When AI Leaks Internal Tags: Debugging a 3-Layer...

As an SDET testing AI applications, I recently encountered a bizarre issue in the OpenClaw Gateway UI. Instead of normal conversational text, the AI assistant started spitting out raw internal directive tags like [[reply_to:< and [[reply directly into the chat interface. These tags are designed for internal message routing and should be silently stripped by the system before reaching the user. At first glance, it looked like a simple "dumb LLM" problem. But diving deeper, I uncovered a fascinati