKILL.md Constraint Documents (M4)	Skills now support forbidden-actions, workspace-layout, success-criteria, workflow-steps in YAML frontmatter. Structured constraints for sandboxed code execution.
Pre-Compact Transcript Archival (M5)	Before context compaction, full transcript is archived to .clawagents/transcripts/. Opt-in via CLAW_FEATURE_TRANSCRIPT_ARCHIVAL=1.
Atomic File Writes (M7)	Trajectory recorder and session persistence now use temp-then-rename pattern via atomic_write_text(). Prevents corruption on crash.
Barrier-Based Scheduling (M8)	Command queue now supports barrier entries. Destructive ops wait for active tasks to complete before executing.
Session Heartbeat (M9)	New SessionHeartbeat class auto-releases stale sessions after timeout. Resource management for multi-user deployments.
Cross-Provider Test Suite (M10)	14 conformance tests (7 per backend) ensuring LocalBackend and InMemoryBackend both satisfy the SandboxBackend protocol.

New files: providers/fallback.py, sandbox/credential_proxy.py, utils/atomic_write.py, session/heartbeat.py, tests/test_cross_provider.py

New feature flags: transcript_archival (off), credential_proxy (off)

New exports: HookResult, FallbackProvider, CredentialProxy, SessionHeartbeat, LazyTool, atomic_write_text, atomic_write_bytes

v5.28.0 — Error Taxonomy, Prompt Caching, Session Persistence & External Hooks

Four production-grade features ported from the claw-code-main Rust reference implementation:

Feature	Description
Prompt Cache Boundary	Inserts __CACHE_BOUNDARY__ marker in system prompt. Anthropic provider splits into static (cached via cache_control: ephemeral) + dynamic blocks. Reduces input token costs on multi-turn sessions. ON by default.
Error Taxonomy & Recovery	Classifies all LLM/tool errors into 7 discrete classes (context_window, provider_auth, provider_rate_limit, provider_retry_exhausted, provider_internal, provider_transport, runtime_io). Each class has retryable, recovery_hint, and optional failover_model. Structured error events emitted via onEvent. ON by default.
Session Persistence	Saves agent sessions as append-only JSONL to .clawagents/sessions/. Events: system_prompt, turn_started, assistant_message, tool_result, usage, turn_completed. New CLI: --sessions (list) and --resume [ID|latest] (continue). Opt-in.
External Hook System	Shell commands that run before/after tool execution and LLM calls. Config via .clawagents/hooks.json or CLAW_HOOK_* env vars. Hooks receive JSON on stdin, return JSON on stdout. pre_tool_use can block or modify args. 10s timeout, fail-open. Opt-in.

Also:

• Anthropic cache token extraction — cache_creation_tokens and cache_read_tokens now populated from both streaming and non-streaming Anthropic responses.
• AgentState.session_file — New field tracks the session JSONL path when persistence is enabled.
• New public exports — ErrorClass, ErrorDescriptor, classify_error, get_recovery_recipe, SessionWriter, SessionReader, list_sessions, HooksConfig, ExternalHookRunner, load_hooks_config.

v5.27.3 — Gemini Signature Regression Coverage

• Gemini signature regression test — Added targeted tests for _serialize_gemini_parts to ensure thought_signature is propagated to sibling parallel function_call parts.
• Parallel integration test reliability — Fixed integration test fixture validation mismatch so large-output parallel execution is validated correctly.

v5.27.2 — Gemini 3 Thought Signature Fix

• Gemini 3 Propagation — Propagated thought_signature to all parallel function_call parts in the response, preventing 400 INVALID_ARGUMENT during multi-tool execution.

v5.27.1 — Timeout Bugfix

• Fixed NameError — Added timeout_s parameter to ClawAgent.invoke to prevent an exception when a global timeout is not provided.

v5.27.0 — Claude Code Architectural Patterns

Ported 10 production-grade architectural patterns from Anthropic's Claude Code directly into ClawAgents. These features are controllable via environment variables or constructor injection:

Feature	Description
Micro-Compact Memory	Aggressively clears giant tool results to save context.
File History Snapshots	Safely backs up files to .clawagents/snapshots/ before writing.
Prompt Cache Tracking	Real-time stats on Anthropic/OpenAI prompt cache hits.
Typed Memory Taxonomy	Auto-parses project, user, and feedback memories via frontmatter.
Write-Ahead Logging (WAL)	Crash-resilient interaction logging.
Granular Permission Rules	Define glob-based Allow/Deny execution policies.
Background Memory Extraction	Periodically scans conversations and extracts metadata.
Orchestration	Access to run_forked_agent and run_coordinator (swarm routing).

v5.26.0 — Bundled OpenViking Skill, Updated ByteRover Skill

Feature	Description
OpenViking skill	Bundled skills/openviking/SKILL.md teaches the agent to use the ov CLI for tiered context retrieval (L0/L1/L2). Auto-enabled when ov is on PATH
ByteRover skill updated	Refreshed to match byterover-cli v1.8.0 — added --headless, --folder, removed obsolete commands
Generic bundled skill loader	Skill loader now scans the entire bundled skills/ directory instead of hardcoding individual skills

v5.25.0 — Gemini Streaming Fix

Feature	Description
Fix Gemini SDK warning	Eliminated "non-text parts in the response" warning by iterating candidates[].content.parts[] instead of accessing the .text property on streaming chunks containing function calls
Consistent text extraction	Streaming path now uses the same parts-based extraction as the non-streaming _request_once, filtering out thought parts

v5.24.0 — Zero-Config Channel Auto-Detection

Feature	Description
Auto-detect channels from env vars	clawagents --serve now reads TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN, WHATSAPP_AUTH_DIR, SIGNAL_ACCOUNT from .env and auto-starts the ChannelRouter — zero code required
--doctor channel status	clawagents --doctor reports which messaging channels are configured
.env.example updated	All channel env vars documented with inline comments
--init scaffold	clawagents --init generates .env with channel variables pre-commented

v5.23.0 — WebSocket Gateway, Multi-Channel Messaging (Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal)

Full multi-platform messaging support inspired by OpenClaw's channel architecture:

Feature	Description
WebSocket gateway	FastAPI native WebSocket endpoint at /ws alongside existing HTTP. Methods: chat.send (streaming events), chat.history, chat.inject, ping. Auth via ?token= query param
Channel adapter interface	ChannelAdapter protocol + ChannelMessage dataclass — standard contract for any messaging platform
Telegram adapter	Uses python-telegram-bot. Config: {"bot_token": "..."}
WhatsApp adapter	Baileys subprocess (Node.js) or WhatsApp Business API. Config: {"mode": "baileys", "auth_dir": ".whatsapp-auth"}
Signal adapter	Uses signal-cli subprocess with JSON-RPC. Config: {"account": "[phone]"}
Channel router	ChannelRouter dispatches inbound messages to agents, routes replies back. Per-session serialization via KeyedAsyncQueue, optional debouncer, hooks

from clawagents import create_claw_agent, ChannelRouter
from clawagents.channels.telegram import TelegramAdapter
from clawagents.channels.whatsapp import WhatsAppAdapter

router = ChannelRouter(lambda: create_claw_agent("gpt-5-mini"))
router.register(TelegramAdapter())
router.register(WhatsAppAdapter())
await router.start_all({
    "telegram": {"bot_token": "123456:ABC..."},
    "whatsapp": {"mode": "baileys", "auth_dir": ".whatsapp-auth"},
})

v5.22.0 — Tool Result Caching, Parameter Validation & ComposeTool

3 features inspired by ToolUniverse's tool management patterns:

Feature	Description
Tool result caching	LRU in-memory cache (ResultCacheManager) avoids redundant tool calls. Tools opt in with cacheable = True. Per-tool TTL overrides via result_cache.set_tool_ttl(). Built-in cacheable tools: read_file, grep, web_fetch. Default: 256 entries, 60s TTL
Parameter validation + coercion	validate_tool_args() checks required params and type-matches before execution. Lenient coercion handles common LLM quirks: "42" → 42, "true" → True, JSON strings → objects/arrays. Enabled by default on ToolRegistry
ComposeTool	create_compose_tool() chains multiple tools in a deterministic pipeline without an LLM in the loop. Lighter than sub-agents for predictable workflows. Steps receive previous results and a call_tool helper. Failures short-circuit with clear error messages

v5.21.0 — Context Engine, Loop Detection & Compaction Overhaul

8 improvements inspired by the latest OpenClaw architecture:

Feature	Description
Chunked compaction with retry	Compaction now splits old messages into ~30K-token chunks, summarizes each separately with up to 3 retries (exponential backoff), and explicitly preserves file paths, function names, error messages, and commands verbatim
Better loop detection	Result hashing detects "different args, same result" stalls; ping-pong detection catches A→B→A→B oscillation; global circuit breaker hard-stops at 30 no-progress calls
Context pruning (soft-trim)	New _soft_trim_messages runs at 60% context usage (before the 75% compaction trigger). Trims old tool results >1000 chars, removes duplicates, and stubs stale image data
Skill eligibility gating	Skills can declare requires: in YAML frontmatter (os, bins, env). Ineligible skills are filtered at load time
Skill prompt budget	Max 20 skills / 4000 chars injected into the system prompt. Full list accessible via list_skills
Control token sanitization	Strips leaked model control tokens (<|assistant|>, <|endoftext|>, full-width variants) from final output
Head+tail truncation	Eviction fallback and content preview now use head+tail (preserving error messages at the end). Also fixes a bug where few-line, huge-character content bypassed preview truncation
Pluggable context engine	New ContextEngine ABC with after_turn, compact, bootstrap, cleanup lifecycle hooks. DefaultContextEngine is a no-op pass-through. Registry: register_context_engine() / resolve_context_engine()

v5.20.4 — Gemini MALFORMED_FUNCTION_CALL Retry

Feature	Description
Gemini malformed FC retry	When Gemini returns finish_reason=MALFORMED_FUNCTION_CALL with 0 parts (common with complex parallel tool calls), the provider now automatically retries with tool_config.mode=ANY instead of stopping the agent
Streaming + non-streaming	Fix applied to both streaming (_stream_with_retry) and non-streaming (_request_once) code paths
Recursion guard	_malformed_retry flag prevents infinite retry loops if mode=ANY also fails

v5.20.3 — GPT-5 Temperature Corrections

Feature	Description
GPT-5-nano temperature	Live API tests confirmed gpt-5-nano requires temperature=1 (not 0). Fixed in _FIXED_TEMPERATURE_MODELS

v5.20.0 — Temperature & Compaction Fixes

Feature	Description
Temperature fix	GPT-5 models no longer forced to temperature=1.0. Only o-series models (o1, o3, o4-mini) retain the fixed override. This restores deterministic behavior when TEMPERATURE=0 is set
Compaction overhaul	Context compaction no longer causes the agent to "forget" what it was doing. Five improvements: (1) RECENT_MESSAGES_TO_KEEP increased from 6 → 20, (2) tool call/result pairs are never split, (3) summary prompt now includes original task + structured preservation instructions, (4) compacted summary inserted as role="user" with [System — Compacted History] prefix instead of role="assistant", (5) text log for summarization includes structured [TOOL CALLS] and [TOOL RESULT] markers
Debug cleanup	All development instrumentation removed from production code

v5.19.0 — Anthropic Provider, Security, Architecture Overhaul

Feature	Description
Anthropic/Claude provider	First-class support for Claude models via ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. Install with pip install clawagents[anthropic]
Optional Gemini	google-genai is now an optional dependency. Install with pip install clawagents[gemini] or pip install clawagents[all]
py.typed + __version__	PEP 561 type stub marker and clawagents.__version__ export for downstream tools
Lazy config loading	No more module-level side effects — .env discovery happens on first load_config() call
Lazy Path.cwd()	All module-level Path.cwd() calls replaced with lazy functions — safe for import from any directory
Gateway authentication	GATEWAY_API_KEY env var enables Bearer token auth on POST endpoints
CORS support	Gateway now supports GATEWAY_CORS_ORIGINS for cross-origin requests
Improved blocked patterns	Expanded dangerous command detection with regex matching
API key masking	clawagents --doctor now masks keys (shows ********...last4)
Azure detection	New OPENAI_API_TYPE=azure env var for explicit Azure OpenAI configuration
Global timeout	--timeout N CLI flag and CLAW_TIMEOUT env var for agent run time limits
--verbose / --quiet	CLI flags for controlling output verbosity
--prune-trajectories N	Delete trajectory files older than N days
Lesson export/import	export_lessons() / import_lessons() for sharing lessons between projects
Trajectory pruning	prune_trajectories(max_age_days) utility function
pydantic-settings	Now properly listed as a dependency (was missing)
pyproject.toml metadata	Added license, authors, classifiers, URLs, optional dependency groups
New tests	Tests for _repair_json, trajectory recorder, config module

v5.18.0 — Doctor, Trajectory Inspector & Config Improvements

Feature	Description
clawagents --doctor	New diagnostic command checks .env discovery, API keys, active model, LLM settings, PTRL flags, local endpoint reachability, trajectory history, and AGENTS.md presence
clawagents --trajectory [N]	Inspect the last N run summaries: score, quality, failures, judge verdict, duration — human-readable trajectory output
Startup banner	Every --task and --serve now prints provider=X model=Y env=Z ptrl=... for instant visibility into active config
CLAWAGENTS_ENV_FILE	New env var to explicitly point to a .env file path. Priority: CLAWAGENTS_ENV_FILE > cwd/.env > cwd/../.env. Useful for CI, Docker, multi-project
Publish hygiene	GitHub releases no longer include .clawagents/, .pytest_cache/, logs, or other runtime artifacts
Config/docs consistency tests	6 pytest tests verify every EngineConfig field appears in .env.example and README.md
--port in TypeScript	Gateway server port now configurable via --port N in TypeScript CLI

v5.17.0 — Quick Start Scaffold & Examples

Feature	Description
clawagents --init	New CLI command scaffolds a starter project in the current directory: generates .env (with all providers commented out), run_agent.py (ready-to-run starter script with 5 provider options), and AGENTS.md (memory template)
clawagents --help	Shows usage with examples, quick start instructions
clawagents --task	Run a single task from the command line
clawagents --serve	Start the HTTP gateway server from CLI
Examples directory	8 ready-to-run example scripts: OpenAI, Gemini, Azure, Ollama, vLLM, Bedrock, custom tools, and multi-sample comparison
README overhaul	New "30-Second Quick Start" section, examples table, clearer onboarding flow

v5.16.0 — LLM-as-Judge & Thinking Token Preservation

Feature	Description
G. LLM-as-Judge verification	After each run (when learn=True), a separate, focused LLM call evaluates whether the task was actually accomplished. Returns a 0-3 score with justification — more reliable than heuristic scoring. Results stored as judge_score and judge_justification on RunSummary
H. Thinking token preservation	Models like Qwen3 and DeepSeek that emit <think>...</think> blocks are now fully supported. Thinking content is extracted before tool-call parsing, preserved on messages and trajectory records, and stripped from visible output. Available via strip_thinking_tokens() utility

v5.15.0 — Deterministic Verification & GRPO-Inspired Comparison

Feature	Description
A. Deterministic rewards	Tool execution results (exit codes, test pass/fail counts) are now used as objective ground truth for scoring, replacing pure LLM self-assessment. Each turn and run summary includes deterministic_score and verified_score fields
B. Multi-sample comparison	New agent.compare(task, n_samples=3) method runs the same task N times and picks the best result using objective scoring — inspired by SkyRL's Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO)
C. Task-type-aware verification	Auto-detects task type (coding/file/search/refactor/general) and applies type-specific verifiers. Coding tasks use test results; file tasks check write success; refactoring checks edits + tests
D. Progressive context caching	System prompt token count is computed once and cached, avoiding redundant re-counting on every turn. Logged at startup for budget visibility
E. RFT-ready transitions	Each trajectory now exports {run_id}_rft.json with (observation, action, reward, done) tuples per step — structured for future Rejection Fine-Tuning pipelines
F. Adaptive rethink threshold	Rethink trigger threshold now adjusts dynamically: complex tasks (coding/refactor) get more patience (threshold=5), simple tasks (search/file) trigger sooner (threshold=3), and late in runs threshold drops to minimum (2)

v5.14.0 — SkyRL-Inspired PTRL Improvements

Feature	Description
🚦 Quality gate for lesson extraction	Lessons only extracted from runs with mixed outcomes (both successes and failures). Zero-variance runs (all-success or all-failure with no contrast) are skipped — inspired by SkyRL's GRPO dynamic sampling
⏰ Lesson staleness decay	Each lesson block is now timestamped + model-tagged (@timestamp [model]). load_lessons(max_age_s=N) filters out stale lessons. Prevents prompt pollution from outdated advice
🔤 Format vs. logic failure classification	Every failed tool call is classified as "format" (bad JSON, wrong params) or "logic" (valid call, wrong approach). Rethink messages now include format-specific or strategy-specific guidance
📊 Per-step reward attribution	Each TurnRecord now includes observation_context (what the agent saw before deciding), productivity_score (-1.0 to 1.0), and failure_type per tool call. RunSummary adds format_failures, logic_failures, has_mixed_outcomes, and finish_reason
🧠 Enhanced self-analysis prompt	Post-run LLM analysis now receives failure type breakdown and productivity scores for targeted lesson extraction

v5.13.0 — Prompt-Time Reinforcement Learning (PTRL)

Feature	Description
🧠 PTRL: Post-run self-analysis	After each run, the LLM reviews its own trajectory and extracts 2-5 actionable lessons, saved to .clawagents/lessons.md
📖 PTRL: Pre-run lesson injection	On subsequent runs, stored lessons are injected into the system prompt so the agent avoids past mistakes
🔄 PTRL: Enhanced mid-run rethink	When consecutive failures trigger a rethink, relevant past lessons are included in the rethink message
🎛️ learn flag / CLAW_LEARN env	Opt-in via learn=True or CLAW_LEARN=1. Automatically enables trajectory logging
📐 Default context_window → 1,000,000	Increased from 128,000 to support modern large-context models
🔧 macOS sandbox symlink fix	LocalBackend now resolves symlinks at init (fixes /var → /private/var on macOS)
✅ All 150 tests passing	Fixed 48 pre-existing test failures (sandbox path traversal, LLMMessage subscript, mock assertions)

v5.12.1 — Streamlit / Jupyter Compatibility

Feature	Description
🔧 Signal handler fix	add_signal_handler now catches RuntimeError in addition to NotImplementedError/OSError, fixing crashes in Streamlit, Jupyter, and other non-main-thread environments

v5.12.0 — Gemini 3 Thought Signature Support

Feature	Description
🧠 thought_signature preservation	Gemini 3 thinking models (e.g. gemini-3-flash-preview) require thought and thought_signature fields to be echoed back during multi-turn function calling. ClawAgents now captures the full response parts and replays them verbatim, preventing 400 errors.
🔄 gemini_parts field	New optional field on LLMMessage and LLMResponse carries raw Gemini response parts through the conversation history. Used automatically — no user action required.

v5.11.0 — Configurable Limits

Feature	Description
🔢 max_iterations	Now settable at construction or via MAX_ITERATIONS env (default 200, was hardcoded in caller)
📏 preview_chars	Tool-output preview length configurable via CLAW_PREVIEW_CHARS env (default 120)
📄 response_chars	Response text length in trajectory records via CLAW_RESPONSE_CHARS env (default 500)
⚙️ Priority	Explicit param > env var > default for all three

v5.10.0 — Discrete Reward Bands & Weighted Scoring

Feature	Description
🎯 Discrete reward bands	Run scores mapped to -1 … +3 bands (inspired by CUDA-Agent PPO reward shaping)
⚖️ Weighted execution scoring	execute, shell, run_code weighted 2× higher than generic tools
🏷️ Run quality grading	Each run classified as clean, noisy, or failed for trajectory filtering
🛡️ Gameable tool exclusion	think, todolist, use_skill, etc. excluded from scoring to prevent reward hacking

v5.9.0 — Trajectory Logging & Rethink

Feature	Description
📊 Trajectory logging	Structured recording of every turn, tool call, and outcome to runs.jsonl
🔄 Consecutive-failure rethink	After 3 consecutive meaningful failures, injects a system "rethink" prompt
🎛️ Opt-in flags	trajectory=True / CLAW_TRAJECTORY=1 and rethink=True / CLAW_RETHINK=1

v5.8.0 — JSON Resilience

Feature	Description
🔧 JSON repair	_repair_json() utility fixes truncated JSON from hitting max_completion_tokens
🔁 Truncated JSON retry	Detects incomplete JSON tool calls and prompts the LLM to resend

v5.7.0 — Model-Specific Temperature

Feature	Description
🌡️ Fixed-temperature models	Reasoning models (o-series, gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, gpt-5-turbo) auto-override to temperature=1.0. Non-reasoning models (gpt-5-nano, gpt-5-micro, gpt-4o) respect configured temperature
🌡️ Configurable temperature	TEMPERATURE env var + temperature parameter on create_claw_agent

v5.6.0 — LLM Parameter Fixes

Feature	Description
🔑 max_completion_tokens	OpenAI calls now use max_completion_tokens (replacing deprecated max_tokens)
🔑 max_output_tokens	Gemini calls now pass max_output_tokens correctly
⚙️ Config priority	Explicit param > .env > default — no more shadowing of env values

v5.5.0 — Foundation

Feature	Description
🔌 Pluggable Sandbox	SandboxBackend protocol with LocalBackend + InMemoryBackend
🌐 Gateway Server	FastAPI server with SSE streaming and 4-lane queue
🗂️ Advanced FS Tools	tree, diff, insert_lines
🧠 Think Tool	Structured reasoning without side effects
🌍 Web Fetch	URL fetching with HTML cleanup
💬 Ask User	Interactive stdin-based input
📜 History Offloading	Full audit trail preserved after compaction
🔒 Tool Access Control	block_tools() / allow_only_tools() at runtime
💉 Context Injection	inject_context() hook for every LLM call
✂️ Output Truncation	truncate_output() to cap tool output size

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Trajectory Logging & RL-Inspired Scoring

ClawAgents includes an optional trajectory system inspired by reinforcement learning techniques from CUDA-Agent and OpenClaw-RL. Enable it with trajectory=True or CLAW_TRAJECTORY=1.

What gets logged

Every agent run records:

• Turn-level data: tool calls, arguments, success/failure, output previews
• Weighted turn scores: execution tools (shell, code runners) weighted 2× higher than generic tools
• Run summary: total turns, tool calls, successes/failures, elapsed time

Discrete reward bands

Each run receives a score from -1 to +3:

Score	Meaning
+3	All tools succeeded, task completed cleanly
+2	Minor hiccups but overall success
+1	Partial success with some failures
0	Inconclusive — mixed results
-1	Majority of tool calls failed

Quality grading

Runs are classified for downstream filtering:

Quality	Criteria
clean	Score ≥ 2 and ≤ 2 mid-run failures
noisy	Score ≥ 0 but too many mid-run failures
failed	Score < 0

Anti-gaming protections

Tools like think, todolist, use_skill, list_skills, and update_todo are excluded from scoring — they can't inflate success rates.

Consecutive-failure rethink

With rethink=True or CLAW_RETHINK=1, the agent monitors tool outcomes in real-time. After 3 consecutive meaningful failures, it injects a system message:

"You have had 3 consecutive tool failures. Stop and rethink your approach before continuing."

This simple mechanism prevents the agent from spiraling into repeated failed attempts.

Output

Run summaries are appended to .clawagents/trajectories/runs.jsonl:

{
  "run_id": "a1b2c3d4",
  "model": "gpt-5-mini",
  "total_turns": 8,
  "tool_calls": 12,
  "successes": 10,
  "failures": 2,
  "run_score": 2,
  "quality": "clean",
  "elapsed_ms": 45230,
  "turns": [...]
}

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Roadmap

• Docker sandbox backend (protocol ready)
• Semantic browser automation (accessibility tree)
• Prompt caching (Anthropic-style)
• Persistent memory learning from trajectory data (advanced — RFT-style rule extraction)
• Post-run self-analysis + lesson extraction ✅ (v5.13 — PTRL)
• Pre-run lesson injection ✅ (v5.13 — PTRL)
• Enhanced mid-run rethink with past lessons ✅ (v5.13 — PTRL)
• Trajectory logging + discrete reward bands ✅ (v5.9–5.10)
• Consecutive-failure rethink injection ✅ (v5.9)
• Weighted execution scoring + quality grading ✅ (v5.10)
• JSON repair + truncated JSON retry ✅ (v5.8)
• Model-specific temperature override ✅ (v5.7)
• Configurable temperature / max_completion_tokens ✅ (v5.6)
• Pluggable sandbox backend ✅ (v5.5)
• Lane-based queue serialization ✅ (v5.5)
• Skill progressive disclosure ✅ (v5.5)
• Gateway HTTP server ✅ (v5.5)

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License

MIT

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Built with 🦞 by the ClawAgents team