Groups

OpenClaw treats group chats consistently across surfaces: WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, iMessage, Microsoft Teams.

Beginner intro (2 minutes)

OpenClaw “lives” on your own messaging accounts. There is no separate WhatsApp bot user. If you are in a group, OpenClaw can see that group and respond there.

Default behavior:

• Groups are restricted (groupPolicy: "allowlist").
• Replies require a mention unless you explicitly disable mention gating.

Translation: allowlisted senders can trigger OpenClaw by mentioning it.

TL;DR

• DM access is controlled by *.allowFrom.
• Group access is controlled by *.groupPolicy + allowlists (*.groups, *.groupAllowFrom).
• Reply triggering is controlled by mention gating (requireMention, /activation).

Quick flow (what happens to a group message):

groupPolicy? disabled -> drop
groupPolicy? allowlist -> group allowed? no -> drop
requireMention? yes -> mentioned? no -> store for context only
otherwise -> reply

If you want...

Session keys

• Group sessions use agent:<agentId>:<channel>:group:<id> session keys (rooms/channels use agent:<agentId>:<channel>:channel:<id>).
• Telegram forum topics add :topic:<threadId> to the group id so each topic has its own session.
• Direct chats use the main session (or per-sender if configured).
• Heartbeats are skipped for group sessions.

Pattern: personal DMs + public groups (single agent)

Yes — this works well if your “personal” traffic is DMs and your “public” traffic is groups.

Why: in single-agent mode, DMs typically land in the main session key (agent:main:main), while groups always use non-main session keys (agent:main:<channel>:group:<id>). If you enable sandboxing with mode: "non-main", those group sessions run in Docker while your main DM session stays on-host.

This gives you one agent “brain” (shared workspace + memory), but two execution postures:

• DMs: full tools (host)
• Groups: sandbox + restricted tools (Docker)

If you need truly separate workspaces/personas (“personal” and “public” must never mix), use a second agent + bindings. See Multi-Agent Routing.

Example (DMs on host, groups sandboxed + messaging-only tools):

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      sandbox: {
        mode: "non-main", // groups/channels are non-main -> sandboxed
        scope: "session", // strongest isolation (one container per group/channel)
        workspaceAccess: "none",
      },
    },
  },
  tools: {
    sandbox: {
      tools: {
        // If allow is non-empty, everything else is blocked (deny still wins).
        allow: ["group:messaging", "group:sessions"],
        deny: ["group:runtime", "group:fs", "group:ui", "nodes", "cron", "gateway"],
      },
    },
  },
}

Want “groups can only see folder X” instead of “no host access”? Keep workspaceAccess: "none" and mount only allowlisted paths into the sandbox:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      sandbox: {
        mode: "non-main",
        scope: "session",
        workspaceAccess: "none",
        docker: {
          binds: [
            // hostPath:containerPath:mode
            "/home/user/FriendsShared:/data:ro",
          ],
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Related:

• Configuration keys and defaults: Gateway configuration
• Debugging why a tool is blocked: Sandbox vs Tool Policy vs Elevated
• Bind mounts details: Sandboxing

Display labels

• UI labels use displayName when available, formatted as <channel>:<token>.
• #room is reserved for rooms/channels; group chats use g-<slug> (lowercase, spaces -> -, keep #@+._-).

Group policy

Control how group/room messages are handled per channel:

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled", // "open" | "disabled" | "allowlist"
      groupAllowFrom: ["+15551234567"],
    },
    telegram: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["123456789"], // numeric Telegram user id (wizard can resolve @username)
    },
    signal: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["+15551234567"],
    },
    imessage: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["chat_id:123"],
    },
    msteams: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["[email protected]"],
    },
    discord: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      guilds: {
        GUILD_ID: { channels: { help: { allow: true } } },
      },
    },
    slack: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      channels: { "#general": { allow: true } },
    },
    matrix: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      groupAllowFrom: ["@owner:example.org"],
      groups: {
        "!roomId:example.org": { allow: true },
        "#alias:example.org": { allow: true },
      },
    },
  },
}

Notes:

• groupPolicy is separate from mention-gating (which requires @mentions).
• WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/iMessage/Microsoft Teams: use groupAllowFrom (fallback: explicit allowFrom).
• Discord: allowlist uses channels.discord.guilds.<id>.channels.
• Slack: allowlist uses channels.slack.channels.
• Matrix: allowlist uses channels.matrix.groups (room IDs, aliases, or names). Use channels.matrix.groupAllowFrom to restrict senders; per-room users allowlists are also supported.
• Group DMs are controlled separately (channels.discord.dm.*, channels.slack.dm.*).
• Telegram allowlist can match user IDs ("123456789", "telegram:123456789", "tg:123456789") or usernames ("@alice" or "alice"); prefixes are case-insensitive.
• Default is groupPolicy: "allowlist"; if your group allowlist is empty, group messages are blocked.

Quick mental model (evaluation order for group messages):

1. groupPolicy (open/disabled/allowlist)
2. group allowlists (*.groups, *.groupAllowFrom, channel-specific allowlist)
3. mention gating (requireMention, /activation)

Mention gating (default)

Group messages require a mention unless overridden per group. Defaults live per subsystem under *.groups."*".

Replying to a bot message counts as an implicit mention (when the channel supports reply metadata). This applies to Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams.

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
        "[email protected]": { requireMention: false },
      },
    },
    telegram: {
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
        "123456789": { requireMention: false },
      },
    },
    imessage: {
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
        "123": { requireMention: false },
      },
    },
  },
  agents: {
    list: [
      {
        id: "main",
        groupChat: {
          mentionPatterns: ["@openclaw", "openclaw", "\\+15555550123"],
          historyLimit: 50,
        },
      },
    ],
  },
}

Notes:

• mentionPatterns are case-insensitive regexes.
• Surfaces that provide explicit mentions still pass; patterns are a fallback.
• Per-agent override: agents.list[].groupChat.mentionPatterns (useful when multiple agents share a group).
• Mention gating is only enforced when mention detection is possible (native mentions or mentionPatterns are configured).
• Discord defaults live in channels.discord.guilds."*" (overridable per guild/channel).
• Group history context is wrapped uniformly across channels and is pending-only (messages skipped due to mention gating); use messages.groupChat.historyLimit for the global default and channels.<channel>.historyLimit (or channels.<channel>.accounts.*.historyLimit) for overrides. Set 0 to disable.

Group/channel tool restrictions (optional)

Some channel configs support restricting which tools are available inside a specific group/room/channel.

• tools: allow/deny tools for the whole group.
• toolsBySender: per-sender overrides within the group (keys are sender IDs/usernames/emails/phone numbers depending on the channel). Use "*" as a wildcard.

Resolution order (most specific wins):

1. group/channel toolsBySender match
2. group/channel tools
3. default ("*") toolsBySender match
4. default ("*") tools

Example (Telegram):

{
  channels: {
    telegram: {
      groups: {
        "*": { tools: { deny: ["exec"] } },
        "-1001234567890": {
          tools: { deny: ["exec", "read", "write"] },
          toolsBySender: {
            "123456789": { alsoAllow: ["exec"] },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Notes:

• Group/channel tool restrictions are applied in addition to global/agent tool policy (deny still wins).
• Some channels use different nesting for rooms/channels (e.g., Discord guilds.*.channels.*, Slack channels.*, MS Teams teams.*.channels.*).

Group allowlists

When channels.whatsapp.groups, channels.telegram.groups, or channels.imessage.groups is configured, the keys act as a group allowlist. Use "*" to allow all groups while still setting default mention behavior.

Common intents (copy/paste):

1. Disable all group replies

{
  channels: { whatsapp: { groupPolicy: "disabled" } },
}

2. Allow only specific groups (WhatsApp)

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groups: {
        "[email protected]": { requireMention: true },
        "[email protected]": { requireMention: false },
      },
    },
  },
}

3. Allow all groups but require mention (explicit)

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groups: { "*": { requireMention: true } },
    },
  },
}

4. Only the owner can trigger in groups (WhatsApp)

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      groupAllowFrom: ["+15551234567"],
      groups: { "*": { requireMention: true } },
    },
  },
}

Activation (owner-only)

Group owners can toggle per-group activation:

• /activation mention
• /activation always

Owner is determined by channels.whatsapp.allowFrom (or the bot’s self E.164 when unset). Send the command as a standalone message. Other surfaces currently ignore /activation.

Context fields

Group inbound payloads set:

• ChatType=group
• GroupSubject (if known)
• GroupMembers (if known)
• WasMentioned (mention gating result)
• Telegram forum topics also include MessageThreadId and IsForum.

The agent system prompt includes a group intro on the first turn of a new group session. It reminds the model to respond like a human, avoid Markdown tables, and avoid typing literal \n sequences.

iMessage specifics

• Prefer chat_id:<id> when routing or allowlisting.
• List chats: imsg chats --limit 20.
• Group replies always go back to the same chat_id.

WhatsApp specifics

See Group messages for WhatsApp-only behavior (history injection, mention handling details).