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CLI commands

Memory

openclaw memory

Manage semantic memory indexing, search, and promotion into MEMORY.md. Provided by the bundled memory-core plugin, available when plugins.slots.memory selects memory-core (the default). Other memory plugins expose their own CLI namespaces.

Related: Memory concept, Dreaming, Memory config reference, Memory Wiki, wiki, Plugins.

memory status

bash
openclaw memory status [--agent <id>] [--deep] [--index] [--fix] [--json] [--verbose]

Without --agent, runs for every agent in agents.entries; if no agent list is configured, falls back to the default agent.

Flag Effect
--deep Probe vector-store, embedding-provider, and semantic-search readiness (implies extra provider calls). Plain memory status stays fast and skips this; unknown vector/semantic state means it was not probed. QMD lexical searchMode: "search" always skips semantic vector probes, even with --deep.
--index Reindex if the store is dirty. Implies --deep.
--fix Repair stale recall locks and normalize promotion metadata.
--json Print JSON.
--verbose Emit detailed per-phase logs.

If the Dreaming line stays off even with dreaming.enabled: true, or scheduled sweeps never seem to run, the managed dreaming cron depends on the default agent's heartbeat firing to trigger reconciliation. See Dreaming for scheduling details.

Status also lists any extra search paths from memory.search.extraPaths.

memory index

bash
openclaw memory index [--agent <id>] [--force] [--verbose]

Same per-agent scoping as status. --force runs a full reindex instead of an incremental one. --verbose prints per-agent provider, model, sources, and extra-path details before showing indexing progress.

bash
openclaw memory search [query] [--query <text>] [--agent <id>] [--max-results <n>] [--min-score <n>] [--json]
  • Query: positional [query] or --query <text>. If both are set, --query wins. If neither is set, the command errors.
  • --agent <id>: defaults to the default agent (not the full agent list).
  • --max-results <n>: cap result count (positive integer).
  • --min-score <n>: filter out matches below this score.

memory promote

Rank short-term candidates from memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md and optionally append top entries to MEMORY.md.

bash
openclaw memory promote [--agent <id>] [--limit <n>] [--min-score <n>] \  [--min-recall-count <n>] [--min-unique-queries <n>] [--apply] [--include-promoted] [--json]
Flag Default Effect
--limit <n> Max candidates to return/apply.
--min-score <n> 0.75 Minimum weighted promotion score.
--min-recall-count <n> 3 Minimum recall count required.
--min-unique-queries <n> 3 Minimum distinct query count required.
--apply preview only Append selected candidates to MEMORY.md and mark them promoted.
--include-promoted Include candidates already promoted in previous cycles.
--json Print JSON.

The CLI and scheduled dreaming sweep share the deep-phase defaults below. Explicit CLI flags override them for a one-off manual run.

Ranking signals: recall frequency, retrieval relevance, query diversity, temporal recency, cross-day consolidation, and derived concept richness, drawn from both memory recalls and daily-ingestion passes, plus a light/REM phase reinforcement boost for repeated dreaming revisits. Before writing, promotion re-reads the live daily note, so edits or deletions to short-term snippets since ranking are respected instead of promoting from a stale snapshot.

memory promote-explain

Explain one promotion candidate's score breakdown.

bash
openclaw memory promote-explain <selector> [--agent <id>] [--include-promoted] [--json]

<selector> matches a candidate's key (exact or substring), path, or snippet text.

memory rem-harness

Preview REM reflections, candidate truths, and deep-phase promotion output without writing anything.

bash
openclaw memory rem-harness [--agent <id>] [--path <file-or-dir>] [--grounded] [--include-promoted] [--json]
  • --path <file-or-dir>: seed the harness from historical YYYY-MM-DD.md daily files instead of the live workspace.
  • --grounded: also render a grounded What Happened / Reflections / Possible Lasting Updates preview from the historical notes.

memory rem-backfill

Write grounded historical REM summaries into DREAMS.md for UI review. Reversible.

bash
openclaw memory rem-backfill --path <file-or-dir> [--agent <id>] [--stage-short-term] [--json]openclaw memory rem-backfill --rollback [--rollback-short-term] [--json]
  • --path <file-or-dir>: required unless --rollback/--rollback-short-term is set. Historical daily memory file(s) or directory to backfill from.
  • --stage-short-term: also seed grounded durable candidates into the live short-term promotion store so the normal deep phase can rank them.
  • --rollback: remove previously written grounded diary entries from DREAMS.md.
  • --rollback-short-term: remove previously staged grounded short-term candidates.

memory session-backfill

Distill retained session history through the same provenance and short-term staging pipeline used by dreaming. The default is a read-only preview, ordered from the oldest unprocessed day to the newest.

bash
openclaw memory session-backfill --agent <id> [--from YYYY-MM-DD] [--to YYYY-MM-DD] \  [--limit-days <n>] [--archive-files <path...>] [--rem | --apply] [--json]openclaw memory session-backfill --agent <id> --rollback [--json]
Flag Default Effect
--from YYYY-MM-DD Include messages on or after this day in the dreaming timezone.
--to YYYY-MM-DD Include messages on or before this day in the dreaming timezone.
--limit-days <n> 92 Process at most this many hash-untracked days, oldest first.
--archive-files <path...> Also inspect foreign transcript files as untrusted input; embedded owner metadata is not accepted.
--rem Write deterministic grounded per-day previews to DREAMS.md only.
--apply preview only Stage trusted candidates and write reversible DREAMS.md diary blocks.
--rollback Remove all grounded backfill candidates and shared backfill diary blocks, including rem-backfill artifacts.
--json Print machine-readable per-day counts and top candidates.

The command reads the selected agent's canonical session store, including retained SQLite transcript identities from session rotation. It uses the same tracked message hashes and per-run caps as live session ingestion, so repeated --apply runs skip already ingested messages. Owner and agent lines from the canonical store are eligible; tool output, web or non-owner input, and turns without trustworthy owner provenance are excluded. Foreign archive files have no authenticated owner-provenance contract, so their embedded ownership fields remain untrusted and cannot be staged.

--apply writes only the session corpus under memory/.dreams/, short-term staging state, and reversible diary entries in DREAMS.md. It never writes MEMORY.md or USER.md; durable promotion remains a separate memory promote or dreaming decision. --rem and --apply are mutually exclusive.

Backfill rollback is intentionally shared with memory rem-backfill: both commands use the same grounded-only staging class and diary markers. Run session-backfill --rollback only when you intend to clear both commands' grounded backfill artifacts from that workspace. Rollback preserves transcript ingestion cursors and tracked message hashes, so removed messages are not automatically re-ingested.

Dreaming

Dreaming is the background memory consolidation system with three cooperative phases, run in order on one schedule: light (sort/stage short-term material), REM (reflect and surface themes), deep (promote durable facts into MEMORY.md). Only deep writes to MEMORY.md.

  • Enable with plugins.entries.memory-core.config.dreaming.enabled: true (default true); memory-core auto-manages the sweep cron job, no manual openclaw cron add required.
  • Toggle from chat with /dreaming on|off; inspect with /dreaming status (or /dreaming//dreaming help). on/off requires channel owner status or gateway operator.admin; status and help stay available to anyone who can invoke the command.
  • Human-readable phase output goes to DREAMS.md (or an existing dreams.md). By default (dreaming.storage.mode: "separate") each phase also writes a standalone report to memory/dreaming/<phase>/YYYY-MM-DD.md; set mode: "inline" to fold reports into the daily memory file instead, or "both" for both.
  • Scheduled and manual memory promote runs share the same deep-phase ranking signals and default thresholds; explicit CLI flags remain one-run overrides.
  • Scheduled runs fan out across every configured agent's memory workspace.

Scheduled defaults (plugins.entries.memory-core.config.dreaming):

Key Default
frequency 0 3 * * *
phases.deep.minScore 0.75
phases.deep.minRecallCount 3
phases.deep.minUniqueQueries 3
phases.deep.recencyHalfLifeDays 14
phases.deep.maxAgeDays 30
phases.deep.maxPromotedSnippetTokens 160
json
{  "plugins": {    "entries": {      "memory-core": {        "config": {          "dreaming": {            "enabled": true          }        }      }    }  }}

Full key list and phase details: Dreaming, Memory config reference.

SecretRef gateway dependency

If active memory remote API key fields are configured as SecretRefs, memory commands resolve them from the active gateway snapshot; if the gateway is unavailable, the command fails fast. This requires a gateway supporting the secrets.resolve method; older gateways return an unknown-method error.

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