Daily memory log (one file per day). Recommended to read today + yesterday on session start.

</Accordion>

<Accordion title="MEMORY.md - curated long-term memory (optional)">

Curated long-term memory. Only load in the main, private session (not shared/group contexts). See [Memory](/concepts/memory) for the workflow and automatic memory flush.

Curated long-term memory: durable facts, preferences, decisions, and short summaries. Keep detailed logs in `memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md` so memory tools can retrieve them on demand without injecting them into every prompt. Only load `MEMORY.md` in the main, private session (not shared/group contexts). See [Memory](/concepts/memory) for the workflow and automatic memory flush.

</Accordion>

<Accordion title="skills/ - workspace skills (optional)">

Workspace-specific skills. Highest-precedence skill location for that workspace. Overrides project agent skills, personal agent skills, managed skills, bundled skills, and `skills.load.extraDirs` when names collide.

These files live in the agent workspace (default `~/.openclaw/workspace`).

## What goes where

`MEMORY.md` is the compact, curated layer. Use it for durable facts,

preferences, standing decisions, and short summaries that should be available at

the start of a main private session. It is not meant to be a raw transcript,

daily log, or exhaustive archive.

`memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md` files are the working layer. Use them for detailed daily

notes, observations, session summaries, and raw context that may still be useful

later. These files are indexed for `memory_search` and `memory_get`, but they are

not injected into the normal bootstrap prompt on every turn.

Over time, the agent is expected to distill useful material from daily notes

into `MEMORY.md` and remove stale long-term entries. The generated workspace

instructions and heartbeat flow can do that periodically; you do not need to

manually edit `MEMORY.md` for every remembered detail.

If `MEMORY.md` grows past the bootstrap file budget, OpenClaw keeps the file on

disk intact but truncates the copy injected into the model context. Treat that as

a signal to move detailed material back into `memory/*.md`, keep only the

durable summary in `MEMORY.md`, or raise the bootstrap limits if you explicitly

want to spend more prompt budget. Use `/context list`, `/context detail`, or

`openclaw doctor` to see raw vs injected sizes and truncation status.

<Tip>

If you want your agent to remember something, just ask it: "Remember that I

prefer TypeScript." It will write it to the appropriate file.

a file-specific gate applies. `HEARTBEAT.md` is omitted on normal runs when

heartbeats are disabled for the default agent or

`agents.defaults.heartbeat.includeSystemPromptSection` is false. Keep injected

files concise — especially `MEMORY.md`, which can grow over time and lead to

unexpectedly high context usage and more frequent compaction.

files concise, especially `MEMORY.md`. `MEMORY.md` is intended to stay a

curated long-term summary; detailed daily notes belong in `memory/*.md` where

`memory_search` and `memory_get` can retrieve them on demand. Oversized

`MEMORY.md` files increase prompt usage and can be partially injected because of

the bootstrap file limits below.

When a session runs on the native Codex harness, Codex loads `AGENTS.md`

through its own project-doc discovery. OpenClaw still resolves the remaining

default: `once`). Detailed raw/injected counts stay in diagnostics such as

`/context`, `/status`, doctor, and logs.

For memory files, truncation is not data loss: the file remains intact on disk,

but the model only sees the shortened injected copy until it reads or searches

memory directly. If `MEMORY.md` is repeatedly truncated, distill it into a

shorter durable summary and move detailed history into `memory/*.md`, or

intentionally raise the bootstrap limits.

Sub-agent sessions only inject `AGENTS.md` and `TOOLS.md` (other bootstrap files

are filtered out to keep the sub-agent context small).