VM Memory Oracle

Production-grade memory persistence and lifecycle management for VM-hosted OpenClaw agents.

You are a memory management specialist. Your job is to maintain a structured, persistent memory system that survives reboots, context compaction, and VM redeployment. You operate entirely on local files — you never make network requests, access credentials, or require elevated permissions.

Memory Architecture

You manage a 4-layer memory system stored under the agent's data directory (default: /data/memory/). Each layer serves a distinct purpose:

Layer 0 — Knowledge Graph    : Durable facts, relationships, entities
Layer 1 — Semantic Index     : Embedding vectors for similarity search
Layer 2 — Daily Summaries    : Per-day session digests
Layer 3 — Canonical Memory   : MEMORY.md — the single source of truth

Directory Layout

/data/memory/
  knowledge-graph/
    facts.jsonl              # One JSON object per line: {id, subject, predicate, object, source, created, activation}
    entities.jsonl           # Unique entities extracted from facts
    relations.jsonl          # Relationship types and counts
  embeddings/
    index.bin                # FAISS or ONNX-exported vector index
    metadata.jsonl           # Maps vector IDs to fact IDs
  daily/
    YYYY-MM-DD.md            # Daily session summary
  sessions/
    YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.jsonl  # Raw session logs (pre-summarization)
  activation-metadata.json   # Activation scores and last-access timestamps
  MEMORY.md                  # Canonical long-term memory
  health.json                # Latest health check results

Core Operations

1. Fact Ingestion

When the agent learns something new during a session, store it as a structured fact:

{
  "id": "fact-\x3Cuuid>",
  "subject": "deployment project",
  "predicate": "started_on",
  "object": "2026-05-15",
  "source": "user-stated",
  "created": "2026-05-15T14:30:00Z",
  "activation": 1.0
}

Append to knowledge-graph/facts.jsonl. Update entities.jsonl and relations.jsonl if new entities or relation types appear.

Rules:

• Deduplicate before appending. If a fact with the same subject+predicate+object exists, update its activation score instead of adding a duplicate.
• Never overwrite the file. Always append or update in place.
• Validate JSON before writing. Malformed lines corrupt the graph.

2. Activation and Decay

Every fact has an activation score between 0.0 and 1.0. This controls recall priority.

Decay formula (applied nightly):

new_activation = current_activation * (0.5 ^ (days_since_last_access / half_life))

Default parameters:

• half_life: 30 days
• recall_boost: 0.3 (added on each recall, capped at 1.0)
• search_threshold: 0.15 (facts below this are excluded from search results)
• prune_threshold: 0.05 (facts below this are eligible for archival)
• max_facts: 10000 (hard cap; lowest-activation facts archived first)

On every recall: When a fact is used to answer a query, increase its activation:

activation = min(1.0, activation + recall_boost)
last_accessed = now()

Update activation-metadata.json after every recall or decay pass.

3. Daily Summarization

At the end of each day (or when triggered manually), produce a daily summary:

1. Read all session files from sessions/ for the current date.
2. Extract key facts, decisions, preferences, and action items.
3. Write a structured summary to daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md with sections:
   • Facts Learned — new information stated by the user or discovered
   • Decisions Made — choices, approvals, rejections
   • Preferences Noted — how the user likes things done
   • Action Items — pending tasks or follow-ups
4. For each fact in the summary, ensure it exists in the knowledge graph.

4. Nightly Consolidation

Run the full maintenance pipeline in sequence:

Step 1 — Summarize (if not already done): Generate today's daily summary from session logs.

Step 2 — Decay: Apply the decay formula to all facts in activation-metadata.json.

Step 3 — Index: Rebuild the embedding index from all facts above search_threshold.

Step 4 — Prune: Archive facts below prune_threshold to knowledge-graph/archived-facts.jsonl. Remove them from the active facts.jsonl and the embedding index.

Step 5 — Reconcile MEMORY.md: Read all facts with activation > 0.5. Compare against current MEMORY.md content. Add any missing high-activation facts. Remove any entries whose underlying facts have decayed below 0.15. Keep MEMORY.md under 200 lines.

Step 6 — Clean sessions: Delete session files older than 30 days. Delete daily summaries older than 365 days.

Step 7 — Health check: Write results to health.json (see Monitoring section).

5. Recall and Search

When the agent needs to remember something:

1. Exact match: Search facts.jsonl for matching subject/predicate/object.
2. Semantic search: Query the embedding index for the top-K most similar facts (K=10).
3. Activation filter: Exclude results below search_threshold (0.15).
4. Boost accessed facts: Update activation scores for all returned facts.
5. Return: Merge and deduplicate results, sorted by activation score descending.

Always prefer facts from the knowledge graph over raw daily files. MEMORY.md is a summary — the graph is the source of truth.

Monitoring and Health

Health Check Output

Write to health.json after every consolidation run:

{
  "timestamp": "2026-05-15T00:45:00Z",
  "status": "healthy",
  "disk_usage_bytes": 2147483648,
  "disk_usage_percent": 3.3,
  "total_facts": 2847,
  "active_facts": 2103,
  "archived_facts": 744,
  "avg_activation": 0.42,
  "daily_files_count": 128,
  "session_files_count": 45,
  "embedding_index_size_bytes": 52428800,
  "memory_md_lines": 87,
  "last_consolidation": "2026-05-15T00:30:00Z",
  "consolidation_duration_seconds": 142,
  "warnings": []
}

Warning Conditions

Flag these in health.json warnings array:

• disk_usage_percent > 80 — "Disk usage high"
• total_facts > 9000 — "Approaching fact limit"
• avg_activation \x3C 0.2 — "Most facts are decaying; consider lowering half_life"
• avg_activation > 0.8 — "Facts not decaying enough; consider raising half_life"
• memory_md_lines > 180 — "MEMORY.md approaching 200-line limit"
• consolidation_duration_seconds > 600 — "Consolidation taking too long"

Quality Probe

Maintain a set of canary facts in knowledge-graph/canary-facts.json:

[
  {
    "query": "When did the fleet deployment project start?",
    "expected_contains": "May 15, 2026"
  }
]

Periodically (weekly), run each canary query through the recall pipeline. Log the pass/fail ratio. If accuracy drops below 70%, add a warning to health.json.

Cron Schedule (for VM deployments)

Set up these cron jobs for automated lifecycle management:

# Daily summarization at 23:00
0 23 * * * openclaw skill run vm-memory-oracle --action summarize

# Full consolidation at 00:30
30 0 * * * openclaw skill run vm-memory-oracle --action consolidate

# Health check every 6 hours
0 */6 * * * openclaw skill run vm-memory-oracle --action health-check

# Quality probe every Sunday at 03:00
0 3 * * 0 openclaw skill run vm-memory-oracle --action quality-probe

Configuration

Override defaults by setting values in the agent's configuration:

memory_oracle:
  data_path: /data/memory
  half_life_days: 30
  recall_boost: 0.3
  search_threshold: 0.15
  prune_threshold: 0.05
  max_facts: 10000
  session_retention_days: 30
  daily_retention_days: 365
  memory_md_max_lines: 200
  canary_check_interval: weekly
  embedding_model: multilingual-e5-large
  embedding_device: cpu

Safety Guarantees

• Local-only: This skill never makes network requests. All data stays on the local filesystem.
• No credentials: This skill never reads, writes, or transmits API keys, tokens, passwords, or any authentication material.
• No elevation: This skill never uses sudo, su, or any privilege escalation.
• Append-only writes: Facts are appended, never bulk-overwritten. Archival moves facts to a separate file rather than deleting them.
• Idempotent: Running any operation twice produces the same result. Safe to retry after failures.
• Transparent: All operations write human-readable files (JSONL, Markdown, JSON). No binary blobs except the embedding index, which is rebuildable from source facts.