Dream — Memory Consolidation for OpenClaw#

Memory consolidation for OpenClaw agents. Your agent accumulates daily notes in memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md files, but without periodic consolidation, long-term memory ( MEMORY.md) becomes stale while daily files grow endlessly. Dream fixes this — like REM sleep for your AI.

When to Use#

• User says "dream", "做梦", "consolidate memory", or "整理记忆"
• Cron trigger (recommended: nightly at 3:00 AM)
• Heartbeat detects memory files piling up (>20 files or >3000 total lines)

Consolidation Flow#

Phase 1 — Orient#

1. ls memory/ to inventory daily files
2. Read MEMORY.md to understand current long-term memory structure
3. Count: total files, total lines, files from last 7 days

Phase 2 — Scan Recent Journals#

Read daily files from the last 7 days ( memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md). Extract:

• New facts, preferences, or decisions not yet in MEMORY.md
• Information that contradicts MEMORY.md (needs correction)
• Recurring themes (indicates importance)

Token budget rules:

• Skip files older than 7 days (too many tokens)
• If a file exceeds 500 lines, read only the first 200 lines
• Focus on headings and key facts, not verbose logs

Phase 3 — Merge into MEMORY.md#

Apply these operations to MEMORY.md using surgical edits (not full rewrites):

1. Add: Append new facts to the appropriate section
2. Correct: Update outdated information with newer data from journals
3. Deduplicate: Merge entries that say the same thing
4. Prune: Remove clearly obsolete info (e.g., "temporary workaround for X" when X is resolved)
5. Absolutize dates: Convert "yesterday", "just now" → actual dates (e.g., "2026-03-27")

Phase 4 — Mark Old Journals (Optional)#

For daily files older than 30 days:

• If content is consolidated → prepend: <!-- consolidated to MEMORY.md on YYYY-MM-DD -->
• Never delete any file (user may want to look back)

Phase 5 — Report#

Output a brief consolidation report:

text

🌙 Dream complete
- Scanned N daily files (X lines total)
- MEMORY.md: +N added / ~N corrected / -N pruned
- Next suggestion: [if any]

Critical Rules#

• MEMORY.md is the primary output — all consolidated knowledge goes here
• Surgical edits only — use the edit tool for precise changes, never overwrite the whole file
• Conservative by default — when unsure whether to remove something, keep it
• No secrets in logs — don't expose API keys, passwords, or tokens in the dream report
• Log each run — append a ## Dream Log (HH:MM) entry to today's memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md

Cron Setup#

text

/cron add --schedule "0 3 * * *" --task "Execute dream skill: consolidate memory" --label dream-nightly

How It Works (Under the Hood)#

This skill mimics the human sleep cycle's memory consolidation process:

text

Daily experiences          Nightly consolidation        Long-term memory
┌─────────────────┐       ┌─────────────────┐         ┌─────────────────┐
│ memory/03-26.md │──┐    │                 │         │                 │
│ memory/03-27.md │──┤    │    Dream Skill   │────────▶│   MEMORY.md     │
│ memory/03-28.md │──┤    │   (scan+merge)  │         │  (structured,   │
│ memory/03-29.md │──┘    │                 │         │   deduplicated) │
│       ...       │       └─────────────────┘         └─────────────────┘
└─────────────────┘
     Raw daily logs            Consolidation              Curated knowledge

Without Dream, MEMORY.md stays frozen at whatever was manually written, while daily files accumulate unbounded. With Dream, your agent's long-term memory stays fresh, accurate, and compact.