Detection Patterns

Anthropic uses token/phrase matching to detect OpenClaw system prompts. These triggers are found by binary searching the prompt against Claude’s API.

Confirmed triggers

Trigger	Type	Fix
personal assistant...inside OpenClaw	Identity	Replace with GlueClaw
HEARTBEAT_OK (heartbeat para)	Token	Replace GLUECLAW_ACK
## Reply Tags + [[reply_to_current]]	Syntax	Strip section
reply_to_current	Reference	Replace reply_current
[[reply_to:	Syntax	Replace [[reply:
openclaw.inbound_meta	Schema	glueclaw.inbound_meta
generated by OpenClaw	Context	generated by GlueClaw

Confirmed safe

Content	Example
openclaw in file paths	.../openclaw/skills/
openclaw in CLI commands	openclaw gateway status
openclaw in URLs	github.com/openclaw
OpenClaw in doc refs	OpenClaw docs:
NO_REPLY token	Silent reply marker
Runtime line format	agent=main \| host=zmac
Skill descriptions	OpenClaw deployments

Quick health check

export GLUECLAW_KEY=local
openclaw agent --agent main \
  --message "say pineapple" 2>&1 | tail -n 1

pineapple = working. API Error: 400 = new trigger added.

Cron monitoring

0 9 * * * GLUECLAW_KEY=local openclaw agent \
  --agent main --message "say pineapple" 2>&1 \
  | grep -q "pineapple" \
  || echo "GlueClaw blocked" \
  | mail -s "GlueClaw alert" you@example.com

If blocked again

1. Dump the live prompt: add require("fs").writeFileSync("/tmp/gc-prompt.txt", cleanPrompt) to src/stream.ts after the scrub chain
2. Trigger the failing path (TUI, agent, and Telegram get different prompts)
3. Binary search: test first half vs second half with claude --system-prompt-file
4. Narrow to exact lines
5. Add new .replace() to the scrub chain
6. Update this file

Timeline

2026-04-05 23:00 EDT

• "personal assistant running inside OpenClaw" triggers block
• File paths, CLI commands, URLs with “openclaw” are safe

2026-04-06 01:00 EDT

• Full aggressive /openclaw/gi scrub works
• TUI + Telegram working

2026-04-06 01:30 EDT

• Case-sensitive scrub fails, case-insensitive passes

2026-04-06 02:30 EDT

• Surgical scrub (identity phrase only) works initially

2026-04-06 13:30 EDT

• HEARTBEAT_OK in heartbeat paragraph found as new trigger
• GLUECLAW_ACK replacement fixes agent path
• TUI still fails

2026-04-06 ~14:00 EDT

• TUI prompt has Reply Tags section as additional trigger
• Stripping section + replacing related tokens fixes TUI
• openclaw.inbound_meta and generated by OpenClaw also scrubbed