Control UI URL Routing: Session Links and Connection Handoff Parameters

The Control UI uses readable paths for pages and session links. A configured gateway.controlUi.basePath prefixes every path below. For example, /chat/main becomes /openclaw/chat/main when the base path is /openclaw.

Session and dashboard URLs

Chat and dashboard views are parallel route namespaces:

/chat/main/deploy-monitor-6db92d48
/dashboard/main/deploy-monitor-6db92d48
/chat/main/telegram/12345
/chat/main/cron/nightly/run/8821
/chat/main

The path grammar is:

/<namespace>/<agentId>
/<namespace>/<agentId>/<sessionRef>
/<namespace>/<agentId>/<restSegment>/<restSegment>...

<namespace> is either /chat or /dashboard. The first form opens that agent's main session. The other forms encode one immutable session key in one of two ways.

The short-id form applies when the session key's rest, everything after agent:<agentId>:, ends in a UUID. <sessionRef> is an optional display-name slug plus a short id, such as deploy-monitor-6db92d48. The short id is the authoritative part: at least eight lowercase hexadecimal characters from the start of the key's trailing UUID, with UUID dashes omitted. Longer prefixes up to all 32 hexadecimal characters are accepted. The row's rotating sessionId is not part of the URL identity.

Every other key uses the literal-key form. Each colon-delimited segment after agent:<agentId>: becomes one URL-encoded path segment. For example, agent:main:telegram:12345 becomes /chat/main/telegram/12345, and agent:main:cron:nightly:run:8821 becomes /chat/main/cron/nightly/run/8821.

Literal rest segments exactly equal to . or .. use ~dot and ~dotdot so browsers cannot collapse them as relative path segments. A literal segment that starts with ~ doubles that leading character to keep the encoding reversible. When an otherwise literal one-segment rest could be mistaken for a short id, the builder inserts ~key before it, for example agent:main:release-deadbeef becomes /chat/main/~key/release-deadbeef. The marker forces literal interpretation and appears only when the unescaped form would be ambiguous.

The reserved single-segment literal rest names are main, global, boot, and sessions. The configured session.mainKey joins that set at runtime. Exactly one segment after the agent id is literal when it is reserved or does not contain a valid short id; otherwise it is a short reference. Two or more segments after the agent id are always literal.

Only the configured session.mainKey collapses to the agent-only main-session path. With session.mainKey: "workspace", agent:research:workspace becomes /chat/research, while the distinct key agent:research:main remains the literal path /chat/research/main.

Stability contract

The following parts are stable URL contracts:

• The /chat and /dashboard namespace words.
• The key UUID short id in short-id URLs.
• The arity and short-versus-literal parsing rules above.

In short-id form, the agent segment is decorative and the slug is almost decorative. Neither identifies the session on its own, and both may change without notice. The one exception is a tie: if the short id matches more than one session and exactly one of them still carries the slug in the link, that session is used, so a generated link keeps working even when two ids happen to share a prefix. A slug that matches none or several of the tied sessions is ignored and the disambiguation view is shown. After resolution, the Control UI replaces the address bar with the current agent id and current display-name slug without adding a browser-history entry.

In literal-key form, the agent segment is authoritative because it is part of the reconstructed session key. The remaining literal segments are authoritative too. A slug, when present, is always decorative; literal-key forms do not synthesize one.

As a best-effort convenience, an unescaped one-segment literal that does not resolve as an exact session key is also checked against display-name slugs. One exact slug match is replaced in the address bar with its full /<namespace>/<agentId>/<slug>-<shortId> reference. If several sessions share the slug, the UI shows the same disambiguation view used for short-id ties instead of guessing. Exact short-id and literal-key references always win over slug matching.

If one short id matches more than one session and the slug does not settle it, the UI does not guess. It shows a small disambiguation view with the matching display names, agents, and longer id prefixes. Use a longer prefix to make the URL unique. Resolution examines at most five pages of search results; if more remain, the view says that the search was incomplete instead of guessing.

Canonical links do not use ?session= or ?face=. Released links such as /chat?session=<sessionKey> are accepted only at the application boundary as a migration aid and immediately rewritten, without adding browser history, to the canonical path. The released ?face=dashboard companion selects the /dashboard namespace during that rewrite. Loaders and page code never read the query-form identity, and new links must not emit it. The Sessions list keeps its own ?session= parameter because that parameter expands a row; it is not a session deep link. The one-shot composer value ?draft= remains supported on chat and dashboard session paths.

Route table

This table lists every Control UI application route. A dash means the route has no route-specific URL parameters.

Schema-backed deep links in settings routes accept ?section=<section>, ?advanced=1, and #<setting-id>. These parameters select content inside the page without altering the route identity.

Special documents and startup modes

The following Gateway-served documents exist outside the application route table:

• /?onboarding=1 launches the first-run onboarding presentation.
• /?view=terminal opens the full-screen terminal-only document used by mobile apps. Availability still requires gateway.terminal.enabled and operator.admin.
• /approve/<approvalId> opens a standalone approval document. With a base path, use <basePath>/approve/<approvalId>. The id identifies an approval but never authorizes it; normal Gateway authentication still applies.

The approval namespace is reserved ahead of plugin HTTP routes for all HTTP methods. When Control UI serving is disabled, it returns 404 instead of falling through to a plugin route.

Remote Gateway handoff

The Vite development UI can connect to a different Gateway:

http://localhost:5173/?gatewayUrl=ws%3A%2F%2F<gateway-host>%3A18789
http://localhost:5173/?gatewayUrl=wss%3A%2F%2F<gateway-host>%3A18789#token=<gateway-token>

URL-encode a full ws:// or wss:// value. gatewayUrl is accepted only in a top-level window, stored after load, and removed from the address bar. Prefer #token= because fragments do not enter HTTP request logs or Referer headers. The legacy ?token= handoff remains a bootstrap-only credential fallback and is stripped immediately. Passwords stay in memory only.

When gatewayUrl selects another Gateway, the UI does not fall back to local configuration or environment credentials. Provide the remote Gateway's token or password explicitly, and use wss:// behind TLS.

Related

• Control UI
• Dashboard
• Session dashboards