fix: treat [object Object] sentinel as absent in Telegram reply_to_text

[Jake-P-Shalmi]

Summary

When a user replies to a rich message (sendRichMessage, Bot API 10.1), Telegram echoes the literal string [object Object] as reply_to_message.text instead of returning empty/None. The adapter accepted this as valid reply text (it's a truthy string), skipping the _extract_rich_reply_text and rich_sent_store.lookup fallbacks that would have recovered the real content.

This caused the agent to see [object Object] as the reply-to context instead of the actual message body — e.g. replying to a cron-delivered morning briefing produced:

[Replying to: "[object Object]"]
What is this?

Fix

Add a guard after the .text / .caption extraction that detects the [object Object] sentinel and sets reply_to_text = None. This lets the existing fallback chain fire as intended:

1. _extract_rich_reply_text() — parses Telegram's native rich-message echo
2. rich_sent_store.lookup() — recovers from the local send-time index

Test Plan

• New test test_object_object_sentinel_treated_as_absent verifies the sentinel is not passed through
• Existing reply-quote tests still pass (no regression)

tests/gateway/test_telegram_reply_quote.py::test_native_partial_quote_used_as_reply_to_text PASSED
tests/gateway/test_telegram_reply_quote.py::test_full_reply_text_used_when_no_native_quote PASSED
tests/gateway/test_telegram_reply_quote.py::test_caption_fallback_when_no_quote_and_no_text PASSED
tests/gateway/test_telegram_reply_quote.py::test_empty_quote_text_falls_back_to_full_reply PASSED
tests/gateway/test_telegram_reply_quote.py::test_object_object_sentinel_treated_as_absent PASSED
5 passed in 0.35s

[teknium1]

Thanks for the focused Telegram fallback fix. Current main still assigns reply_to_message.text at plugins/platforms/telegram/adapter.py:9640-9644 and only runs native-rich and sent-store recovery under if not reply_to_text at :9645-9655; therefore a truthy [object Object] sentinel bypasses both recovery paths. The proposed normalization to None makes the existing fallback chain run without changing normal reply text handling. Existing rich-reply coverage already verifies the absent-text recovery behavior in tests/gateway/test_telegram_rich_messages.py:1062-1088.

No blocking issues identified. This is an automated hermes-sweeper review.

[GottZ]

This was generated by AI during triage.

Summary

Fourteen PRs address or reference the Telegram reply-context complex: #1596/#1662 establish out-of-session reply context, while #2694/#22632/#22633/#22676/#22709/#23091/#70631 handle native partial quotes and agent-visible injection. The remaining PRs cover adjacent reply-context gaps: observed audio (#43200), topic quote metadata (#47487), forwarded and long reply context (#54262), reply authorship (#56203), and rich-message sentinel recovery (#68428).

Related pull requests

• feat(gateway): inject reply-to message context for out-of-session replies #1596 [closed] fixes — (+233/-1) — n/a: Adds reply text extraction and conditional out-of-history injection, but also bundles unrelated background delegation and /server work; closed after contributor-confirmed cherry-pick of the focused feature into merged feat(gateway): inject reply-to message context for out-of-session replies (#1594) #1662.
• feat(gateway): inject reply-to message context for out-of-session replies (#1594) #1662 [merged] best fix — (+27/-0) — n/a: Focused extraction of reply ids/text plus bounded conditional context injection fixes feat(gateway): inject reply-to message context when quoted message is not in session history #1594 without feat(gateway): inject reply-to message context for out-of-session replies #1596's unrelated changes; relevant as the merged reference implementation and recorded best fix for feat(gateway): inject reply-to message context when quoted message is not in session history #1594.
• fix(telegram): always inject reply context; use partial quote text #2694 [closed] fixes — (+6/-8) — n/a: Prefers Telegram's selected message.quote.text and removes history-based suppression so the reply pointer is always visible; closed and superseded for the partial-quote core by merged fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context (salvage #22632) #22676.
• fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context #22632 [closed] fixes — (+162/-2) — n/a: Prefers selected quote text with text/caption and empty-quote fallbacks, backed by four focused regression tests; closed after contributor-confirmed salvage into merged fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context (salvage #22632) #22676.
• fix(gateway): prefer Telegram native partial quote text in reply context #22633 [closed] fixes — (+10/-2) — n/a: Implements the same partial-quote preference but also changes unrelated table rendering and lacks the focused tests present in fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context #22632; closed in favor of fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context (salvage #22632) #22676 per the contributor decision.
• fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context (salvage #22632) #22676 [merged] best fix — (+162/-2) — n/a: Salvages fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context #22632's scoped partial-quote extraction and four fallback regressions, directly fixing [Bug]: Telegram native partial quotes are expanded to the full replied-to message #22619; relevant as the merged reference implementation and recorded best fix for that issue.
• fix(telegram): use native quote text for partial reply context #22709 [closed] fixes — (+82/-1) — n/a: Implements partial-quote preference with three tests, but is closed as already implemented by fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context (salvage #22632) #22676, with main evidence at gateway/platforms/telegram.py:6101, :6106, and merge commit 854c2ce30922200aedb96e0f609697433efd2ec6 from the automated maintainer verdict.
• fix(gateway/telegram): use quoted fragment over full reply text #23091 [closed] fixes — (+109/-1) — n/a: Implements the same quote-text preference and fallback behavior with five tests; closed as a duplicate of merged fix(telegram): honor message.quote for partial-quote reply context (salvage #22632) #22676, as confirmed by the contributor discussion.
• fix(gateway): transcribe observed audio context on demand #43200 related — (+1413/-25) — n/a: Adds on-demand transcription and compression-boundary persistence for observed Telegram audio, including explicit reply-path selection; keep-open review found the premise valid but requires a temp-HERMES_HOME integration regression exercising the real file-resolution chain.
• [codex] fix Telegram topic quote metadata #47487 related — (+318/-16) — n/a: Preserves triggering text for explicit Telegram topic quotes and filters an unsupported-message placeholder, but the keep-open review requires porting from the retired adapter to plugins/platforms/telegram/adapter.py, preserving reply_to_mode="off", and covering attachments.
• fix(telegram): preserve reply and forwarded context #54262 related — (+148/-1) — n/a: Removes the 500-character reply bound and adds forwarded-message provenance, but the keep-open review requires bounded and sanitized annotations after reference preprocessing plus observed-group coverage rather than replacing the existing bound outright.
• fix(telegram): populate reply author info on inbound messages #56203 related — (+102/-1) — n/a: Populates existing reply-author fields and renders named non-own reply prefixes; the maintainer-bot keep-open verdict identifies a concrete salvage fix—use defensive getattr for missing from_user and add missing-author and rendering regressions.
• fix: treat [object Object] sentinel as absent in Telegram reply_to_text #68428 related — (+33/-0) — n/a: Normalizes Telegram's truthy [object Object] rich-message sentinel to None, allowing the existing native-rich and sent-store recovery chain to run; the maintainer-bot keep-open verdict found no blocking issue and current main still exhibits the bypass.
• fix(telegram): surface message.quote (selected fragment) in agent context #70631 [closed] partial — (+9/-0) — n/a: Adds a second localized partial-quote marker directly to inbound text; closed as superseded because main already extracts the quote in plugins/platforms/telegram/adapter.py:9623-9637 and injects it through gateway/run.py:15286-15300 via commits 854c2ce309 and e889332c99.

Duplicates

#1596 and #1662 share the #1594 reply-context core, with #1662 the focused merged extraction; #22632, #22633, #22676, #22709, and #23091 implement substantially the same #22619 partial-quote fix, with #22676 the merged salvage, while #2694 overlaps that core and additionally removes injection suppression; #70631 duplicates the already agent-visible partial-quote path on main.

Suggested consolidation

Keep #68428 open with its focused salvage path: normalize [object Object] before the existing rich-reply fallbacks, consistent with the maintainer-bot keep-open verdict. Retain #43200, #47487, #54262, and #56203 only for the contributor-reviewed salvage actions stated above; the closed duplicate chains should remain closed, and merged #1662/#22676 remain the reference implementations for their respective issues.

Cross-PR triage: Reviewed 14 pull requests and 2 issues in this complex. Each diff was read against this issue; Assessment working set: 160 kB of PR diffs, 31 kB of issue/PR text, 17 kB of discussion (16 comments), 14 verify verdicts. verdicts reflect diff content, not PR titles. Part of an automated triage batch.