---
summary: "How OpenClaw remembers things across sessions"
title: "Memory overview"
read_when:
  - You want to understand how memory works
  - You want to know what memory files to write
---

OpenClaw remembers things by writing **plain Markdown files** in your agent's
workspace. The model only "remembers" what gets saved to disk — there is no
hidden state.

## How it works

Your agent has three memory-related files:

- **`MEMORY.md`** — long-term memory. Durable facts, preferences, and
  decisions. Loaded at the start of every DM session.
- **`memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md`** (or **`memory/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md`**) — daily notes.
  Running context and observations. Today and yesterday's notes are loaded
  automatically, and slugged variants such as those written by the bundled
  session-memory hook on `/new` or `/reset` are now picked up alongside the
  date-only file.
- **`DREAMS.md`** (optional) — Dream Diary and dreaming sweep
  summaries for human review, including grounded historical backfill entries.

These files live in the agent workspace (default `~/.openclaw/workspace`).

## What goes where

`MEMORY.md` is the compact, curated layer. Use it for durable facts,
preferences, standing decisions, and short summaries that should be available at
the start of a main private session. It is not meant to be a raw transcript,
daily log, or exhaustive archive.

`memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md` files are the working layer. Use them for detailed daily
notes, observations, session summaries, and raw context that may still be useful
later. These files are indexed for `memory_search` and `memory_get`, but they are
not injected into the normal bootstrap prompt on every turn.

Over time, the agent is expected to distill useful material from daily notes
into `MEMORY.md` and remove stale long-term entries. The generated workspace
instructions and heartbeat flow can do that periodically; you do not need to
manually edit `MEMORY.md` for every remembered detail.

If `MEMORY.md` grows past the bootstrap file budget, OpenClaw keeps the file on
disk intact but truncates the copy injected into the model context. Treat that as
a signal to move detailed material back into `memory/*.md`, keep only the
durable summary in `MEMORY.md`, or raise the bootstrap limits if you explicitly
want to spend more prompt budget. Use `/context list`, `/context detail`, or
`openclaw doctor` to see raw vs injected sizes and truncation status.

<Tip>
If you want your agent to remember something, just ask it: "Remember that I
prefer TypeScript." It will write it to the appropriate file.
</Tip>

## Action-sensitive memories

Most memories can be written as ordinary Markdown notes. But some memories affect what the agent should do later. For those, capture when it is safe to act on the note, not just the fact itself.

Capture that action boundary when a note involves:

- approval or permission requirements,
- temporary constraints,
- handoffs to another session, thread, or person,
- expiry conditions,
- safe-to-act timing,
- source or owner authority,
- instructions to avoid a tempting action.

A useful action-sensitive memory makes clear:

- what changes future behavior,
- when or under what condition it applies,
- when it expires, or what unlocks action,
- what the agent should avoid doing,
- who is the source or owner, if that affects trust or authority.

Memory can preserve approval context, but it does not enforce policy. Use OpenClaw approval settings, sandboxing, and scheduled tasks for hard operational controls.

Example:

```md
The API migration is being designed in another session. Future turns should not edit the API implementation from this thread; use findings here only as design input until the migration plan lands.
```

Another example:

```md
A report from an untrusted source needs review before promotion. Future turns should treat it as evidence only; do not store it as durable memory until a trusted reviewer confirms the contents.
```

Use [commitments](/concepts/commitments) for inferred, short-lived follow-ups. Use [scheduled tasks](/automation/cron-jobs) for exact reminders, timed checks, and recurring work. Memory can still summarize the durable context around either path.

This is not a required schema for every memory. Simple facts can stay concise. Use action-sensitive boundaries when losing timing, authority, expiry, or safe-to-act context could cause the agent to do the wrong thing later.

## Inferred commitments

Some future follow-ups are not durable facts. If you mention an interview
tomorrow, the useful memory may be "check in after the interview," not "store
this forever in `MEMORY.md`."

[Commitments](/concepts/commitments) are opt-in, short-lived follow-up memories
for that case. OpenClaw infers them in a hidden background pass, scopes them to
the same agent and channel, and delivers due check-ins through heartbeat.
Explicit reminders still use [scheduled tasks](/automation/cron-jobs).

## Memory tools

The agent has two tools for working with memory:

- **`memory_search`** — finds relevant notes using semantic search, even when
  the wording differs from the original.
- **`memory_get`** — reads a specific memory file or line range.

Both tools are provided by the active memory plugin (default: `memory-core`).

## Memory Wiki companion plugin

If you want durable memory to behave more like a maintained knowledge base than
just raw notes, use the bundled `memory-wiki` plugin.

`memory-wiki` compiles durable knowledge into a wiki vault with:

- deterministic page structure
- structured claims and evidence
- contradiction and freshness tracking
- generated dashboards
- compiled digests for agent/runtime consumers
- wiki-native tools like `wiki_search`, `wiki_get`, `wiki_apply`, and `wiki_lint`

It does not replace the active memory plugin. The active memory plugin still
owns recall, promotion, and dreaming. `memory-wiki` adds a provenance-rich
knowledge layer beside it.

See [Memory Wiki](/plugins/memory-wiki).

## Memory search

When an embedding provider is configured, `memory_search` uses **hybrid
search** — combining vector similarity (semantic meaning) with keyword matching
(exact terms like IDs and code symbols). This works out of the box once you have
an API key for any supported provider.

<Info>
OpenClaw uses OpenAI embeddings by default. Set
`agents.defaults.memorySearch.provider` explicitly to use Gemini, Voyage,
Mistral, local, Ollama, Bedrock, GitHub Copilot, or OpenAI-compatible
embeddings.
</Info>

For details on how search works, tuning options, and provider setup, see
[Memory Search](/concepts/memory-search).

## Memory backends

<CardGroup cols={3}>
<Card title="Builtin (default)" icon="database" href="/concepts/memory-builtin">
SQLite-based. Works out of the box with keyword search, vector similarity, and
hybrid search. No extra dependencies.
</Card>
<Card title="QMD" icon="search" href="/concepts/memory-qmd">
Local-first sidecar with reranking, query expansion, and the ability to index
directories outside the workspace.
</Card>
<Card title="Honcho" icon="brain" href="/concepts/memory-honcho">
AI-native cross-session memory with user modeling, semantic search, and
multi-agent awareness. Plugin install.
</Card>
<Card title="LanceDB" icon="layers" href="/plugins/memory-lancedb">
Bundled LanceDB-backed memory with OpenAI-compatible embeddings, auto-recall,
auto-capture, and local Ollama embedding support.
</Card>
</CardGroup>

## Knowledge wiki layer

<CardGroup cols={1}>
<Card title="Memory Wiki" icon="book" href="/plugins/memory-wiki">
Compiles durable memory into a provenance-rich wiki vault with claims,
dashboards, bridge mode, and Obsidian-friendly workflows.
</Card>
</CardGroup>

## Automatic memory flush

Before [compaction](/concepts/compaction) summarizes your conversation, OpenClaw
runs a silent turn that reminds the agent to save important context to memory
files. This is on by default — you do not need to configure anything.

To keep that housekeeping turn on a local model, set an exact memory-flush model
override:

```json
{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "compaction": {
        "memoryFlush": {
          "model": "ollama/qwen3:8b"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
```

The override applies only to the memory-flush turn and does not inherit the
active session fallback chain.

<Tip>
The memory flush prevents context loss during compaction. If your agent has
important facts in the conversation that are not yet written to a file, they
will be saved automatically before the summary happens.
</Tip>

## Dreaming

Dreaming is an optional background consolidation pass for memory. It collects
short-term signals, scores candidates, and promotes only qualified items into
long-term memory (`MEMORY.md`).

It is designed to keep long-term memory high signal:

- **Opt-in**: disabled by default.
- **Scheduled**: when enabled, `memory-core` auto-manages one recurring cron job
  for a full dreaming sweep.
- **Thresholded**: promotions must pass score, recall frequency, and query
  diversity gates.
- **Reviewable**: phase summaries and diary entries are written to `DREAMS.md`
  for human review.

For phase behavior, scoring signals, and Dream Diary details, see
[Dreaming](/concepts/dreaming).

## Grounded backfill and live promotion

The dreaming system now has two closely related review lanes:

- **Live dreaming** works from the short-term dreaming store under
  `memory/.dreams/` and is what the normal deep phase uses when deciding what
  can graduate into `MEMORY.md`.
- **Grounded backfill** reads historical `memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md` notes as
  standalone day files and writes structured review output into `DREAMS.md`.

Grounded backfill is useful when you want to replay older notes and inspect what
the system thinks is durable without manually editing `MEMORY.md`.

When you use:

```bash
openclaw memory rem-backfill --path ./memory --stage-short-term
```

the grounded durable candidates are not promoted directly. They are staged into
the same short-term dreaming store the normal deep phase already uses. That
means:

- `DREAMS.md` stays the human review surface.
- the short-term store stays the machine-facing ranking surface.
- `MEMORY.md` is still only written by deep promotion.

If you decide the replay was not useful, you can remove the staged artifacts
without touching ordinary diary entries or normal recall state:

```bash
openclaw memory rem-backfill --rollback
openclaw memory rem-backfill --rollback-short-term
```

## CLI

```bash
openclaw memory status          # Check index status and provider
openclaw memory search "query"  # Search from the command line
openclaw memory index --force   # Rebuild the index
```

## Further reading

- [Builtin memory engine](/concepts/memory-builtin): default SQLite backend.
- [QMD memory engine](/concepts/memory-qmd): advanced local-first sidecar.
- [Honcho memory](/concepts/memory-honcho): AI-native cross-session memory.
- [Memory LanceDB](/plugins/memory-lancedb): LanceDB-backed plugin with OpenAI-compatible embeddings.
- [Memory Wiki](/plugins/memory-wiki): compiled knowledge vault and wiki-native tools.
- [Memory search](/concepts/memory-search): search pipeline, providers, and tuning.
- [Dreaming](/concepts/dreaming): background promotion from short-term recall to long-term memory.
- [Memory configuration reference](/reference/memory-config): all config knobs.
- [Compaction](/concepts/compaction): how compaction interacts with memory.

## Related

- [Active memory](/concepts/active-memory)
- [Memory search](/concepts/memory-search)
- [Builtin memory engine](/concepts/memory-builtin)
- [Honcho memory](/concepts/memory-honcho)
- [Memory LanceDB](/plugins/memory-lancedb)
- [Commitments](/concepts/commitments)
