OpenClaw request timed out: did the work finish?

Recover the result before repeating the work

A long task can create files, start an application or send a request before the final reply fails. In a September 21, 2026 run on OpenClaw 2026.9.4, a recipe-planner application had already been built and was serving before a command-line run reached its ten-minute deadline. A follow-up recovered the completed result, and opening the application confirmed it worked. The failed turn did not undo the files.

That is not a reason to assume every timed-out task succeeded. It is a reason to inspect the result. If the work was a draft, open the saved draft. If it involved email, payments or another external action, check that service’s record before allowing another attempt.

The previous request timed out. Check what actually completed, without repeating any actions. Show me the saved results, identify anything still running, and tell me what remains unfinished.

Ask for evidence the agent can inspect, not a guess from its earlier intentions. Once you know the boundary between finished and unfinished, continue from there.

Which timeout did you hit?

The current OpenClaw references, checked September 22, distinguish these limits:

• Client wait: how long a caller waits for a result. agent.wait defaults to 30 seconds; expiry alone does not cancel the underlying run.
• Agent runtime: the whole agent turn. agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds has a documented ordinary runtime default of 172800 seconds, or 48 hours.
• CLI timeout: a turn started with openclaw agent. Its --timeout option has a documented fallback of 600 seconds unless the configured default supplies a value.
• Provider idle timeout: a model connection that stops producing data. Check provider-level settings and the matching error, not just total elapsed task time.

The agent-loop reference covers the wait, runtime and provider limits. The separate agent CLI reference describes the command-line fallback. “OpenClaw has a ten-minute default” is not an accurate description of all these paths.

Match the error to the run that failed

Record the error text, when it appeared and how you started the job: a chat message, a scheduled task or a command. Check the corresponding run or Gateway log for whether the run ended, a caller stopped waiting, or a provider connection went idle. A still-running task does not need a duplicate started beside it.

An existing configuration can retain a shorter value than the current default. Read the setting on the installation that actually ran the task:

openclaw config get agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds

A missing explicit value is not itself a broken configuration. Interpret it using the version and entry path in use, including any command-line override. If the job came from a scheduled task, inspect that run rather than assuming the timeout belongs to your chat window.

Give a slow job more time only when that is the problem

If a command-line job was making useful progress and its run deadline was genuinely too short, set a deliberate --timeout for the next invocation. Resume only the unfinished work. A broader permanent change to agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds should follow the same evidence, not the appearance of any error containing the word “timeout”.

A no-output watchdog is another limit. The CLI-backend reference distinguishes it from the whole-turn deadline: disabling the whole-turn limit does not disable the watchdog. An idle model connection or stalled backend needs diagnosis at that boundary; an extra hour of total runtime may change nothing.

If short, ordinary messages also fail, this is no longer just a long-job problem. Check the agent-not-responding guide for model-access failures. If the actual error says the conversation exceeds its context window, use the compaction guide. Neither is repaired by asking the same overloaded turn to wait longer.