Tools
BTW side questions
/btw (alias /side) asks a quick side question about the current
session without adding it to conversation history. It is modeled after
Claude Code's /btw, adapted to OpenClaw's Gateway and multi-channel
architecture.
The two side-question contracts are deliberately separate. BTW is a one-shot question on the session's actual model, preserving harness behavior and Codex thread-fork continuity for channel ingress (WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord), the TUI, and embedded tui --local; the TUI stays on BTW by design. Side chat uses a persistent, read-only RPC thread for Control UI-class clients. Its first question lazily prepares bounded visible context from the selected session; a temporary history failure remains retryable and does not run as an empty session. Channels cannot use Side chat because they do not have an RPC connection.
/btw what changed?/side what does this error mean?What it does
- Snapshots the current session as background context (including any in-flight main-run prompt).
- Runs a separate, one-shot side query telling the model to answer only the side question and not resume or steer the main task.
- Delivers the answer as a live side result, not a normal assistant message.
- Never writes the question or answer to session history or
chat.history.
The main run, if one is active, is left untouched.
When their runtime supplies usage, completed direct-provider and harness side
questions report it through the configured diagnostics pipeline.
This does not add the exchange to session history or session-derived /usage cost totals.
For Codex harness sessions, BTW forks the active Codex app-server thread into
an ephemeral child thread instead of running a separate provider call. This
keeps Codex OAuth and native tool/thread behavior intact, and the forked
thread keeps the parent thread's current approval policy, sandbox, and native
tool surface. The forked thread gets a boundary prompt telling the model that
everything before it is inherited reference context, not active instructions,
and that only messages after the boundary are live. /btw requires an
existing Codex thread; send a normal message first.
For CLI runtime aliases, BTW invokes the owning CLI backend in one-shot side-question mode: it seeds sanitized conversation context into a fresh CLI invocation with tool bundling and reusable session state disabled, and adds any no-resume/no-tools flags the backend supports. Direct (non-CLI) runtimes use a direct one-shot provider call instead.
What it does not do
/btw does not create a durable session, continue the unfinished main task,
or persist question/answer data to transcript history. Detached BTW results do
not survive a reload. Control UI Side chat can rehydrate its in-memory
thread after a reload, but the thread is cleared by a session reset, Gateway
restart, idle expiry, or the rail's clear button.
Delivery model
Normal assistant chat uses the Gateway chat event. Detached BTW uses a
separate chat.side_result event so clients cannot mistake it for regular
conversation history. The Control UI does not consume that event; it calls the
sessions.companion.* RPCs and renders their bounded exchange state in the rail.
Surface behavior
| Surface | Behavior |
|---|---|
| TUI | Rendered inline in the chat log, visibly distinct from a normal reply, dismissible with Enter or Esc. |
| External channels | Delivered as a clearly labeled one-off reply (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord have no local ephemeral overlay). |
| Control UI / web | Routes /btw and /side to the expanded Side chat. The read-only thread is keyed by session, rehydrates from Gateway memory, and preserves a failed question for Retry. It can be cleared with the trash button. Esc collapses the rail. |
Selection popup (Control UI)
Highlighting text inside a chat message in the Control UI opens a small selection popup with one action:
- Ask in side chat opens the rail and pre-fills its composer with a quoted draft so you can type your own question about the selection.
The action follows normal /btw semantics: the question and answer stay out
of session history and the main run is left untouched.
When to use it
Use /btw for a quick clarification, a factual side answer while a long run
is still in progress, or a temporary answer that should not enter future
session context.
/btw what file are we editing?/btw summarize the current task in one sentence/btw what is 17 * 19?For anything you want to become part of the session's future working context, ask normally in the main session instead.
