Parallels Discord Roundtrip Skill

1. Skill Overview

This skill is built for macOS Parallels smoke test workflows. Its core objective is to verify that OpenClaw can complete two-way Discord message exchange inside a genuine macOS virtual machine. It simulates a full end-to-end deployment workflow from scratch: provision OpenClaw on a clean macOS snapshot, inject Discord Bot credentials, then run a closed-loop "send-reply-read" validation cycle.

Core Principle: Discord tokens and configuration files are never committed to source control. All credentials are injected dynamically at runtime. Temporary test messages are auto-cleaned after testing, and the virtual machine is shut down automatically.

2. Core Capabilities

2.1 End-to-End Closed-Loop Validation Flow

The skill executes a standardized four-step roundtrip test:

Step	Action	Validation Criteria
① Guest Send	OpenClaw running inside the macOS VM sends a message to the target Discord channel	Message is successfully dispatched to the channel
② Host Receive	The host test runner observes the outgoing message in the Discord channel history	The sent message appears in visible channel logs
③ Host Reply	The host posts a reply message within the same Discord channel	Reply message submits successfully
④ Guest Read	The OpenClaw instance in the VM fetches and reads the host’s reply via the message read API	The reply content is present in the read output

Pass Standard: The summary report marks discord=pass. The unique nonce sent from the VM appears in channel history, and the host’s reply is fully captured in OpenClaw’s message read output.

2.2 Execution Command

Recommended invocation method:

export OPENCLAW_PARALLELS_DISCORD_TOKEN="$( ssh peters-mac-studio-1 'jq -r ".channels.discord.token" ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json' | tr -d '\n' )"
pnpm test:parallels:macos \
  --discord-token-env OPENCLAW_PARALLELS_DISCORD_TOKEN \
  --discord-guild-id 1456350064065904867 \
  --discord-channel-id 1456744319972282449 \
  --json

2.3 Snapshot Management

Target base snapshot: Clean state closest to fresh macOS 26.3.1 installation
Snapshot resolution priority: Prefer clones tagged *-poweroff* to enable disk-only snapshot restoration without suspended state
CPU incompatibility handling: If restore logs output PET_QUESTION_SNAPSHOT_STATE_INCOMPATIBLE_CPU, discard suspended state, create a replacement *-poweroff snapshot, and re-run the test
Auto-boot: Script automatically launches the restored powered-off snapshot instance

2.4 Configuration & Command Standards

Discord config: Configured entirely inside the guest VM; no hardcoded tokens or committed config files
Message subcommand execution: Use the official OpenClaw wrapper for message send/read; raw node openclaw.mjs message ... cannot resolve lazy-loaded subcommands identically
JSON config writing: Write channels.discord.guilds as a single JSON object via --strict-json instead of dot-separated config set paths — numeric snowflake IDs are misinterpreted as array indices with dot notation
Remote script execution rule: Avoid prlctl enter/expect for long Discord setup scripts (line breaks corrupt multi-line commands). Use prlctl exec --current-user /bin/sh -lc ... instead

2.5 Post-Test Cleanup

Message cleanup: All temporary smoke-test Discord messages are deleted upon test completion
VM shutdown: After a successful Discord roundtrip pass, the macOS guest VM is halted via prlctl stop "macOS Tahoe". Manual ad-hoc Discord inspection sessions also require manual VM shutdown.

⚠️ Critical Warning: Never leave a pre-configured Discord VM running. It will continuously poll and post messages in the #maintainer channel, spamming Discord long after test execution finishes.

2.6 Troubleshooting Workflow

Log storage path: /tmp/openclaw-parallels-smoke.*
Roundtrip flaky failure debugging: Inspect fresh.discord-roundtrip.log and discord-last-readback.json in the working directory first
Machine-readable output: Append the --json flag to retrieve structured test summary data

2.7 Parallel Execution & Load Constraints

3-OS full scan workflows: Shared build locks are safe for parallel runs, but snapshot restoration remains the major Parallels performance bottleneck
High host load mitigation: If the host machine is already resource saturated, serialize Windows/Linux restore-heavy re-runs to avoid resource contention

3. Primary Use Cases

macOS Parallels smoke validation

Verify end-to-end two-way Discord messaging functionality for OpenClaw inside a real macOS virtual machine.
Pre-release macOS compatibility gate

Confirm Discord channel integration operates correctly on macOS before Beta / Stable production releases.
Discord channel regression testing

Run the closed-loop roundtrip test after any Discord channel code modifications to ensure bidirectional communication remains unbroken.
Snapshot restore & automation pipeline validation

Validate reliability of Parallels snapshot recovery logic and automated provisioning scripts for macOS environments.
CI/CD pipeline integration

Execute automated macOS Discord end-to-end validation as a mandatory stage in release pipelines.

4. Critical Guiding Principles

No committed credentials: Discord tokens are injected at runtime via environment variables and never persisted to config files or source code
Mandatory VM shutdown post-test: Automatically halt the virtual machine after a passing proof run to prevent persistent Discord bot spam
Avoid prlctl enter: Long multi-line commands get corrupted by line breaks; use prlctl exec for remote guest execution
JSON config writing rule: Snowflake IDs are parsed as array indices under dot-separated config paths; always use --strict-json to write guild data as a single root object
Rebuild snapshots on CPU incompatibility: Discard suspended VM state and generate new poweroff snapshots when encountering PET_QUESTION_SNAPSHOT_STATE_INCOMPATIBLE_CPU
Serialize restore jobs under high host load: Snapshot recovery is a resource bottleneck; avoid parallel execution of restore-heavy test suites

Summary

Parallels Discord Roundtrip is a dedicated smoke-test skill for validating full bidirectional Discord channel communication within OpenClaw’s macOS Parallels virtual machines. It automates a closed-loop workflow: guest message send → host receive → host reply → guest message read, providing objective proof of Discord channel operability on native macOS virtualized environments. This skill is intended for OpenClaw maintainers to run pre-release macOS compatibility checks, perform Discord feature regression testing, and validate end-to-end Parallels automation pipelines.