MeiliSearch Memory#

Local full-text search for memory recall. Self-hosted.

Note: This skill does more than passive search. It also indexes content, distills facts into MEMORY.md, and manages background cron jobs. See Capabilities and Security Model below.

Security Model#

• Credentials: MeiliSearch master key is loaded from ~/.openclaw/workspace/.env — never hardcoded in scripts
• Sensitive data filtering: Indexer and distillation skip content containing tokens, passwords, API keys, private keys, and credentials
• Safe defaults: Distillation defaults to --dry-run; destructive operations require --force
• Secure temp files: All temporary files use mktemp with chmod 600 and are cleaned up on exit

Capabilities (declared)#

• Read: MEMORY.md, memory/*.md (daily notes)
• Write: MeiliSearch indexes ( core, working, archive), MEMORY.md (distillation only with --apply)
• Execute: curl to localhost MeiliSearch, python3 for document processing

Architecture#

Three-tier indexing system that mimics human memory:

• Core — MEMORY.md sections (highest importance, always current)
• Working — Daily notes from the last 7 days (recent context)
• Archive — Older daily notes (lower priority)

Search queries hit all tiers in order: core → working → archive. Results are ranked by tier priority and importance score.

Features#

• Tag-based query understanding — Natural language queries like "what are my tasks" or "show my projects" automatically map to relevant tag filters for precise results
• Relationship tags — Each chunk is auto-tagged by topic (finance, projects, identity, infrastructure, etc.)
• Tiered search — Query core only for fast answers, or all tiers for deep recall
• Auto-distillation — Weekly cron extracts key facts from daily notes into MEMORY.md (requires --apply)
• Typo tolerance — Built-in fuzzy matching via MeiliSearch
• Sensitive data exclusion — Chunks containing credentials, tokens, or keys are never indexed or distilled
• Fallback search — If tag filters return no results, automatically falls back to plain full-text search

Configuration#

Requires ~/.openclaw/workspace/.env:

bash

MEILI_HOST=http://127.0.0.1:7700
MEILI_KEY=your-master-key-here

See .env.example for all options.

Search#

bash

bash scripts/search.sh "your query" [limit] [tier]

Examples:

bash

bash scripts/search.sh "your query"     # Search all tiers, top 5
bash scripts/search.sh "projects" 3      # Top 3 from all tiers
bash scripts/search.sh "setup" 5 core    # Core only (fast)

Indexing#

bash

bash scripts/indexer.sh                # Incremental update (safe)
bash scripts/indexer.sh --full --force # Full reindex (destructive, requires --force)

Distillation#

bash

bash scripts/distill.sh --dry-run      # Preview what would be added (default)
bash scripts/distill.sh --apply        # Actually write to MEMORY.md

Note: Distillation skips any content containing passwords, API keys, tokens, private keys, or credentials.

Cron Jobs#

• Hourly — Re-index new daily notes
• Weekly (Sunday 2 AM) — Distill facts into MEMORY.md

Service#

bash

systemctl status meilisearch
journalctl -u meilisearch -f