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Agent coordination

Goal

Status: active
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Goal

A goal is one durable objective attached to the current OpenClaw session. It gives the agent and the operator a shared target for long-running work, without turning that target into a background task, reminder, cron job, or standing order.

Goals are session state. They move with the session key, survive process restarts, show up in /goal, are available to the model through the goal tools, and appear in the TUI footer when the active session has one.

Quick start

Set a goal:

text
/goal start get CI green for PR 87469 and push the fix

Check it:

text
/goal

Pause it when work is intentionally waiting:

text
/goal pause waiting for CI

Resume it:

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/goal resume

Mark it complete:

text
/goal complete pushed and verified

Clear it:

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/goal clear

What goals are for

Use a goal when a session has a concrete outcome that should remain visible across many turns:

  • A PR closeout: fix, verify, autoreview, push, and open or update the PR.
  • A debug run: reproduce the bug, identify the owning surface, patch, and prove the fix.
  • A docs pass: read the relevant docs, write the new page, cross-link it, and verify the docs build.
  • A maintenance task: inspect current state, make bounded changes, run the right checks, and report what changed.

A goal is not a task queue. Use Task Flow, tasks, cron jobs, or standing orders when work should run detached, repeat on a schedule, fan out into managed sub-work, or persist as a policy.

Command reference

/goal without arguments prints the current goal summary:

text
GoalStatus: activeObjective: get CI green for PR 87469 and push the fixTokens used: 12kToken budget: 12k/50k Commands: /goal pause, /goal complete, /goal clear

Commands:

  • /goal or /goal status shows the current goal.
  • /goal start <objective> creates a new goal for the current session.
  • /goal set <objective> and /goal create <objective> are aliases for start.
  • /goal pause [note] pauses an active goal.
  • /goal resume [note] resumes a paused, blocked, usage-limited, or budget-limited goal.
  • /goal complete [note] marks the goal achieved.
  • /goal done [note] is an alias for complete.
  • /goal block [note] marks the goal blocked.
  • /goal blocked [note] is an alias for block.
  • /goal clear removes the goal from the session.

Only one goal can exist on a session at a time. Starting a second goal fails until the current one is cleared.

Statuses

Goals use a small status set:

  • active: the session is pursuing the goal.
  • paused: the operator paused the goal; /goal resume makes it active again.
  • blocked: the agent or operator reported a real blocker; /goal resume makes it active again when new information or state is available.
  • budget_limited: the configured token budget was reached; /goal resume restarts pursuit from the same objective.
  • usage_limited: reserved for usage-limit stop states; /goal resume restarts pursuit when allowed.
  • complete: the goal was achieved. Complete goals are terminal; use /goal clear before starting another goal.

/new and /reset clear the current session goal because they intentionally start fresh session context.

Token budgets

Goals can have an optional positive token budget. The budget is stored with the goal and measured from the session's fresh token count at creation time. If the current session only has stale or unknown token usage when the goal starts, OpenClaw waits for the next fresh session token snapshot and uses that as the baseline, so tokens spent before the goal existed are not charged to the goal.

When token usage reaches the budget, the goal changes to budget_limited. This does not delete the goal or erase the objective. It tells the operator and the agent that the goal is no longer actively being pursued until it is resumed or cleared.

Token budgets are a session-goal guardrail, not a billing cap. Provider quota, cost reporting, and context-window behavior still use the normal OpenClaw usage and model controls.

Model tools

OpenClaw exposes three core goal tools to agent harnesses:

  • get_goal: read the current session goal, including status, objective, token usage, and token budget.
  • create_goal: create a goal only when the user, system, or developer instructions explicitly request one. It fails if the session already has a goal.
  • update_goal: mark the goal complete or blocked.

The model cannot silently pause, resume, clear, or replace a goal. Those are operator/session controls through /goal and reset commands. This keeps the agent from quietly moving the target while preserving a clean path for the agent to report achievement or a genuine blocker.

The update_goal tool should mark a goal complete only when the objective is actually achieved. It should mark a goal blocked only when the same blocking condition has repeated and the agent cannot make meaningful progress without new user input or an external-state change.

TUI

The TUI keeps the active session's goal visible in the footer next to the agent, session, model, run controls, and token counts.

Footer examples:

  • Pursuing goal (12k/50k) for an active goal with a token budget.
  • Goal paused (/goal resume) for a paused goal.
  • Goal blocked (/goal resume) for a blocked goal.
  • Goal hit usage limits (/goal resume) for a usage-limited goal.
  • Goal unmet (50k/50k) for a budget-limited goal.
  • Goal achieved (42k) for a completed goal.

The footer is intentionally compact. Use /goal for the full objective, note, token budget, and available commands.

Channel behavior

The /goal command works in command-capable OpenClaw sessions, including the TUI and chat surfaces that permit text commands. Goal state is attached to the session key, not the transport. If two surfaces use the same session, they see the same goal.

Goal state is not a delivery directive. It does not force replies through a channel, change queue behavior, approve tools, or schedule work.

Troubleshooting

Goal error: goal already exists means the session already has a goal. Use /goal to inspect it, /goal complete if it is done, or /goal clear before starting a different objective.

Goal error: goal not found means the session has no goal yet. Start one with /goal start <objective>.

Goal error: goal is already complete means the goal is terminal. Clear it before starting or resuming another objective.

If token usage looks like 0 or stale, the active session may not have a fresh token snapshot yet. Usage refreshes as OpenClaw records session usage and transcript-derived totals.

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