memory-distiller 🧠

The subconscious of your OpenClaw agent. Automatically distills fleeting conversation moments into permanent wisdom.

Most agents wake up blank. memory-distiller changes that — it automatically identifies what's worth remembering during each conversation, writes it to persistent memory files, and creates a true learning loop. Your agent gets smarter every session.

Why You Need It

OpenClaw natively has MEMORY.md and memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md, but updating them requires manual effort.

The problem: You correct the agent, it says "got it", and makes the same mistake next session.

memory-distiller closes this loop:

Automatically scans conversations for "worth remembering" signals
Applies a quality gate to filter out one-time, temporary information
Writes structured entries to memory files automatically

How It Fits With proactive-agent

| Skill | Role | Responsibility | |-------|------|----------------| | proactive-agent | Butler | Real-time detail capture (WAL), proactive behaviors, Heartbeat | | memory-distiller | Historian | Post-conversation reflection, distilling lessons into long-term memory |

One line: proactive-agent owns the present. memory-distiller owns the future.

Trigger Conditions

Auto-Triggers (scan every user message for these signals)

| Type | Signal Words | Example | |------|-------------|---------| | 🔴 Correction | "wrong", "not right", "no, I meant", "actually", "stop doing" | "No, that command is wrong" | | 💚 Preference | "I prefer", "always use", "don't use", "from now on", "by default" | "Always send reports as attachments" | | 💡 Insight | "the issue was", "turns out", "the key is", "got it", "solved" | "Turns out Feishu doesn't render Markdown" | | 📌 Explicit | "remember this", "save this", "note that", "write this down" | "Remember this config" |

Manual Trigger

When the user says any of the following, immediately distill the session:

"remember this" / "save this" / "note that"
"write down what we just learned" / "distill this session"

Quality Gate (All 4 Must Pass)

Before writing anything, check these 4 gates:

Durability — Will this still be valuable in 24 hours? (Skip one-time context)
Generality — Is this a reusable rule, or a one-off special case? (Prefer rules)
Novelty — Does MEMORY.md already contain this? (Avoid duplicates; update if stale)
Actionability — Can this guide future behavior? (Skip vague impressions; only concrete rules)

Don't record (examples):

"Today we researched LangChain" → one-time, no guidance value
"User is in Shanghai" → already in USER.md, duplicate

Do record (examples):

"clawhub install only accepts slugs, not GitHub URLs" → actionable rule
"Feishu chat does NOT render Markdown — long reports must be sent as attachments or doc links" → prevents repeated mistakes

Memory Write Format

Where to Write

| Content Type | Target File | |-------------|-------------| | Today's new discoveries, lessons | memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md | | Important rules, persistent preferences | MEMORY.md (relevant section) | | User personal info / preferences | USER.md |

Entry Format

### 🧠 Auto-Learned [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM]
- **Type:** Correction / Preference / Insight / Explicit
- **Trigger:** One sentence explaining what triggered this
- **Rule:** Specific, actionable rule that can directly guide future behavior

Example:

### 🧠 Auto-Learned [2026-03-02 00:30]
- **Type:** Correction
- **Trigger:** User corrected the install command format
- **Rule:** `clawhub install` only accepts slugs (e.g. claw-multi-agent), not GitHub URLs

Execution Flow

User message arrives
    ↓
Scan for trigger signals (Correction / Preference / Insight / Explicit)
    ↓
Signal detected?
    ├─ No  → Reply normally, no action
    └─ Yes → Apply quality gate
                ↓
            All 4 gates pass?
                ├─ No  → Discard, reply normally
                └─ Yes → Distill into structured memory entry
                            ↓
                        Write to target file
                            ↓
                        Reply normally
                        (silent unless explicitly triggered)

Behavioral Rules

When to Notify the User

Auto-triggered → Write silently, do NOT say "I've noted that" — don't interrupt the flow
Explicitly triggered → Confirm with one line: "✅ Noted." + brief summary of what was recorded

When NOT to Record

User says "suppose...", "hypothetically...", "for example..." → hypothetical, skip
System errors, network timeouts → environment issues, not learnable rules
Content already fully documented in MEMORY.md → don't duplicate; update if stale

Privacy Filter

Never write the following to any memory file, even if the user asks:

Passwords, tokens, API keys
Personal identification info (ID numbers, bank accounts, etc.)
Sensitive information about third parties

Installation

npx clawhub@latest install memory-distiller

Zero configuration. Restart your OpenClaw session after installation.

Recommended Pairing

| Skill | Purpose | |-------|---------| | proactive-agent | Real-time WAL protocol + proactive behaviors | | memory-distiller | Post-conversation automatic experience distillation (this skill) |

Together: never lose present details, never repeat past mistakes.

Design Philosophy

Inspired by Claudeception (a Claude Code self-learning plugin), redesigned from scratch for OpenClaw's architecture and memory model.

Core belief:

An agent should never be tripped up by the same problem twice.

Every correction is a learning opportunity. memory-distiller ensures none of them go to waste.

Academic foundation: Voyager (2023), CASCADE (2024), SEAgent (2025), Reflexion (2023) — all point to the same conclusion: agents that persist and reflect on their learning dramatically outperform those that start fresh every time.

Designed with 🐝 claw-multi-agent — 3 parallel agents, 28s