OpenClaw 2026.5.7 Discord latency after Active Memory split with Hindsight + Lossless Claw

[celest flicker]

Hi Krill/helpers. I’m trying to get my Discord agent Charles responsive again after upgrading to OpenClaw 2026.5.7. Codex has been
debugging it locally with me, and we may have improved it, but I want a sanity check on whether we are configuring memory correctly or
over-correcting.

What I’m trying to do:

• Run Charles as a Discord channel agent.
• Keep durable memory/context via Hindsight + Lossless Claw.
• Avoid 8-13s delays on trivial messages like “you there?” / “you back?”
• Understand whether Active Memory is useful or redundant in this setup.

Setup:

• OpenClaw: 2026.5.7
• Hosting: local macOS LaunchAgent gateway
• Gateway command: node .../openclaw/dist/index.js gateway --port 18789
• Agent: cerebro / Charles
• Channel: Discord
• Main model: openai-codex/gpt-5.5
• Memory slot: hindsight-openclaw
• Context engine slot: lossless-claw
• Active Memory was configured for Charles using cerebras/gpt-oss-120b
• Cerebras provider/plugin is enabled now
• Hindsight is still enabled with autoRetain: true
• Currently disabled for latency testing:
  • Active Memory config enabled: false
  • Hindsight autoRecall: false

What was happening instead:

• Simple Discord messages took 8-13 seconds before Charles responded.
• Some replies printed quickly once they started, so most delay seemed pre-reply.
• At one point the capability runner returned:

No text output returned for provider "cerebras"

Codex’s debugging/fixes so far:

1. Verified active config/agent

• Active agent is cerebro.
• Main config is ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json.
• Gateway is using that config.

2. Fixed Cerebras plugin/auth shape

Codex found the Cerebras plugin/provider was not fully connected after the update. It enabled/allowlisted the cerebras plugin and corrected
the Charles auth profile shape while preserving/redacting the secret.

After that, the Cerebras issue changed from likely auth-disconnected to the runner returning:

No text output returned for provider "cerebras"

3. Found Active Memory tool allowlist errors

Logs showed:

No callable tools remain after resolving explicit tool allowlist
runtime toolsAllow: memory_recall, memory_search, memory_get

This seemed related to upstream issue #77506 / PR #77515.

Since my memory slot is Hindsight, not bundled memory-core, Codex disabled Active Memory for Charles:

"active-memory": {
"enabled": true,
"config": {
"enabled": false,
"agents": ["cerebro"],
"allowedChatTypes": ["direct"],
"model": "cerebras/gpt-oss-120b",
"queryMode": "recent",
"thinking": "off",
"timeoutMs": 15000,
"maxSummaryChars": 220,
"persistTranscripts": false,
"logging": true
}
}

4. Measured latency from trajectory/logs

For one slow message, Codex measured roughly:

• ~4s Discord inbound debounce
• ~3.4s Hindsight auto-recall
• ~2.4s GPT-5.5 model generation
• some routing/session overhead

After later tuning, another simple message still measured around:

• ~2.9s Hindsight recall
• ~2.6s GPT-5.5 generation

[tropic steppe]

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[celest flicker]

5. Reduced Discord debounce

Changed Discord inbound debounce from 4000ms to 1000ms:

"messages": {
"inbound": {
"debounceMs": 2000,
"byChannel": {
"discord": 1000
}
}
}

6. Added Hindsight hook permission

Gateway logged:

typed hook "agent_end" blocked because non-bundled plugins must set plugins.entries.hindsight-openclaw.hooks.allowConversationAccess=true

Codex added:

"hindsight-openclaw": {
"enabled": true,
"hooks": {
"allowConversationAccess": true
}
}

That warning stopped after restart.

7. Tuned then disabled Hindsight auto-recall

First tried:

"hindsight-openclaw": {
"config": {
"autoRecall": true,
"autoRetain": true,
"recallBudget": "low",
"recallMaxTokens": 512,
"recallTopK": 4,
"recallTimeoutMs": 3500,
"debug": false
}
}

But Hindsight pre-reply recall was still costing ~2-3s on trivial messages, so Codex changed it to:

"autoRecall": false,
"autoRetain": true

8. Tuned streaming/coalescing

OpenClaw docs say coalescing waits for idle gaps before flushing. Charles had:

"blockStreamingCoalesce": {
"idleMs": 4000,
"minChars": 800
}

Codex changed it to:

"blockStreamingCoalesce": {
"idleMs": 600,
"minChars": 120
}

Current status:

• openclaw config validate passes.
• Gateway restarts cleanly.
• Charles Discord provider resolves.
• Hindsight starts as:

autoRecall: false, autoRetain: true

Remaining concerning logs from Lossless Claw:

afterTurn: transcript reconcile slow path read empty messages from non-empty file
dedup: oversized, storedCount=357 batchLen=1/2, no overlap found
afterTurn: nothing to ingest
reconcileSessionTail: no anchor
reason=path-mismatch

These did not appear to add much measured latency, but they look suspicious for context/session continuity.

Questions:

1. With Hindsight + Lossless Claw, is Active Memory redundant for a Discord channel agent?
2. Is disabling Hindsight autoRecall but keeping autoRetain a reasonable fast-Discord setup?
3. Is there a cleaner way to make Hindsight recall conditional, so trivial pings don’t pay a 2-3s recall cost?
4. Is hooks.allowConversationAccess=true the right fix for Hindsight on OpenClaw 2026.5.7?
5. Are the Lossless Claw warnings above expected after /new, or do they indicate broken context ingestion?
6. Is the Cerebras No text output returned result likely an OpenClaw provider adapter issue, a Cerebras model access issue, or still a
   config/auth issue?

I’m happy to paste more redacted config/logs if helpful.

[vapid thorn]

Ryan, sanity check: I think Codex’s direction is mostly right — this smells less like “Charles needs more memory systems” and more like “too many blocking recall paths on the hot path.”

My take:

• Keep Hindsight autoRetain: true if you want durable capture. That should not be the thing you optimize first.
• Keeping Hindsight autoRecall: false for latency testing is reasonable. Your own trace shows it was costing ~3s before the main model even starts.
• Keeping Active Memory globally/plugin-installed but config.enabled: false is also reasonable. That shape means the command surface can still exist, but the blocking pre-reply subagent is off.
• With Lossless Claw as context engine, you already have a context assembly/compaction layer. Active Memory is not “free extra memory”; per docs it is a blocking memory sub-agent before the main reply. So enabling both Hindsight auto-recall and Active Memory is very likely redundant for trivial Discord messages.

The important config gotcha: Active Memory’s default recall tools are memory_search + memory_get for built-in memory-core, or memory_recall only when plugins.slots.memory is memory-lancedb. If your active memory slot is hindsight-openclaw, don’t assume those names exist. For non-default memory/context plugins you need plugins.entries.active-memory.config.toolsAllow set to the exact tool names that plugin actually registers. Lossless Claw example from the docs uses:

toolsAllow: ["lcm_grep", "lcm_describe", "lcm_expand_query"]

So the No callable tools remain... memory_recall, memory_search, memory_get log is consistent with Active Memory being pointed at tools that were not actually available in that runtime. PR #77515’s title says it changes this to “skip sub-agent gracefully when no memory tools registered,” but on 2026.5.7 you may still be seeing the sharper failure/latency behavior depending what’s included in that release.

For the latency target, I’d run this way first:

plugins: {
  slots: {
    memory: "hindsight-openclaw",
    contextEngine: "lossless-claw",
  },
  entries: {
    "hindsight-openclaw": {
      enabled: true,
      config: {
        autoRetain: true,
        autoRecall: false,
      },
    },

    "active-memory": {
      enabled: true,
      config: {
        enabled: false,
        agents: ["cerebro"],
      },
    },
  },
}

Then measure the floor. If you still see ~4s before anything starts, look at inbound debounce next: messages.inbound.byChannel.discord / messages.inbound.debounceMs. The messages docs show Discord can be configured around inbound batching, and for “you there?” style responsiveness you probably want that much lower than 4s unless Charles needs burst coalescing.

About Cerebras: No text output returned for provider "cerebras" usually means auth/provider routing got far enough to call the model, but the response shape/content was unusable for OpenClaw’s capability runner. I’d treat that as a separate provider smoke-test issue, not proof that memory config is wrong. Also confirm the Cerebras key has actual chat/completions access for that model — docs explicitly note /v1/models visibility alone is not enough.

Docs I checked:

• Active Memory: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/active-memory
• Context Engine / Lossless Claw slot: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/context-engine
• Message inbound debounce: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/messages
• FAQ / diagnostics: https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq

Short version: you’re not over-correcting by disabling Active Memory for this setup. For a Discord channel agent with Hindsight + Lossless Claw, I’d keep only one automatic pre-reply recall path enabled, and for responsiveness I’d prefer retain async/durably, recall explicitly or via context engine, not via multiple blocking pre-reply passes. 🦞

Yep, that extra detail makes the picture clearer. My answers, with confidence levels:

1. Active Memory is probably redundant in this exact setup.

Not universally redundant, but for Discord channel agent + Hindsight retain + Lossless Claw context engine, I would not run Active Memory by default. It is explicitly a blocking pre-reply memory sub-agent, so it adds another model/tool pass before Charles answers. That’s the opposite of what you want for “you there?” messages.

If you ever re-enable it, I’d make it very narrow:

"active-memory": {
  enabled: true,
  config: {
    enabled: true,
    agents: ["cerebro"],
    allowedChatTypes: ["direct"], // probably not channel
    queryMode: "message",

    promptStyle: "precision-heavy",
    timeoutMs: 3000,
    maxSummaryChars: 120,
    toolsAllow: ["lcm_grep", "lcm_describe", "lcm_expand_query"]
  }
}

But my recommendation for Charles-as-channel-agent is: leave it off while tuning latency.

2. Yes: autoRecall: false, autoRetain: true is a sane fast Discord setup.

That keeps durable capture without forcing every reply to pay the recall tax. It’s exactly the tradeoff I’d make for a chatty Discord bot: preserve memory after turns, but don’t block casual replies on retrieval.

3. Cleaner conditional Hindsight recall depends on Hindsight’s own plugin features.

From OpenClaw core’s side, the clean generic options are basically:

• disable auto-recall and let the agent/tooling recall explicitly when needed
• keep auto-recall on but hard-cap it with low budget/topK/timeout
• route only certain chats/agents through recall, if the plugin supports that
• use Active Memory gates like allowedChatTypes, allowedChatIds, deniedChatIds — but that’s Active Memory, not Hindsight

For “skip recall on trivial pings,” the ideal feature would be plugin-side intent gating, e.g. don’t recall for short liveness/social pings. If Hindsight does not expose that, I’d rather keep autoRecall: false than build a fragile workaround.

4. Yes, hooks.allowConversationAccess=true is the right fix for that warning.

I checked current docs/source: non-bundled plugins using conversation-content typed hooks like agent_end must opt in with:

plugins.entries.<id>.hooks.allowConversationAccess: true

So for Hindsight using agent_end, this is expected on 2026.5.7. It is a privacy/safety gate, not a random config hack.

5. The Lossless Claw warnings are suspicious, not necessarily latency-critical.

afterTurn: nothing to ingest can be benign after /new or when there genuinely are no new useful messages. But this cluster together is what makes me squint:

read empty messages from non-empty file
no anchor
reason=path-mismatch
storedCount=357 ... no overlap found

That sounds like Lossless Claw is trying to reconcile a transcript tail and deciding the session/transcript path it sees does not match what it expected. After /new, one or two “no anchor” style messages could be normal. If it repeats on ordinary turns in the same Discord thread, I’d treat it as context ingestion possibly not healthy.

Best next evidence would be a redacted snippet around one full turn showing:

session key / session id if logged
transcript path mentioned by Lossless Claw
agent id
channel/chat id
all Lossless lines from inbound -> afterTurn

No secrets needed. I mainly want to see whether it’s reconciling different session paths across /new, Discord thread routing, or agent id changes.

6. Cerebras “No text output returned” is now more likely model/access/adapter than basic auth shape.

Since the failure changed after plugin/auth fixes, I’d rank causes like this:

• Most likely: Cerebras returned a successful-ish response with no assistant text in the shape OpenClaw expected.
• Also likely: the key/model has limited or incompatible chat/completions access. Docs specifically warn that /v1/models visibility is not proof the model can be used for chat completions.
• Less likely now: totally wrong auth/config, because you’d usually see a cleaner 401/403/provider resolution failure.

A good smoke test is: configure Active Memory temporarily to use a known-good fast model like google/gemini-3-flash or the main session model. If Active Memory works with that but Cerebras returns no text, the memory config is not the problem; it’s Cerebras/provider compatibility.

One more thing: your blockStreamingCoalesce change helps perceived streaming once generation starts, but it won’t fix pre-reply latency from inbound debounce or recall. So I’d measure separately:

Discord inbound received -> agent run starts
agent run starts -> first model token / preview
first token -> final send

For Charles, I’d aim for the simple fast path:

messages: {
  inbound: {
    debounceMs: 2000,

    byChannel: { discord: 500 } // or 1000 if people send bursts
  }
},
plugins: {
  entries: {
    "hindsight-openclaw": {
      enabled: true,
      hooks: { allowConversationAccess: true },
      config: { autoRecall: false, autoRetain: true }
    },
    "active-memory": {
      enabled: true,
      config: { enabled: false, agents: ["cerebro"] }
    }
  }

}

So overall: Codex’s changes look directionally right, not over-corrected. The only thing I’d keep investigating is the repeating Lossless Claw path-mismatch/no anchor pattern, because that could mean continuity is silently degraded even if latency is better. 🦞

[celest flicker]

Thanks Krill, your read was right. The memory stack was not the steady-state bottleneck after we disabled the blocking recall paths.

What we changed/tested:

• Kept Hindsight installed with autoRetain: true
• Set Hindsight autoRecall: false
• Left Active Memory installed but config.enabled: false
• Kept Lossless Claw as context engine
• Set Discord/global inbound debounce down to 0 for latency testing
• Verified traces: Lossless assembly was basically 0-2ms; Hindsight recall was no longer firing

The misleading part was our test method. We were repeatedly testing the first message after /new, which seems to pay reset/bootstrap/
session handoff costs. Follow-up messages in the same session were much faster.

Biggest noticeable improvement came after setting Charles’ thinking level from high to low. That made the steady-state Discord replies feel
much snappier. So the current conclusion is:

• First post-/new turn is not a clean latency benchmark
• Active Memory + Hindsight auto-recall was likely redundant/too expensive for this Discord channel setup
• Steady-state latency now looks acceptable
• Remaining latency was mostly model/thinking level, not memory/plugin recall

Only unresolved thing I still want to watch is the repeating Lossless path-mismatch / no anchor / nothing to ingest warnings, but they do
not appear to be driving latency.

[vapid thorn]

Nice, that lines up really well. I’m glad you separated first-turn after /new from steady-state session latency — that’s exactly the kind of benchmark trap that makes memory/plugin work look guilty when it isn’t.

Your current conclusion sounds right to me:

• autoRetain: true + autoRecall: false is a good fast-path setup for a Discord channel agent.
• Active Memory installed but config.enabled: false is fine if you want the command/config surface available without paying the blocking pre-reply pass.
• Lossless assembly at 0–2ms means it’s not your latency culprit.
• Thinking level high → low being the biggest win makes sense for “quick social reply” traffic.

For the remaining Lossless warnings, I’d keep watching but not treat them as urgent unless you see continuity symptoms, e.g. Charles forgetting recent thread context, compaction behaving weirdly, or the same warnings repeating every normal turn indefinitely. If you do file/debug it later, the useful repro shape is probably: one /new, one first message, one follow-up message, with the Lossless lines + session/transcript path/session key redacted but structurally intact.

And if this is basically solved now, please right-click the best solution message → Apps → ✅ Mark Solution so Answer Overflow indexes the outcome for the next person who hits Discord latency after memory/plugin changes. 🎉