OpenClaw Orchestrator Routing Issues: When Delegation Fails
The Problem: Unreliable Agent Delegation
A developer running OpenClaw with a hub-and-spoke multi-agent architecture is experiencing unreliable routing behavior from their main orchestrator. The orchestrator frequently attempts to handle requests directly instead of delegating them to the appropriate specialist sub-agent. According to the report, routing feels unreliable, with delegation working correctly only about 50-60% of the time.
Specific examples include: when asked about workouts, the orchestrator provides generic fitness advice instead of calling the training agent; when asked about weather, it answers from training data instead of calling the weather agent.
Current Setup Details
The developer's configuration includes:
- Main orchestrator handling user interaction
- 7 specialist sub-agents for: Gmail/Calendar/Drive, Todoist, personal training/Notion, grocery inventory, meal planning, weather, and train schedules
- Explicit routing table mapping request patterns to agent IDs
- Hard rule: "You are a ROUTER not a WORKER — if a request falls into any specialist's domain, you MUST delegate"
- Each specialist has its domain clearly defined
- Agent-to-agent communications enabled in configuration
- Orchestrator model: gpt-5.4 via openai-codex
Attempted Solutions
The developer has tried several approaches to fix the routing issue:
- Adding "NEVER" rules for each domain (e.g., NEVER answer email questions yourself, NEVER check weather yourself)
- Adding a "when in doubt, delegate" rule
- Making the routing table very explicit with example phrases
Key Questions from the Developer
The developer is seeking practical advice on several specific issues:
- Is there a known working prompt pattern to force reliable delegation in OpenClaw?
- Does the model choice for the orchestrator matter significantly? Should it be a stronger or weaker model?
- Is the routing table approach the right one, or is there a better way to structure this?
- Any experience with how OpenClaw's
subagents.allowAgentsconfig affects routing behavior?
The developer notes that individual agents work well once they receive requests, indicating the bottleneck is purely at the routing step.
📖 Read the full source: r/openclaw
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