Quiet Mode

By default, OpenClaw sends a stream of status messages to Telegram as it works — rotating labels like "Scuttling...", emoji reactions cycling through 🤔 → 🛠️ → ✅, and tool progress lines for every step. This is useful for debugging but noisy day-to-day.

Quiet mode suppresses all of that while keeping streaming replies intact.

Apply the config

Paste this into your Claw's chat:

Apply quiet mode config to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json and restart.

Or edit the file directly and restart:

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "verboseDefault": "off",
      "toolProgressDetail": "explain"
    }
  },
  "messages": {
    "statusReactions": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  },
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "streaming": {
        "mode": "progress",
        "progress": {
          "label": false,
          "toolProgress": false
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Or via the CLI:

openclaw config patch '{"agents":{"defaults":{"verboseDefault":"off"}},"messages":{"statusReactions":{"enabled":false}},"channels":{"telegram":{"streaming":{"mode":"progress","progress":{"label":false,"toolProgress":false}}}}}'

What each setting does

Setting	Value	Effect
`verboseDefault`	`"off"`	No verbose tool output unless you enable it
`statusReactions.enabled`	`false`	No emoji reaction cycling on messages
`streaming.mode`	`"progress"`	Editable draft message instead of new messages per update
`progress.label`	`false`	No rotating status label ("Scuttling...", etc.)
`progress.toolProgress`	`false`	No per-tool execution lines

Streaming modes

If "progress" is still too chatty, switch to a quieter mode:

Mode	Behaviour
`"off"`	Silent until the final reply — quietest option
`"partial"`	Real-time answer text streaming, no status lines
`"progress"`	Draft message with configurable status display (recommended)
`"block"`	Chunked preview updates

To go fully silent:

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "streaming": {
        "mode": "off"
      }
    }
  }
}

Toggle per session

You can turn verbose output on temporarily for a debugging session without changing the config permanently:

/verbose on

To restore quiet mode for the rest of the session:

/verbose off

Changes to openclaw.json require a restart to take effect. Changes via /verbose apply immediately to the current session only.

7 — Clawvisor Troubleshooting