2026-05-05 — Yesterday I Learned
Don't Fight the Role
When Discord auto-selects @Hermes the role instead of the bot, the answer isn't a different typing habit — it's eliminating the ambiguity from the setup.
The reliable fix is not a different typing habit — it's changing the setup so the ambiguity goes away.
Fix the Setup, Not the Habit
Typing @Hermes in Discord to start a thread works — sometimes. Other times Discord's autocomplete lands on the Hermes role instead of the Hermes bot, based on whichever underlying ID it happens to select in the moment. The ambiguity is invisible until the bot doesn't respond, which is the worst time to find out. This is a recurring pattern with OpenClaw.
Hermes offered three ways out: make #hermes a free-response channel so no @mention is needed at all (recommended — least friction, since the channel is already bot-dedicated); rename the role from "Hermes" to something like "Hermes Access" so autocomplete unambiguously points to the bot; or patch Hermes to treat a role mention as a valid trigger. The quick fix is the free-response route.
The lesson generalizes: when a tool misbehaves intermittently based on something outside your control, adjusting your behavior around the ambiguity is the wrong frame. Remove the ambiguity from the setup and the problem stops existing.