openclaw/docs/cli/transcripts.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
CLI reference for `openclaw transcripts` (list, show, and locate stored transcripts)	You want to read stored transcript summaries from the terminal You need the path to a transcripts markdown summary You are debugging the core transcripts storage layout	Transcripts CLI

openclaw transcripts

Inspect transcripts written by OpenClaw's core transcripts tool. This CLI is read-only; capture, import, and summarization are owned by the agent tool and configured auto-start sources.

Use the CLI when you want to find yesterday's notes, open the Markdown file in an editor, feed a transcript to another tool, or debug where a session landed on disk. It does not start or stop capture.

Artifacts live under the OpenClaw state directory:

$OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/transcripts/YYYY-MM-DD/<session>/
  metadata.json
  transcript.jsonl
  summary.json
  summary.md

The default state directory is ~/.openclaw; set OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR to use a different one. The date directory comes from the session start time, and the session directory is a safe filesystem segment derived from the session id.

Commands

openclaw transcripts list
openclaw transcripts show <session>
openclaw transcripts show YYYY-MM-DD/<session>
openclaw transcripts path <session>
openclaw transcripts path YYYY-MM-DD/<session>
openclaw transcripts path <session> --dir
openclaw transcripts path <session> --metadata
openclaw transcripts path <session> --transcript
openclaw transcripts list --json
openclaw transcripts show <session> --json
openclaw transcripts path <session> --json

• list: list stored sessions, date-qualified selector, start time, title, and summary.md path.
• show <session>: print the stored summary.md.
• path <session>: print the summary.md path.
• path <session> --dir: print the session directory.
• path <session> --metadata: print metadata.json.
• path <session> --transcript: print transcript.jsonl.
• --json: print machine-readable output.

When a human session id repeats across days, use the date-qualified selector from list, for example openclaw transcripts show 2026-05-22/standup. Default session ids include a timestamp and random suffix; configure fixed session ids only when they are unique within the day.

Output

list prints one session per line:

2026-05-22/standup  2026-05-22T09:00:00.000Z  Weekly standup  /Users/alex/.openclaw/transcripts/2026-05-22/standup/summary.md

The output is tab-separated. The columns are selector, start time, title, and summary path. The selector is the safest value to pass back to show or path.

list --json prints objects with:

• sessionId
• selector
• date
• title
• startedAt
• stoppedAt
• source
• path
• summaryPath
• hasSummary

show --json returns the stored session metadata, selector, session directory, summary path, and summary Markdown text. path --json returns the selected path and whether that file exists.

Many meetings per day

Transcripts groups sessions by date, then by session id. Ten meetings on one day become ten sibling folders:

~/.openclaw/transcripts/2026-05-22/
  transcript-2026-05-22T09-00-00-000Z-a1b2c3d4/
  transcript-2026-05-22T10-30-00-000Z-b2c3d4e5/
  standup/

Use default generated ids for most automation. Use a fixed id such as standup only when the same id will not be used twice on the same date.

Missing summaries

Live sessions write summary.md when the session stops. Imported transcripts write summary.md immediately after import. A session can still appear in list without a summary when capture is active, a provider failed during stop, or metadata was written before any utterances arrived.

Use path <session> --transcript to inspect the append-only transcript, and use the transcripts tool action summarize to regenerate the Markdown summary.

Configuration

Transcript capture is opt-in because live sources can join and record meeting audio. Enable the tool with top-level transcripts.enabled:

{
  "transcripts": {
    "enabled": true,
    "maxUtterances": 2000
  }
}

Configure auto-start sources with transcripts.autoStart in openclaw.json. Each entry is enabled by being present; omit an entry to disable that source.

{
  "transcripts": {
    "enabled": true,
    "autoStart": [
      {
        "providerId": "discord-voice",
        "guildId": "1234567890",
        "channelId": "2345678901"
      },
      {
        "providerId": "slack-huddle",
        "accountId": "workspace",
        "channelId": "C123"
      }
    ]
  }
}