Transcript Hygiene (Provider Fixups)

This document describes provider-specific fixes applied to transcripts before a run (building model context). These are in-memory adjustments used to satisfy strict provider requirements. These hygiene steps do not rewrite the stored JSONL transcript on disk; however, a separate session-file repair pass may rewrite malformed JSONL files by dropping invalid lines before the session is loaded. When a repair occurs, the original file is backed up alongside the session file.

Scope includes:

  • Tool call id sanitization
  • Tool call input validation
  • Tool result pairing repair
  • Turn validation / ordering
  • Thought signature cleanup
  • Image payload sanitization

If you need transcript storage details, see:

Where this runs

All transcript hygiene is centralized in the embedded runner:

  • Policy selection: src/agents/transcript-policy.ts
  • Sanitization/repair application: sanitizeSessionHistory in src/agents/pi-embedded-runner/google.ts

The policy uses provider, modelApi, and modelId to decide what to apply.

Separate from transcript hygiene, session files are repaired (if needed) before load:

  • repairSessionFileIfNeeded in src/agents/session-file-repair.ts
  • Called from run/attempt.ts and compact.ts (embedded runner)

Global rule: image sanitization

Image payloads are always sanitized to prevent provider-side rejection due to size limits (downscale/recompress oversized base64 images).

Implementation:

  • sanitizeSessionMessagesImages in src/agents/pi-embedded-helpers/images.ts
  • sanitizeContentBlocksImages in src/agents/tool-images.ts

Global rule: malformed tool calls

Assistant tool-call blocks that are missing both input and arguments are dropped before model context is built. This prevents provider rejections from partially persisted tool calls (for example, after a rate limit failure).

Implementation:

  • sanitizeToolCallInputs in src/agents/session-transcript-repair.ts
  • Applied in sanitizeSessionHistory in src/agents/pi-embedded-runner/google.ts

Provider matrix (current behavior)

OpenAI / OpenAI Codex

  • Image sanitization only
  • On model switch into OpenAI Responses/Codex, drop orphaned reasoning signatures (standalone reasoning items without a following content block)
  • No tool call id sanitization
  • No tool result pairing repair
  • No turn validation or reordering
  • No synthetic tool results
  • No thought signature stripping

Google (Generative AI / Gemini CLI / Antigravity)

  • Tool call id sanitization: strict alphanumeric
  • Tool result pairing repair and synthetic tool results
  • Turn validation (Gemini-style turn alternation)
  • Google turn ordering fixup (prepend a tiny user bootstrap if history starts with assistant)
  • Antigravity Claude: normalize thinking signatures; drop unsigned thinking blocks

Anthropic / Minimax (Anthropic-compatible)

  • Tool result pairing repair and synthetic tool results
  • Turn validation (merge consecutive user turns to satisfy strict alternation)

Mistral (including model-id based detection)

  • Tool call id sanitization: strict9 (alphanumeric length 9)

OpenRouter Gemini

  • Thought signature cleanup: strip non-base64 thought_signature values (keep base64)

Everything else

  • Image sanitization only

Historical behavior (pre-2026.1.22)

Before the 2026.1.22 release, OpenClaw applied multiple layers of transcript hygiene:

  • A transcript-sanitize extension ran on every context build and could:

    • Repair tool use/result pairing
    • Sanitize tool call ids (including a non-strict mode that preserved _/-)

  • The runner also performed provider-specific sanitization, which duplicated work

  • Additional mutations occurred outside the provider policy, including:

    • Stripping tags from assistant text before persistence
    • Dropping empty assistant error turns
    • Trimming assistant content after tool calls

This complexity caused cross-provider regressions (notably openai-responses call_id|fc_id pairing). The 2026.1.22 cleanup removed the extension, centralized logic in the runner, and made OpenAI no-touch beyond image sanitization.

← Back to docs