OpenClaw Sessions Explained — How Agent Sessions Work

Understanding how sessions work in OpenClaw unlocks a lot of the platform's power. Sessions aren't just conversation threads — they're how your agent manages context, memory, parallel work, and autonomous operation.

What Is a Session?

A session in OpenClaw is a single continuous context window with your agent. It starts when you send a message or when a cron job fires, and ends when the task is complete. Each session loads your agent's workspace files to establish context.

Session Lifecycle

1. Initialization: Session starts. Agent loads SOUL.md, USER.md, MEMORY.md (in main sessions).
2. Context building: For cron jobs, the task is injected. For chat, your message is received.
3. Execution: Agent processes the request, uses tools, reads files, takes actions.
4. Completion: Task completes. Results are delivered (Slack message, file save, etc.).
5. Memory update: If configured, important context is written back to MEMORY.md before session ends.

Main Sessions vs Sub-Agent Sessions

Main sessions are your primary interaction sessions — bound to your user-facing channels (Slack DM, Discord). These load full context including MEMORY.md and have persistent workspace access.

Sub-agent sessions are spawned by the main agent to handle specialized tasks in parallel. They receive a specific task and context, complete the work, and report back to the parent.

# Main agent spawning a sub-agent
# (This happens automatically when your agent decides to delegate)
sessions_spawn --task "Analyze all CSV files in ~/reports/data/ and generate the Q1 summary" --model claude-sonnet

Cron Session Behavior

When a cron job fires, it starts a fresh session. The agent loads its core workspace files, executes the cron task, delivers results, and the session closes. Cron sessions don't carry forward memory from prior cron runs unless your agent explicitly writes to MEMORY.md or custom files.

openclaw cron list
# Shows session metadata for recently completed cron runs

openclaw cron logs --name "weekly-report"
# Shows what happened in recent cron sessions

Context Window Management

Each session has a context window limit determined by your LLM. For long tasks involving many files, your agent needs to be selective about what it loads. Configure AGENTS.md to define loading priority:

# In AGENTS.md:
# ALWAYS load: SOUL.md, USER.md, MEMORY.md
# Load on demand: specific project files, large datasets
# Never auto-load: archived files, completed project folders

Session Isolation for Sub-Agents

Sub-agents run in isolated sessions — they have their own context and don't automatically see the main agent's full memory. The main agent passes relevant context explicitly when spawning. This keeps sub-agent sessions focused and prevents context bloat.

Debugging Sessions

openclaw sessions list
# Shows recent sessions with status and duration

openclaw sessions log --id [session-id]
# Shows full execution log for a specific session

Ready to go deeper? The OpenClaw Playbook covers this in detail — grab your copy for $9.99.