Configuring OpenClaw for Smooth Agent-to-Agent Communication

A Reddit user experimenting with OpenClaw documented configuration settings that minimize obstacles when having multiple AI agents communicate with each other. The user was initially experiencing inconsistent results and timeout issues when trying to set up a dedicated "WhatsApp worker" agent that other agents could send requests to.

Key Configuration Settings

The following configuration settings were found to enable smoother agent-to-agent conversations:

"tools": {
  "sessions": { "visibility": "all" },
  "agentToAgent": { 
    "enabled": true,
    "allow": [ "*" ] 
  }
},
"agents": {
  "list": [
    {
      "id": "<for all your agents, so repeat this for each one>",
      "subagents": { "allowAgents": [ "*" ] }
    }
  ]
}

Memory Configuration

In each agent's MEMORY.md file, add this directive:

- Whenever the `session_send` tool is used, ALWAYS set the `timeoutSeconds` parameter to 0.

This makes inter-agent communications asynchronous, preventing timeout issues when the LLM is slow to respond.

Limitations and Workarounds

The configuration still encounters an "ANNOUNCE_SKIP" from agents during conversations, which appears to be a design limitation. The user found that session.agentToAgent.maxPingPongTurns doesn't accept values larger than 5.

To work around this, add to HEARTBEAT.md:

- If an outstanding action is pending a response from one or more agents, give the agent(s) a gentle nudge by using the `sessions_send` tool that includes a parameter of `timeoutSeconds=0`, to hopefully start the ball rolling again.

This helps restart conversations that become stagnant due to ANNOUNCE_SKIP.