--- summary: "Ephemeral side questions with /btw" read_when: - You want to ask a quick side question about the current session - You are implementing or debugging BTW behavior across clients title: "BTW side questions" --- `/btw` (alias `/side`) asks a quick side question about the **current session** without adding it to conversation history. It is modeled after Claude Code's `/btw`, adapted to OpenClaw's Gateway and multi-channel architecture. The two side-question contracts are deliberately separate. BTW is a one-shot question on the session's actual model, preserving harness behavior and Codex thread-fork continuity for channel ingress (WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord), the TUI, and embedded `tui --local`; the TUI stays on BTW by design. Side chat uses a persistent, read-only RPC thread for Control UI-class clients. Its first question lazily prepares bounded visible context from the selected session; a temporary history failure remains retryable and does not run as an empty session. Channels cannot use Side chat because they do not have an RPC connection. ```text /btw what changed? /side what does this error mean? ``` ## What it does 1. Snapshots the current session as background context (including any in-flight main-run prompt). 2. Runs a separate, one-shot side query telling the model to answer only the side question and not resume or steer the main task. 3. Delivers the answer as a live side result, not a normal assistant message. 4. Never writes the question or answer to session history or `chat.history`. The main run, if one is active, is left untouched. For Codex harness sessions, BTW forks the active Codex app-server thread into an ephemeral child thread instead of running a separate provider call. This keeps Codex OAuth and native tool/thread behavior intact, and the forked thread keeps the parent thread's current approval policy, sandbox, and native tool surface. The forked thread gets a boundary prompt telling the model that everything before it is inherited reference context, not active instructions, and that only messages after the boundary are live. `/btw` requires an existing Codex thread; send a normal message first. For CLI runtime aliases, BTW invokes the owning CLI backend in one-shot side-question mode: it seeds sanitized conversation context into a fresh CLI invocation with tool bundling and reusable session state disabled, and adds any no-resume/no-tools flags the backend supports. Direct (non-CLI) runtimes use a direct one-shot provider call instead. ## What it does not do `/btw` does not create a durable session, continue the unfinished main task, or persist question/answer data to transcript history. Detached BTW results do not survive a reload. Control UI Side chat can rehydrate its in-memory thread after a reload, but the thread is cleared by a session reset, Gateway restart, idle expiry, or the rail's clear button. ## Delivery model Normal assistant chat uses the Gateway `chat` event. Detached BTW uses a separate `chat.side_result` event so clients cannot mistake it for regular conversation history. The Control UI does not consume that event; it calls the `sessions.companion.*` RPCs and renders their bounded exchange state in the rail. ## Surface behavior | Surface | Behavior | | ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | TUI | Rendered inline in the chat log, visibly distinct from a normal reply, dismissible with `Enter` or `Esc`. | | External channels | Delivered as a clearly labeled one-off reply (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord have no local ephemeral overlay). | | Control UI / web | Routes `/btw` and `/side` to the expanded Side chat. The read-only thread is keyed by session, rehydrates from Gateway memory, and preserves a failed question for Retry. It can be cleared with the trash button. `Esc` collapses the rail. | ## Selection popup (Control UI) Highlighting text inside a chat message in the Control UI opens a small selection popup with one action: - **Ask in side chat** opens the rail and pre-fills its composer with a quoted draft so you can type your own question about the selection. The action follows normal `/btw` semantics: the question and answer stay out of session history and the main run is left untouched. ## When to use it Use `/btw` for a quick clarification, a factual side answer while a long run is still in progress, or a temporary answer that should not enter future session context. ```text /btw what file are we editing? /btw summarize the current task in one sentence /btw what is 17 * 19? ``` For anything you want to become part of the session's future working context, ask normally in the main session instead. ## Related Native command catalog and chat directives. Reasoning effort levels for the side-question model call. Session keys, history, and persistence semantics. Inject a steering message into the active run without ending it.