What happens when triggers spike
High volume means triggers fire faster than you review drafts. An end-of-quarter push, a product launch that drives 60 inbound inquiries in a morning, a client event that generates a burst of follow-up actions — these are volume events.
From OpenClaw's side, the experience is identical to low volume. Each trigger fires independently. Each produces a draft. Each draft enters the approval queue and waits. The agent does not know whether you have 2 pending drafts or 22. It processes each trigger as it arrives.
The draft queue under load
The queue grows. Nothing drops. Nothing auto-sends. Each draft stays open until you act on it — Approve, Edit, or Dismiss. If you have 15 drafts waiting in a busy afternoon, all 15 wait.
The agent does not prioritise, merge, or summarise pending drafts. It does not escalate to a default action. It does not find another path.
The queue has no ceiling. Each draft stays open until you act on it. Nothing expires unless you have configured an expiry window for that workflow. Nothing sends while it is waiting.
Working through the queue
Pending drafts appear as threaded messages in your Slack approval channel. You work through them in any order.
During a volume spike, three approaches keep the queue manageable.
Batch similar drafts. If the same workflow fired six times — six lead acknowledgements, say — the drafts will look nearly identical. Approve the first, check that the others match, approve in sequence.
Dismiss the low-priority ones. A status update draft that lost relevance because the project moved on can be dismissed immediately. The agent logs it; nothing sends.
Edit in thread before approving. If a draft needs a small change, reply in the Slack thread. The agent updates the draft. You approve the revised version.
In a busy week, OpenClaw drafts faster than you need to decide.
Nothing requires processing in real time. The queue holds everything until you are ready.
Expiry windows during peaks
For time-sensitive workflows, configure an expiry window before the peak period. An expiry window tells the agent: if this draft is not reviewed within X hours, close it without sending.
For a product launch where lead response speed matters — set a 4-hour expiry on lead acknowledgement drafts. If you have not reviewed one within 4 hours, it closes. The agent logs it as expired. You see all expired drafts in the audit log and can send manual follow-ups to those leads.
For most workflows — reporting, CRM updates, internal summaries — expiry windows are not needed. Those drafts can wait.
Set expiry windows on the setup call. Adjust them as you learn how your queue behaves under load.