claude-code-task

name	claude-code-task
description	Run Claude Code tasks in background with automatic result delivery. Use for coding tasks, research in codebase, file generation, complex automations. Zero OpenClaw tokens while Claude Code works.

Claude Code Task (Async)

Run Claude Code in background — zero OpenClaw tokens while it works. Results delivered to WhatsApp or Telegram automatically.

Important: Claude Code = General AI Agent

Claude Code is NOT just a coding tool. It's a full-powered AI agent with web search, file access, and deep reasoning. Use it for ANY complex task:

• Research — web search, synthesis, competitive analysis, user experience reports
• Coding — create tools, scripts, APIs, refactor codebases
• Analysis — read and analyze files, data, logs, source code
• Content — write docs, presentations, reports, summaries
• Automations — complex multi-step workflows with file system access

Give it prompts the same way you'd talk to a smart human — natural language, focused on WHAT you need, not HOW to do it.

NOT for:

• Quick questions (just answer directly)
• Tasks needing real-time interaction

Quick Start

Telegram Thread Safety (must-follow)

For Telegram thread runs, run-task.py is designed to either route correctly or fail immediately.

Mandatory step before launch

Resolve the current runtime session key first (source of truth), then launch with it.

• Get current key via sessions_list (or existing runtime context)
• If key is agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID> → use it directly in --session
• Never derive --session from chat_id/sender id heuristics

Rules

• Use only --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" for thread tasks
• Never use agent:main:telegram:user:<id> for thread tasks
• If routing metadata is inconsistent (thread/session UUID/target mismatch), script exits with ❌ Invalid routing
• Default mode is --telegram-routing-mode auto:
  • allows non-thread Telegram for setups without thread sessions
  • blocks ambiguous user-scope session key (agent:main:telegram:user:<id>) unless explicitly forced
  • blocks non-thread launch if a recent thread session exists for same target (likely misroute)
• Force strict thread-only behavior with --telegram-routing-mode thread-only
• Force non-thread behavior with --telegram-routing-mode allow-non-thread or --allow-main-telegram

This is intentional: abort fast > silent misroute.

⚠️ ALWAYS launch via nohup — exec timeout (2 min) will kill the process!

⚠️ NEVER put the task text directly in the shell command — quotes, special characters, and newlines WILL break argument parsing. Always save the prompt to a file first, then use $(cat file).

WhatsApp

# Step 1: Save prompt to a temp file
write /tmp/cc-prompt.txt with your task text

# Step 2: Launch with $(cat ...)
nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "agent:main:whatsapp:group:<JID>" \
  --timeout 900 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

The --session key (e.g. agent:main:whatsapp:group:[e-mail]) is used to auto-detect the WhatsApp target.

Telegram (thread-safe default)

# ALWAYS use the current thread session key from context:
# agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>
nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --timeout 900 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Do NOT use agent:main:telegram:user:<id> for thread tests/runs. That routes to main chat scope and can drift from the source thread.

Telegram Threaded Mode (1:1 DM with threads)

When Marvin is used in Telegram Threaded Mode, each thread has its own session key like agent:main:main:thread:369520.

Fail-safe routing (NEW): run-task.py now enforces strict thread routing.

• If --session contains :thread:<id>, the script refuses to start unless Telegram target + thread session UUID are resolved.
• It auto-resolves missing values from sessions_list when possible.
• If the session is inactive and not returned by API, it falls back to local session files: ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/*-topic-<thread_id>.jsonl.
• If provided --notify-session-id mismatches the session key, it exits with error.
• Result: misrouted launches/heartbeats to main chat are blocked before Claude starts.

Use --notify-session-id to wake the exact thread session:

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:369520" \
  --timeout 900 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

All 5 notification types route to the DM thread when --session key contains :thread:<id> ✅

• --notify-session-id — optional override. Usually auto-resolved from session metadata/files.

• --notify-thread-id — optional override. Usually auto-extracted from --session.

• --reply-to-message-id — optional debug field; avoid for DM thread routing.

• --validate-only — resolve routing and exit (no Claude run). Use this to verify thread launch args safely.

• --notify-channel — optional override (telegram/whatsapp)

• --notify-target — optional override for chat ID / JID

• --timeout — max runtime in seconds (default: 7200 = 2 hours)

• Always redirect stdout/stderr to a log file

Why file-based prompts?

Research/complex prompts contain single quotes, double quotes, markdown, backticks — any of these break shell argument parsing. Saving to a file and reading with $(cat ...) avoids all quoting issues.

Channel Detection

The detect_channel() function determines where to send notifications:

1. CLI override wins — if --notify-channel and --notify-target are both provided, those are used exclusively
2. WhatsApp auto-detect — if the session key contains @g.us (WhatsApp group JID), WhatsApp is used
3. No target — if neither applies, notifications are silently skipped

def detect_channel(session_key):
    if NOTIFY_CHANNEL_OVERRIDE and NOTIFY_TARGET_OVERRIDE:
        return NOTIFY_CHANNEL_OVERRIDE, NOTIFY_TARGET_OVERRIDE
    jid = extract_group_jid(session_key)
    if jid:
        return "whatsapp", jid
    return None, None

How It Works

┌─────────────┐     nohup      ┌──────────────┐
│    Agent     │ ──────────────▶│  run-task.py  │
│  (OpenClaw)  │                │  (detached)   │
└─────────────┘                └──────┬───────┘
                                      │
                                      ▼
                               ┌──────────────┐
                               │  Claude Code  │  ← runs on Max subscription ($0 API)
                               │  (-p mode)    │
                               └──────┬───────┘
                                      │
                          ┌───────────┼───────────┐
                          ▼           ▼           ▼
                    Every 60s    On complete   On error/timeout
                    ┌────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────────┐
                    │ ⏳ ping │  │ ✅ result │  │ ❌/⏰/💥 error│
                    │ silent │  │ channel  │  │   channel    │
                    └────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────────┘

WhatsApp notification flow:

1. Heartbeat pings (every 60s) → WhatsApp direct (informational, no agent wake)
2. Final result → WhatsApp direct (human sees immediately) + sessions_send (agent wakes up)
3. Agent receives [CLAUDE_CODE_RESULT] via sessions_send → processes it → sends summary via message(send) to WhatsApp group
4. Human sees both: raw result + agent's analysis/next steps

Telegram notification flow (DM Threaded Mode — full pipeline):

1. 🚀 Launch notification → thread ✅ (silent; HTML; <blockquote expandable> for prompt; via send_telegram_direct)
2. ⏳ Heartbeat (every 60s) → thread ✅ (silent; plain text; via send_telegram_direct)
3. 📡 Claude Code mid-task updates → thread ✅ (on-disk Python script /tmp/cc-notify-{pid}.py; CC calls file; prefix "📡 🟢 CC: " auto-added)
4. ✅/❌/⏰/💥 Result notification → thread ✅ (HTML; <blockquote expandable> for result; via send_telegram_direct)
5. 🤖 Agent summary → main chat ⚠️ (known limitation: openclaw agent --session-id synthetic messages have no currentThreadTs; acceptable)

send_telegram_direct() is the core mechanism for all thread-targeted notifications from external scripts. It calls api.telegram.org directly with message_thread_id — bypasses the OpenClaw message tool entirely (which cannot route to DM threads from outside a session context).

Fallback — if agent wake fails (session locked/busy): already_sent=True is set after the direct send, so no duplicate is sent.

Key detail: Telegram vs WhatsApp delivery

WhatsApp: Raw result sent directly (human sees it immediately) + sessions_send wakes agent for analysis.

Telegram: Result sent via send_telegram_direct → then agent woken via openclaw agent --session-id (no --deliver). The agent sends its response via message(action=send) and replies NO_REPLY. This avoids double messages — --deliver would deliver the agent's turn output on top of any message(action=send) calls inside the turn.

Why not sessions_send for Telegram? sessions_send is blocked in the HTTP /tools/invoke deny list by architectural design. The openclaw agent CLI bypasses this limitation.

Reliability Features

Timeout (default 2 hours)

• --timeout 7200 → after 7200s: SIGTERM → wait 10s → SIGKILL
• Timeout notification sent to channel with tool call count and last activity
• Partial output saved to file

Crash safety

• try/except wraps entire main → crash notification always sent
• Both channel notification and agent wake attempted on any failure

PID tracking

• PID file written to skills/claude-code-task/pids/
• Stale PIDs cleaned on startup
• Can check running tasks: ls skills/claude-code-task/pids/

Silent mode (Telegram only)

Telegram supports silent notifications (no sound). This is used for background/informational messages:

• Heartbeat pings → silent=True
• Launch notifications → silent=True
• Final results → silent=False (default, user attention needed)

WhatsApp does NOT support silent mode — the flag is ignored for WhatsApp.

Telegram DM Threads vs Forum Groups

Telegram has two distinct thread models. The key difference for run-task.py is how to route messages to the thread.

The core problem with external scripts:

• The OpenClaw message tool's threadId parameter is Discord-specific — ignored for Telegram
• Target format "chatId:topic:threadId" is rejected by the message tool's target resolver
• Session auto-routing (currentThreadTs) works ONLY inside active sessions — external scripts have no session context
• Solution: send_telegram_direct() bypasses the message tool entirely; calls api.telegram.org directly with message_thread_id

DM Threaded Mode (bot-user private chat with threads):

• All notifications use send_telegram_direct(chat_id, text, thread_id=..., parse_mode=...) ✅
• thread_id auto-extracted from session key *:thread:<id> by extract_thread_id()
• Launch + finish: parse_mode="HTML" with <blockquote expandable> for prompt/result
• Heartbeats + mid-task: parse_mode=None (plain text, avoid Markdown parse errors)
• parse_mode="Markdown" trap: finish messages contain **text** (CommonMark bold); Telegram MarkdownV1 rejects this with HTTP 400 — messages silently don't arrive
• replyTo trap: combining replyTo + message_thread_id → Telegram rejects request → fallback strips thread_id → message lands in main chat
• Agent summary: openclaw agent --session-id <uuid> wakes thread session; response goes to main chat (no currentThreadTs in synthetic messages — known, acceptable limitation)

Forum Groups (supergroup with Forum topics enabled):

• Same send_telegram_direct() approach works; message_thread_id is standard Bot API for Forum topics
• Auto-detected from session key pattern *:thread:<id>

Claude Code mid-task updates:

• DO NOT embed bot tokens or curl commands in the task prompt — Claude Code flags this as prompt injection
• run-task.py writes /tmp/cc-notify-{pid}.py to disk before launching Claude Code
• Task prompt prepended with [Automation context: ... python3 /tmp/cc-notify-{pid}.py 'msg' ...]
• Claude Code calls the file (legitimate local script pattern, no safety warning)
• Script automatically prepends "📡 🟢 CC: " to all messages; cleaned up in finally block

Notification types

Event	Emoji	WhatsApp delivery	Telegram delivery	DM thread?
Launch	🚀	send_channel (Markdown)	send_telegram_direct (HTML, silent)	✅ message_thread_id
Heartbeat	⏳	send_channel (Markdown)	send_telegram_direct (plain, silent)	✅ message_thread_id
CC mid-task update	📡	—	/tmp/cc-notify-{pid}.py (Bot API, silent)	✅ message_thread_id
Success	✅	send_channel + sessions_send	send_telegram_direct (HTML) + openclaw agent	✅ message_thread_id
Error	❌	send_channel + sessions_send	send_telegram_direct (HTML) + openclaw agent	✅ message_thread_id
Timeout	⏰	send_channel + sessions_send	send_telegram_direct (HTML) + openclaw agent	✅ message_thread_id
Crash	💥	send_channel + sessions_send	send_telegram_direct (HTML) + openclaw agent	✅ message_thread_id
Agent summary	🤖	—	openclaw agent wake	⚠️ main chat (no thread ctx)

Claude Code Flags

• -p "task" — print mode (non-interactive, outputs result)
• --dangerously-skip-permissions — no confirmation prompts
• --verbose --output-format stream-json — real-time activity tracking for heartbeats

Why NOT exec/pty?

• exec has 2 min default timeout → kills long tasks
• Even with pty:true, output has escape codes, hard to parse
• nohup + -p mode: clean, detached, reliable

Git requirement

Claude Code needs a git repo. run-task.py auto-inits if missing.

Python 3.9 Compatibility

run-task.py uses Optional[X] from typing (not X | None) for compatibility with Python 3.9. The union syntax (X | None) requires Python 3.10+.

# Correct (3.9+)
from typing import Optional
def foo(x: Optional[str]) -> Optional[str]: ...

# Would break on 3.9
def foo(x: str | None) -> str | None: ...

Full E2E Test (reference)

Use this when you need to validate the entire pipeline in one run:

• launch notification in source thread
• heartbeat after >60s
• Claude mid-task progress update (📡 🟢 CC)
• final result in source thread
• agent wake attempt with summary step

Pass criteria

1. Launch message appears in the same thread (with expandable prompt quote)
2. At least one wrapper heartbeat appears after ~60s
3. At least one mid-task CC update appears (via /tmp/cc-notify-<pid>.py)
4. Final result appears in the same thread (expandable result quote)
5. Agent wake is attempted (openclaw agent --session-id ...) and does not duplicate final result

Canonical full test prompt pattern

• keep prompt compact (about 10 lines) for routine testing
• ensure prompt length is >4500 chars to verify quote truncation/collapse behavior in Telegram
• force runtime >60s (sleep 70) to trigger wrapper heartbeat
• explicitly instruct Claude to call the notify script at least twice
• include a short structured report so output is easy to verify

Canonical launch (minimal mode)

cat > /tmp/cc-full-test-prompt.txt << 'EOF'
# ~10 lines, but total >4500 chars:
# 1) notify script now
# 2) create test file with repeated text (to exceed 4500 chars)
# 3) sleep 70 + notify script again
# 4) run several shell commands
# 5) return short structured report
EOF

python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-full-test-prompt.txt)" \
  --project /tmp/cc-e2e-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --validate-only

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-full-test-prompt.txt)" \
  --project /tmp/cc-e2e-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --timeout 900 \
  > /tmp/cc-full-test.log 2>&1 &

Verification artifacts

• wrapper log: /tmp/cc-full-test.log
• Claude output: /tmp/cc-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.txt
• session registry entry in ~/.openclaw/claude_sessions.json

Examples

WhatsApp: Create a tool

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  -t "Create a Python CLI tool that converts markdown to HTML with syntax highlighting. Save as convert.py" \
  -p ~/projects/md-converter \
  -s "agent:main:whatsapp:group:[e-mail]" \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Telegram: Research codebase (thread-safe)

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --timeout 1800 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Telegram Threaded Mode: Research codebase

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:369520" \
  --timeout 1800 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &
# thread_id auto-extracted from session key
# target + session UUID auto-resolved from API/local session files

Telegram Threaded Mode: Mid-task updates from Claude Code

run-task.py automatically creates an on-disk notification script before launching Claude Code, so CC can send progress updates without seeing the bot token in the prompt (which triggers safety refusals):

# Just write a normal task prompt — run-task.py handles the rest
cat > /tmp/cc-prompt.txt << 'EOF'
STEP 1: Write analysis to /tmp/report.txt (600+ words)...

After step 1, send a progress notification using the script from the
automation context above: python3 /tmp/cc-notify-<PID>.py "Step 1 done."

STEP 2: Write summary to /tmp/summary.txt...
EOF

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --timeout 1800 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &
# run-task.py writes /tmp/cc-notify-{pid}.py before launch
# Prepends "[Automation context: use python3 /tmp/cc-notify-{pid}.py 'msg']" to task
# Claude Code calls the file; prefix "📡 🟢 CC: " auto-added; file cleaned up on exit

⚠️ Never embed bot tokens or curl commands in the task prompt — Claude Code correctly identifies hardcoded tokens + external API calls as prompt injection and refuses. Use the on-disk script pattern above instead.

Quick reference: launching from a Telegram DM thread (minimal mode)

# 1) Validate routing first (no Claude run)
python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "probe" \
  --project ~/projects/x \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --validate-only

# 2) Real launch (only 3 required params)
nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/x \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --timeout 900 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

• Required: --task, --project, --session

• Safety: Telegram launches without :thread:<id> are blocked by default (❌ Unsafe routing blocked)
• For non-thread Telegram deployments, use --telegram-routing-mode allow-non-thread.

• THREAD_ID is auto-extracted from session key
• Target + session UUID are auto-resolved (API, then local session-file fallback)
• If routing is inconsistent/unresolved, script exits with ❌ Invalid routing before run
• All notifications from run-task (launch/heartbeat/result) stay on the source thread ✅

Long task with extended timeout

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  -t "Refactor the entire auth module to use JWT tokens" \
  -p ~/projects/backend \
  -s "agent:main:whatsapp:group:[e-mail]" \
  --timeout 3600 \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Cost

• Claude Code runs on Max subscription ($200/mo) — NOT API tokens
• Zero OpenClaw API cost while Claude Code works
• Only cost: message delivery + brief agent turn for summary

Session Resumption

Claude Code sessions can be resumed to continue previous conversations. This is useful for:

• Follow-up tasks building on previous research
• Continuing after timeouts or interruptions
• Multi-step workflows where context matters

How to Resume

When a task completes, the session ID is automatically captured and saved to the registry (~/.openclaw/claude_sessions.json).

To resume a session, use the --resume flag:

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "SESSION_KEY" \
  --resume <session-id> \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Session Labels

Use --session-label to give sessions human-readable names for easier tracking:

nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/cc-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/my-project \
  --session "SESSION_KEY" \
  --session-label "Research on Jackson Berler" \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Listing Recent Sessions

The agent can read the session registry to find recent sessions:

# Python code (for agent automation)
from session_registry import list_recent_sessions, find_session_by_label

# List sessions from last 72 hours
recent = list_recent_sessions(hours=72)
for session in recent:
    print(f"{session['session_id']}: {session['label']} ({session['status']})")

# Find session by label (fuzzy match)
session = find_session_by_label("Jackson")
if session:
    print(f"Found: {session['session_id']}")

Or manually inspect the registry:

cat ~/.openclaw/claude_sessions.json

When to Resume vs Start Fresh

Resume when:

• You need context from previous conversation
• Building on previous research/analysis
• Continuing interrupted work
• Following up with clarifications or next steps

Start fresh when:

• Completely unrelated task
• Previous session was exploratory/experimental
• You want a clean slate
• Previous session context might cause confusion

Resume Failure Handling

If a session ID is invalid or expired:

• Error message sent to channel with suggestion to start fresh
• Process exits cleanly (no partial work)
• Check stderr in /tmp/cc-run.log for details

Common resume failures:

• Session expired (Claude Code has retention limits)
• Invalid session ID (typo, wrong format)
• Session from different project/context

Example Workflow

Step 1: Initial research

# Save prompt
write /tmp/research-prompt.txt with "Research the codebase architecture for project X"

# Launch task (Telegram thread-safe example)
nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/research-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/project-x \
  --session "agent:main:main:thread:<THREAD_ID>" \
  --session-label "Project X architecture research" \
  > /tmp/cc-run.log 2>&1 &

Step 2: Check result and find session ID

# Session ID printed in stderr: "📝 Session registered: <id>"
tail /tmp/cc-run.log

# Or read from registry
cat ~/.openclaw/claude_sessions.json | grep "Project X"

Step 3: Follow-up implementation

# Save follow-up prompt
write /tmp/implement-prompt.txt with "Based on your research, implement the authentication module"

# Resume session
nohup python3 {baseDir}/run-task.py \
  --task "$(cat /tmp/implement-prompt.txt)" \
  --project ~/projects/project-x \
  --session "SESSION_KEY" \
  --resume <session-id-from-step-1> \
  --session-label "Project X auth implementation" \
  > /tmp/cc-run2.log 2>&1 &

Files

skills/claude-code-task/
├── SKILL.md              # This file
├── run-task.py           # Async runner with notifications
├── session_registry.py   # Session metadata storage
└── pids/                 # PID files for running tasks (auto-managed)