Ignore up to 4 non-word characters when stripping HEARTBEAT_OK token … (#15847)

Merged via /review-pr -> /prepare-pr -> /merge-pr.

Prepared head SHA: dc03ce5005
Co-authored-by: Spacefish <375633+Spacefish@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: steipete <58493+steipete@users.noreply.github.com>
Reviewed-by: @steipete

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai
 
 - Agents/Heartbeat: stop auto-creating `HEARTBEAT.md` during workspace bootstrap so missing files continue to run heartbeat as documented. (#11766) Thanks @shadril238.
 - CLI: lazily load outbound provider dependencies and remove forced success-path exits so commands terminate naturally without killing intentional long-running foreground actions. (#12906) Thanks @DrCrinkle.
+- Auto-reply/Heartbeat: strip sentence-ending `HEARTBEAT_OK` tokens even when followed by up to 4 punctuation characters, while preserving surrounding sentence punctuation. (#15847) Thanks @Spacefish.
 - Clawdock: avoid Zsh readonly variable collisions in helper scripts. (#15501) Thanks @nkelner.
 - Discord: route autoThread replies to existing threads instead of the root channel. (#8302) Thanks @gavinbmoore, @thewilloftheshadow.
 - Discord/Agents: apply channel/group `historyLimit` during embedded-runner history compaction to prevent long-running channel sessions from bypassing truncation and overflowing context windows. (#11224) Thanks @shadril238.

src/auto-reply/heartbeat.test.ts

@@ -107,6 +107,62 @@ describe("stripHeartbeatToken", () => {
       didStrip: true,
     });
   });
+
+  it("strips trailing punctuation only when directly after the token", () => {
+    // Token with trailing dot/exclamation/dashes → should still strip
+    expect(stripHeartbeatToken(`${HEARTBEAT_TOKEN}.`, { mode: "heartbeat" })).toEqual({
+      shouldSkip: true,
+      text: "",
+      didStrip: true,
+    });
+    expect(stripHeartbeatToken(`${HEARTBEAT_TOKEN}!!!`, { mode: "heartbeat" })).toEqual({
+      shouldSkip: true,
+      text: "",
+      didStrip: true,
+    });
+    expect(stripHeartbeatToken(`${HEARTBEAT_TOKEN}---`, { mode: "heartbeat" })).toEqual({
+      shouldSkip: true,
+      text: "",
+      didStrip: true,
+    });
+  });
+
+  it("strips a sentence-ending token and keeps trailing punctuation", () => {
+    // Token appears at sentence end with trailing punctuation.
+    expect(
+      stripHeartbeatToken(`I should not respond ${HEARTBEAT_TOKEN}.`, {
+        mode: "message",
+      }),
+    ).toEqual({
+      shouldSkip: false,
+      text: `I should not respond.`,
+      didStrip: true,
+    });
+  });
+
+  it("strips sentence-ending token with emphasis punctuation in heartbeat mode", () => {
+    expect(
+      stripHeartbeatToken(
+        `There is nothing todo, so i should respond with ${HEARTBEAT_TOKEN} !!!`,
+        {
+          mode: "heartbeat",
+        },
+      ),
+    ).toEqual({
+      shouldSkip: true,
+      text: "",
+      didStrip: true,
+    });
+  });
+
+  it("preserves trailing punctuation on text before the token", () => {
+    // Token at end, preceding text has its own punctuation — only the token is stripped
+    expect(stripHeartbeatToken(`All clear. ${HEARTBEAT_TOKEN}`, { mode: "message" })).toEqual({
+      shouldSkip: false,
+      text: "All clear.",
+      didStrip: true,
+    });
+  });
 });
 
 describe("isHeartbeatContentEffectivelyEmpty", () => {

src/auto-reply/heartbeat.ts

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import { escapeRegExp } from "../utils.js";
 import { HEARTBEAT_TOKEN } from "./tokens.js";
 
 // Default heartbeat prompt (used when config.agents.defaults.heartbeat.prompt is unset).
@@ -65,6 +66,9 @@ function stripTokenAtEdges(raw: string): { text: string; didStrip: boolean } {
   }
 
   const token = HEARTBEAT_TOKEN;
+  const tokenAtEndWithOptionalTrailingPunctuation = new RegExp(
+    `${escapeRegExp(token)}[^\\w]{0,4}$`,
+  );
   if (!text.includes(token)) {
     return { text, didStrip: false };
   }
@@ -81,9 +85,19 @@ function stripTokenAtEdges(raw: string): { text: string; didStrip: boolean } {
       changed = true;
       continue;
     }
-    if (next.endsWith(token)) {
+    // Strip the token when it appears at the end of the text.
-      const before = next.slice(0, Math.max(0, next.length - token.length));
+    // Also strip up to 4 trailing non-word characters the model may have appended
-      text = before.trimEnd();
+    // (e.g. ".", "!!!", "---"). Keep trailing punctuation only when real
+    // sentence text exists before the token.
+    if (tokenAtEndWithOptionalTrailingPunctuation.test(next)) {
+      const idx = next.lastIndexOf(token);
+      const before = next.slice(0, idx).trimEnd();
+      if (!before) {
+        text = "";
+      } else {
+        const after = next.slice(idx + token.length).trimStart();
+        text = `${before}${after}`.trimEnd();
+      }
       didStrip = true;
       changed = true;
     }