Agent Life — Backup, Sync, and Restore

The alf CLI backs up, syncs, and restores your agent's memory, identity, credentials, and workspace files to the cloud using the Agent Life Format (ALF). All commands output JSON to stdout. Progress goes to stderr. See https://agent-life.ai

Install

Download and install the alf binary from GitHub Releases:

# Option 1: Download, inspect, then run the install script (recommended)
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agent-life/agent-life-adapters/main/scripts/install.sh -o install-alf.sh
cat install-alf.sh    # inspect the script
sh install-alf.sh     # run it

# Option 2: Direct binary download (no install script)
# See platform binaries at: https://github.com/agent-life/agent-life-adapters/releases/latest

Source code: https://github.com/agent-life/agent-life-adapters (MIT license, open source) Install script source: https://github.com/agent-life/agent-life-adapters/blob/main/scripts/install.sh

The install script detects your platform, downloads the binary, verifies the SHA256 checksum, and installs to /usr/local/bin/alf (or ~/.local/bin/alf without root). Stdout is JSON:

{"ok":true,"version":"v0.2.0","installed_version":"alf 0.2.0","path":"/usr/local/bin/alf","checksum_verified":true}

Verify: alf --version

Authenticate

Get an API key at https://agent-life.ai/settings/api-keys, then store it:

alf login --key \x3Cyour-api-key>

Output:

{"ok":true,"key_masked":"alf_sk_1...cdef","config_path":"/home/user/.alf/config.toml"}

Check Environment

Before syncing, run alf check to verify the environment and auto-discover the workspace:

alf check -r openclaw

The command auto-discovers the workspace path from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json or ~/.alf/config.toml. To specify a workspace explicitly:

alf check -r openclaw -w /path/to/workspace

Key fields in the JSON output:

If ready_to_sync is false, read issues[] for what to fix. Each issue has a fix field with the exact command or action to resolve it.

Core Workflows

Pre-flight check then sync (recommended)

check=$(alf check -r openclaw)
ready=$(echo "$check" | jq -r '.ready_to_sync')
ws=$(echo "$check" | jq -r '.workspace.path')

if [ "$ready" = "true" ]; then
    alf sync -r openclaw -w "$ws"
else
    echo "$check" | jq -r '.issues[] | "[\(.severity)] \(.message)\
  Fix: \(.fix)"' >&2
fi

First-time backup

Export creates a local .alf archive, then sync uploads it to the cloud:

alf export -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace>
alf sync -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace>

Export output:

{"ok":true,"output":"agent-export.alf","agent_name":"Atlas","alf_version":"1.0.0-rc.1","memory_records":47,"file_size":102400}

Sync output (first sync — full snapshot):

{"ok":true,"sequence":0,"delta":false,"changes":null,"snapshot_path":"/home/user/.alf/state/abc-snapshot.alf","no_changes":false}

Incremental sync

After the first sync, subsequent syncs upload only what changed:

alf sync -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace>

Output:

{"ok":true,"sequence":5,"delta":true,"changes":{"creates":2,"updates":1,"deletes":0},"snapshot_path":"/home/user/.alf/state/abc-snapshot.alf","no_changes":false}

Restore from cloud

Download the latest state and restore to a workspace:

alf restore -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace>

If multiple agents are tracked locally, specify which one:

alf restore -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace> -a \x3Cagent-id>

Output:

{"ok":true,"agent_id":"a1b2c3d4","agent_name":"Atlas","sequence":5,"runtime":"openclaw","memory_records":47,"workspace":"/home/user/.openclaw/workspace","warnings":[]}

Import an archive

Import an .alf file into a workspace without going through the cloud:

alf import -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace> backup.alf

Validate an archive

Check an .alf file against the ALF JSON schemas:

alf validate backup.alf

Output:

{"ok":true,"valid":true,"errors":[],"warnings":[]}

Common Errors and Fixes

Environment Status

Check full environment and service status:

alf help status

Output includes config_exists, api_key_set, service_reachable, tracked agents[] with last_synced_sequence, and agent_service_status[] with online and server_latest_sequence.

Full Reference

For complete flag documentation, JSON output schemas, and error codes:

• Agent-readable: https://agent-life.ai/docs/cli.md
• Human-readable: https://agent-life.ai/docs/cli

Data and Privacy

This skill uploads agent data to the agent-life.ai cloud service. Here is exactly what is sent:

Uploaded: Memory records (daily logs, curated memory, project notes), identity files (SOUL.md, IDENTITY.md), principals (USER.md), workspace config files (AGENTS.md, TOOLS.md, etc.).

NOT uploaded: Actual secrets (API keys, tokens, passwords) are never read or transmitted. The alf CLI only exports credential metadata — service names and labels (e.g. "GitHub API key: configured") — never the secret values themselves. Session transcripts and chat history are not uploaded.

Review before uploading: You can inspect exactly what will be uploaded before any data leaves your machine:

alf export -r openclaw -w \x3Cworkspace>   # creates a local .alf archive
alf validate agent-export.alf           # check the archive structure

The .alf archive is a standard file you can inspect. Nothing is uploaded until you explicitly run alf sync.

Config files read: The alf CLI reads ~/.alf/config.toml (its own config) and ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json (to auto-discover the workspace path). These paths are declared in the skill's requires.config metadata. No other files outside the workspace directory are read.

Storage: All data is encrypted at rest (AES-256 via AWS KMS, per-tenant keys). Data is stored in AWS S3 (blobs) and Neon Postgres (metadata), both in the US.

Access: Only the authenticated user (API key holder) can read or delete their data. There is no shared access, no analytics on user data, and no third-party data sharing.

Deletion: Delete individual agents via the web dashboard at agent-life.ai or via DELETE /v1/agents/:id. Account deletion removes all data.

API key scope: The ALF_API_KEY authenticates to your agent-life.ai account. It can only access data belonging to that account. Keys can be revoked and rotated at https://agent-life.ai/settings/api-keys.

Privacy policy: https://agent-life.ai/privacy

Environment Variables

File Locations