cron: skip announce delivery for NO_REPLY

docs/automation/cron-jobs.md

@@ -212,6 +212,7 @@ Behavior details:
 - Content: delivery uses the isolated run's outbound payloads (text/media) with normal chunking and
   channel formatting.
 - Heartbeat-only responses (`HEARTBEAT_OK` with no real content) are not delivered.
+- Exact silent responses (`NO_REPLY`, after trimming) are not delivered.
 - If the isolated run already sent a message to the same target via the message tool, delivery is
   skipped to avoid duplicates.
 - Missing or invalid delivery targets fail the job unless `delivery.bestEffort = true`.

docs/cli/cron.md

@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ Tip: run `openclaw cron --help` for the full command surface.
 
 Note: isolated `cron add` jobs default to `--announce` delivery. Use `--no-deliver` to keep
 output internal. `--deliver` remains as a deprecated alias for `--announce`.
+When an announced isolated run replies with exact `NO_REPLY` (after trimming), OpenClaw suppresses
+the outbound delivery.
 
 Note: one-shot (`--at`) jobs delete after success by default. Use `--keep-after-run` to keep them.
 

src/cron/isolated-agent.skips-delivery-without-whatsapp-recipient-besteffortdeliver-true.test.ts

@@ -407,6 +407,24 @@ describe("runCronIsolatedAgentTurn", () => {
     });
   });
 
+  it("skips announce when the agent reply is whitespace-padded NO_REPLY", async () => {
+    await withTelegramAnnounceFixture(async ({ home, storePath, deps }) => {
+      mockAgentPayloads([{ text: "  NO_REPLY \n" }]);
+      const res = await runTelegramAnnounceTurn({
+        home,
+        storePath,
+        deps,
+        delivery: { mode: "announce", channel: "telegram", to: "123" },
+      });
+
+      expect(res.status).toBe("ok");
+      expect(res.delivered).toBe(false);
+      expect(res.deliveryAttempted).toBe(true);
+      expect(runSubagentAnnounceFlow).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+      expect(deps.sendMessageTelegram).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+    });
+  });
+
   it("fails when structured direct delivery fails and best-effort is disabled", async () => {
     await expectStructuredTelegramFailure({
       payload: { text: "hello from cron", mediaUrl: "https://example.com/img.png" },

src/cron/isolated-agent/delivery-dispatch.ts

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import { countActiveDescendantRuns } from "../../agents/subagent-registry.js";
-import { SILENT_REPLY_TOKEN } from "../../auto-reply/tokens.js";
+import { isSilentReplyText, SILENT_REPLY_TOKEN } from "../../auto-reply/tokens.js";
 import type { ReplyPayload } from "../../auto-reply/types.js";
 import { createOutboundSendDeps, type CliDeps } from "../../cli/outbound-send-deps.js";
 import type { OpenClawConfig } from "../../config/config.js";
@@ -522,7 +522,7 @@ export async function dispatchCronDelivery(
       hadDescendants &&
       synthesizedText.trim() === initialSynthesizedText &&
       isLikelyInterimCronMessage(initialSynthesizedText) &&
-      initialSynthesizedText.toUpperCase() !== SILENT_REPLY_TOKEN.toUpperCase()
+      !isSilentReplyText(initialSynthesizedText, SILENT_REPLY_TOKEN)
     ) {
       // Descendants existed but no post-orchestration synthesis arrived AND
       // no descendant fallback reply was available. Suppress stale parent
@@ -537,12 +537,13 @@ export async function dispatchCronDelivery(
         ...params.telemetry,
       });
     }
-    if (synthesizedText.toUpperCase() === SILENT_REPLY_TOKEN.toUpperCase()) {
+    if (isSilentReplyText(synthesizedText, SILENT_REPLY_TOKEN)) {
       return params.withRunSession({
         status: "ok",
         summary,
         outputText,
-        delivered: true,
+        delivered: false,
+        deliveryAttempted: true,
         ...params.telemetry,
       });
     }