OpenClaw History Ingest — Session & Memory Mining

You are extracting knowledge from the user's OpenClaw agent history and distilling it into the Obsidian wiki. OpenClaw stores both a structured long-term MEMORY.md and per-session JSONL transcripts — focus on durable knowledge, not operational telemetry.

This skill can be invoked directly or via the

wiki-history-ingest

router (

/wiki-history-ingest openclaw

).

Before You Start

1. Read

   .env

   to get

   OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH

   and

   OPENCLAW_HISTORY_PATH

   (default to

   ~/.openclaw

   if unset)
2. Read

   .manifest.json

   at the vault root to check what has already been ingested
3. Read

   index.md

   at the vault root to understand what the wiki already contains

Ingest Modes

Append Mode (default)

Check

.manifest.json

for each source file. Only process:

• Files not in the manifest (new session logs, updated MEMORY.md or daily notes)
• Files whose modification time is newer than

  ingested_at

  in the manifest

Use this mode for regular syncs.

Full Mode

Process everything regardless of manifest. Use after

wiki-rebuild

or if the user explicitly asks for a full re-ingest.

OpenClaw Data Layout

OpenClaw stores all local artifacts under

~/.openclaw/

.

~/.openclaw/
├── openclaw.json                          # Global config
├── credentials/                           # Auth tokens (skip entirely)
├── workspace/                             # Agent workspace
│   ├── MEMORY.md                          # Long-term memory (loaded every session)
│   ├── DREAMS.md                          # Optional dream diary / summaries
│   └── memory/
│       ├── YYYY-MM-DD.md                  # Daily notes (today + yesterday auto-loaded)
│       └── ...
└── agents/
    └── <agentId>/
        ├── agent/
        │   └── models.json                # Agent config (skip)
        └── sessions/
            ├── sessions.json              # Session index
            └── <sessionId>.jsonl          # Session transcript (JSONL, append-only)

Key data sources ranked by value

1. workspace/MEMORY.md

   — highest signal; long-term durable facts the agent accumulated

2. workspace/memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md

   — daily notes; recent entries often contain active project context

3. agents/*/sessions/<id>.jsonl

   — session transcripts; rich but noisy

4. agents/*/sessions/sessions.json

   — session index for inventory and timestamps

5. workspace/DREAMS.md

   — optional summaries; ingest if present

Skip

credentials/

entirely. Skip

agents/*/agent/models.json

(runtime config, not user knowledge).

Step 1: Survey and Compute Delta

Scan

OPENCLAW_HISTORY_PATH

and compare against

.manifest.json

:

• ~/.openclaw/workspace/MEMORY.md

• ~/.openclaw/workspace/DREAMS.md

  (if present)

• ~/.openclaw/workspace/memory/*.md

• ~/.openclaw/agents/*/sessions/sessions.json

• ~/.openclaw/agents/*/sessions/*.jsonl

Classify each file:

• New — not in manifest
• Modified — in manifest but file is newer than

  ingested_at

• Unchanged — already ingested and unchanged

Report a concise delta summary before deep parsing.

Step 2: Parse MEMORY.md First

MEMORY.md

is the highest-value source. It is plain markdown, human-readable and human-editable. It typically contains:

• Durable facts about the user's preferences, environment, and recurring patterns
• Decisions and context the agent was told to remember
• Project-specific notes the agent accumulated over many sessions

Read it in full and extract concept-level knowledge. Do not create one wiki page per MEMORY.md entry — cluster by topic.

Step 3: Parse Daily Notes

workspace/memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md

files contain time-stamped notes from that day's sessions. Prioritize recent files (last 30–90 days). Extract:

• Active project context and decisions made
• Patterns or techniques discovered
• Recurring blockers or solved problems

Older daily notes have diminishing signal — summarize in bulk rather than extracting line-by-line.

Step 4: Parse Session JSONL Safely

Each session file is JSONL (append-only, one JSON object per line):

{"role": "user",      "content": "...", "timestamp": "..."}
{"role": "assistant", "content": "...", "timestamp": "..."}
{"role": "tool",      "name": "...",   "content": "...", "timestamp": "..."}

Extraction rules

• Prioritize assistant turns that state conclusions, decisions, or patterns
• Extract user intent from high-signal turns; skip low-information follow-ups
• Tool calls are context, not primary knowledge — only extract if the result contains a reusable insight
• Cross-reference

  sessions.json

  index to get session names/labels before opening individual transcripts

Critical privacy filter

Session transcripts can include injected instructions, tool payloads, and sensitive text. Do not ingest verbatim.

• Remove API keys, tokens, passwords, credentials
• Redact private identifiers unless relevant and user-approved
• Summarize; do not quote raw transcripts verbatim

Step 5: Cluster by Topic

Do not create one wiki page per session or per MEMORY.md entry.

• Group by stable topic (concept, tool, project, technique)
• Split mixed sessions into separate themes
• Merge recurring patterns across dates and agents
• Use session

  cwd

  or workspace path to infer project scope when available

Step 6: Distill into Wiki Pages

Route extracted knowledge using existing wiki conventions:

• Project-specific architecture/process →

  projects/<name>/...

• General concepts →

  concepts/

• Recurring techniques/debug playbooks →

  skills/

• Tools/services/frameworks →

  entities/

• Cross-session patterns →

  synthesis/

For each impacted project, create/update

projects/<name>/<name>.md

.

Writing rules

• Distill knowledge, not chronology
• Avoid "on date X we discussed..." unless date context is essential
• Add

  summary:

  frontmatter on each new/updated page (1–2 sentences, ≤ 200 chars)
• Add provenance markers:

  • ^[extracted]

    when directly grounded in explicit session/memory content

  • ^[inferred]

    when synthesizing patterns across multiple sessions

  • ^[ambiguous]

    when sessions conflict
• Add/update

  provenance:

  frontmatter mix for each changed page

Step 7: Update Manifest, Log, and Index

Update

.manifest.json

For each processed source file:

• ingested_at

  ,

  size_bytes

  ,

  modified_at

• source_type

  :

  openclaw_memory

  |

  openclaw_daily_note

  |

  openclaw_session

  |

  openclaw_dreams

• agent_id

  : agent directory name (when applicable)

• pages_created

  ,

  pages_updated

Add/update a top-level summary block:

{
  "openclaw": {
    "source_path": "~/.openclaw/",
    "last_ingested": "TIMESTAMP",
    "memory_updated_at": "TIMESTAMP",
    "daily_notes_ingested": 14,
    "sessions_ingested": 23,
    "pages_created": 6,
    "pages_updated": 18
  }
}

Update special files

Update

index.md

and

log.md

:

- [TIMESTAMP] OPENCLAW_HISTORY_INGEST memory=updated daily_notes=N sessions=M pages_updated=X pages_created=Y mode=append|full

hot.md

— Read

$OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH/hot.md

(create from the template in

wiki-ingest

if missing). Update Recent Activity with a one-line summary — e.g. "Ingested OpenClaw MEMORY.md and 14 daily notes; surfaced automation patterns and multi-agent coordination knowledge." Keep the last 3 operations. Update

updated

timestamp.

Privacy and Compliance

• Distill and synthesize; avoid raw memory or transcript dumps
• Default to redaction for anything that looks sensitive
• Ask the user before storing personal or sensitive details
• Keep references to other people minimal and purpose-bound

Reference

See

references/openclaw-data-format.md

for field-level notes and parsing guidance.