Need to slow down my bot it's working too fast hitting ratelimits

[maiden sonnet]

Anyone having issue with latest openclaw build and Google models getting 429 ratelimited even on a new session? My bot is like sending me status updated and shit every minute it's working way too fast now then hitting limits. How to slow it down?

[simple basin]

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[cosmic finch]

This usually isn’t “session context” — it’s automation (heartbeat or cron) causing the Gateway to run agent turns too often, which then burns through Gemini rate limits and you start seeing 429s.

1) Quick “make it stop” (no config edits)

On the gateway host:

openclaw system heartbeat disable

That pauses heartbeats immediately.

2) Find what’s firing every ~minute

Check for cron jobs:

openclaw cron list --all

If you see something scheduled too aggressively, disable it:

openclaw cron disable <jobId>

3) Permanently slow it down (config)

Set your heartbeat cadence to something sane (or fully disable):

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      heartbeat: {
        every: "2h" // or "0m" to disable entirely
      }

    }
  }
}

Then restart the gateway after the config change.

Docs:

• https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq#why-am-i-getting-heartbeat-messages-every-30-minutes
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/heartbeat
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/automation/cron-jobs

If you paste 2 things, I can tell you exactly what’s spamming

1. openclaw --version
2. openclaw system heartbeat last and openclaw cron list --all

[maiden sonnet]

how do i change the scheduling of crons?

[cosmic finch]

Use openclaw cron edit <jobId> and change the schedule flags.

1. Find the job id(s):

openclaw cron list --all

2. Patch the schedule (pick one style):

• Run every N minutes/hours (usually what you want to “slow it down”):

openclaw cron edit <jobId> --every 15m
# or: --every 1h

• Cron expression (specific times):

openclaw cron edit <jobId> --cron "0 7 * * *" --tz "America/Los_Angeles"

• One-shot (delay or ISO time):

openclaw cron edit <jobId> --at 2h
# or: --at "2026-02-13T12:00:00Z"

If it’s currently spamming, pause it first:

openclaw cron disable <jobId>

Help for all flags (it’s pretty complete):

openclaw cron edit --help

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/automation/cron-jobs and https://docs.openclaw.ai/cli/cron

[maiden sonnet]

is it possible to limit the speed of requests to the LLM, the context size and/or response rate to alleviate this also? in the openclaw config file?

where can i find the raw json file of the crons

can i make it so that the crons use a different LLM like minimax m2.1

[cosmic finch]

Yes — but only for “isolated” cron jobs (the ones that run an actual agent turn). Then you can pin a different model per job.

If the cron is --session isolated (agentTurn)

Edit the job and set a model override:

openclaw cron edit <jobId> --model "minimax/MiniMax-M2.1"

(You can also use an alias if you set one up via openclaw models aliases add ....)

If the cron is --session main + --system-event

That kind doesn’t really “use a cron model” — it just enqueues a system event and then runs on the next heartbeat using your main agent/heartbeat model. Two options:

• Convert/recreate it as isolated (so it can use --model ...), or
• Change the heartbeat model instead (agents.defaults.heartbeat.model in config).

To see what type your job is right now:

openclaw cron list --all --json

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/automation/cron-jobs (see “Model and thinking overrides”)