clawdbot/docs/concepts/groups.md

summary, read_when

summary	read_when
Group chat behavior across surfaces (WhatsApp/Telegram/Discord/Slack/Signal/iMessage/Microsoft Teams)	Changing group chat behavior or mention gating

Groups

Clawdbot treats group chats consistently across surfaces: WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, iMessage, Microsoft Teams.

Beginner intro (2 minutes)

Clawdbot “lives” on your own messaging accounts. There is no separate WhatsApp bot user. If you are in a group, Clawdbot can see that group and respond there.

Default behavior:

• Groups are restricted (groupPolicy: "allowlist").
• Replies require a mention unless you explicitly disable mention gating.

Translation: allowlisted senders can trigger Clawdbot by mentioning it.

TL;DR

• DM access is controlled by *.allowFrom.
• Group access is controlled by *.groupPolicy + allowlists (*.groups, *.groupAllowFrom).
• Reply triggering is controlled by mention gating (requireMention, /activation).

Quick flow (what happens to a group message):

groupPolicy? disabled -> drop
groupPolicy? allowlist -> group allowed? no -> drop
requireMention? yes -> mentioned? no -> store for context only
otherwise -> reply

If you want...

Goal	What to set
Allow all groups but only reply on @mentions	groups: { "*": { requireMention: true } }
Disable all group replies	groupPolicy: "disabled"
Only specific groups	groups: { "<group-id>": { ... } } (no "*" key)
Only you can trigger in groups	groupPolicy: "allowlist", groupAllowFrom: ["+1555..."]

Session keys

• Group sessions use agent:<agentId>:<channel>:group:<id> session keys (rooms/channels use agent:<agentId>:<channel>:channel:<id>).
• Telegram forum topics add :topic:<threadId> to the group id so each topic has its own session.
• Direct chats use the main session (or per-sender if configured).
• Heartbeats are skipped for group sessions.

Pattern: personal DMs + public groups (single agent)

Yes — this works well if your “personal” traffic is DMs and your “public” traffic is groups.

Why: in single-agent mode, DMs typically land in the main session key (agent:main:main), while groups always use non-main session keys (agent:main:<channel>:group:<id>). If you enable sandboxing with mode: "non-main", those group sessions run in Docker while your main DM session stays on-host.

This gives you one agent “brain” (shared workspace + memory), but two execution postures:

• DMs: full tools (host)
• Groups: sandbox + restricted tools (Docker)

If you need truly separate workspaces/personas (“personal” and “public” must never mix), use a second agent + bindings. See Multi-Agent Routing.

Example (DMs on host, groups sandboxed + messaging-only tools):

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      sandbox: {
        mode: "non-main", // groups/channels are non-main -> sandboxed
        scope: "session", // strongest isolation (one container per group/channel)
        workspaceAccess: "none"
      }
    }
  },
  tools: {
    sandbox: {
      tools: {
        // If allow is non-empty, everything else is blocked (deny still wins).
        allow: ["group:messaging", "group:sessions"],
        deny: ["group:runtime", "group:fs", "group:ui", "nodes", "cron", "gateway"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Want “groups can only see folder X” instead of “no host access”? Keep workspaceAccess: "none" and mount only allowlisted paths into the sandbox:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      sandbox: {
        mode: "non-main",
        scope: "session",
        workspaceAccess: "none",
        docker: {
          binds: [
            // hostPath:containerPath:mode
            "~/FriendsShared:/data:ro"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Related:

• Configuration keys and defaults: Gateway configuration
• Debugging why a tool is blocked: Sandbox vs Tool Policy vs Elevated
• Bind mounts details: Sandboxing

Display labels

• UI labels use displayName when available, formatted as <channel>:<token>.
• #room is reserved for rooms/channels; group chats use g-<slug> (lowercase, spaces -> -, keep #@+._-).

Group policy

Control how group/room messages are handled per channel:

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled", // "open" | "disabled" | "allowlist"
      groupAllowFrom: ["+15551234567"]
    },
    telegram: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["123456789", "@username"]
    },
    signal: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["+15551234567"]
    },
    imessage: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["chat_id:123"]
    },
    msteams: {
      groupPolicy: "disabled",
      groupAllowFrom: ["user@org.com"]
    },
    discord: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      guilds: {
        "GUILD_ID": { channels: { help: { allow: true } } }
      }
    },
    slack: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      channels: { "#general": { allow: true } }
    }
  }
}

Policy	Behavior
"open"	Groups bypass allowlists; mention-gating still applies.
"disabled"	Block all group messages entirely.
"allowlist"	Only allow groups/rooms that match the configured allowlist.

Notes:

• groupPolicy is separate from mention-gating (which requires @mentions).
• WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/iMessage/Microsoft Teams: use groupAllowFrom (fallback: explicit allowFrom).
• Discord: allowlist uses channels.discord.guilds.<id>.channels.
• Slack: allowlist uses channels.slack.channels.
• Group DMs are controlled separately (channels.discord.dm.*, channels.slack.dm.*).
• Telegram allowlist can match user IDs ("123456789", "telegram:123456789", "tg:123456789") or usernames ("@alice" or "alice"); prefixes are case-insensitive.
• Default is groupPolicy: "allowlist"; if your group allowlist is empty, group messages are blocked.

Quick mental model (evaluation order for group messages):

1. groupPolicy (open/disabled/allowlist)
2. group allowlists (*.groups, *.groupAllowFrom, channel-specific allowlist)
3. mention gating (requireMention, /activation)

Mention gating (default)

Group messages require a mention unless overridden per group. Defaults live per subsystem under *.groups."*".

Replying to a bot message counts as an implicit mention (when the channel supports reply metadata). This applies to Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams.

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
        "123@g.us": { requireMention: false }
      }
    },
    telegram: {
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
        "123456789": { requireMention: false }
      }
    },
    imessage: {
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
        "123": { requireMention: false }
      }
    }
  },
  agents: {
    list: [
      {
        id: "main",
        groupChat: {
          mentionPatterns: ["@clawd", "clawdbot", "\\+15555550123"],
          historyLimit: 50
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Notes:

• mentionPatterns are case-insensitive regexes.
• Surfaces that provide explicit mentions still pass; patterns are a fallback.
• Per-agent override: agents.list[].groupChat.mentionPatterns (useful when multiple agents share a group).
• Mention gating is only enforced when mention detection is possible (native mentions or mentionPatterns are configured).
• Discord defaults live in channels.discord.guilds."*" (overridable per guild/channel).
• Group history context is wrapped uniformly across channels; use messages.groupChat.historyLimit for the global default and channels.<channel>.historyLimit (or channels.<channel>.accounts.*.historyLimit) for overrides. Set 0 to disable.

Group allowlists

When channels.whatsapp.groups, channels.telegram.groups, or channels.imessage.groups is configured, the keys act as a group allowlist. Use "*" to allow all groups while still setting default mention behavior.

Common intents (copy/paste):

1. Disable all group replies

{
  channels: { whatsapp: { groupPolicy: "disabled" } }
}

2. Allow only specific groups (WhatsApp)

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groups: {
        "123@g.us": { requireMention: true },
        "456@g.us": { requireMention: false }
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Allow all groups but require mention (explicit)

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groups: { "*": { requireMention: true } }
    }
  }
}

4. Only the owner can trigger in groups (WhatsApp)

{
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      groupAllowFrom: ["+15551234567"],
      groups: { "*": { requireMention: true } }
    }
  }
}

Activation (owner-only)

Group owners can toggle per-group activation:

• /activation mention
• /activation always

Owner is determined by channels.whatsapp.allowFrom (or the bot’s self E.164 when unset). Send the command as a standalone message. Other surfaces currently ignore /activation.

Context fields

Group inbound payloads set:

• ChatType=group
• GroupSubject (if known)
• GroupMembers (if known)
• WasMentioned (mention gating result)
• Telegram forum topics also include MessageThreadId and IsForum.

The agent system prompt includes a group intro on the first turn of a new group session. It reminds the model to respond like a human, avoid Markdown tables, and avoid typing literal \n sequences.

iMessage specifics

• Prefer chat_id:<id> when routing or allowlisting.
• List chats: imsg chats --limit 20.
• Group replies always go back to the same chat_id.

WhatsApp specifics

See Group messages for WhatsApp-only behavior (history injection, mention handling details).