OpenCortex — Self-Improving Memory Architecture

Transform a default OpenClaw agent into one that compounds knowledge daily.

📦 Full source on GitHub — review the code, file issues, or contribute.

What This Does

1. Structures memory into purpose-specific files instead of one flat dump
2. Installs nightly maintenance that distills daily work into permanent knowledge
3. Installs weekly synthesis that catches patterns across days
4. Establishes principles that enforce good memory habits — and backs them up with nightly audits that verify tool documentation, decision capture, sub-agent debriefs, failure analysis, and unnecessary deferrals to the user. Nothing slips through the cracks.
5. Builds a voice profile of your human from daily conversations for authentic ghostwriting (opt-in, requires OPENCORTEX_VOICE_PROFILE=1 or .opencortex-flags with VOICE_PROFILE=1)
6. Encrypts sensitive data in an AES-256 vault with key-only references in docs; supports passphrase rotation (vault.sh rotate) and validates key names on vault.sh set
7. Enables safe git backup with secret scrubbing (secrets never modified in your live workspace — scrubbed in an isolated copy only)
8. Tracks growth over time (opt-in) — daily metrics snapshots with compound scoring and ASCII growth charts

Installation

Prerequisites (install these separately if you don't have them):

• OpenClaw 2026.2.x+
• ClawHub CLI

# 1. Download the skill from your OpenClaw workspace directory
cd ~/clawd    # or wherever your workspace is
clawhub install opencortex

# 2. Run the installer FROM YOUR WORKSPACE DIRECTORY (not from inside the skill folder)
bash skills/opencortex/scripts/install.sh

# Optional: preview what would be created without changing anything
bash skills/opencortex/scripts/install.sh --dry-run

The installer will ask about optional features (encrypted vault, voice profiling, infrastructure collection, git backup) and your preferred AI model for cron jobs (e.g. sonnet, opus, haiku). Saved to .opencortex-model. It's safe to re-run — it skips anything that already exists. The installer itself makes no network calls — it only creates local files and registers cron jobs.

# 3. Verify everything is working (read-only — checks files and cron jobs, changes nothing)
bash skills/opencortex/scripts/verify.sh

You can also ask your OpenClaw agent "is OpenCortex working?" — it knows how to run the verification and share results.

The script will:

• Create the file hierarchy (non-destructively — won't overwrite existing files)
• Create directory structure
• Set up cron jobs (daily distillation, weekly synthesis)
• Optionally set up git backup with secret scrubbing

After install, review and customize:

• SOUL.md — personality and identity (make it yours)
• USER.md — info about your human
• MEMORY.md — principles (add/remove as needed)
• .secrets-map — add your actual secrets for git scrubbing

Updating

# 1. Download the latest version (run from workspace root)
clawhub install opencortex --force

# 2. Re-run the installer — it detects your existing install and offers to update
bash skills/opencortex/scripts/install.sh

The installer detects your existing version and offers three options: Update (recommended), Full reinstall, or Cancel. The update path is non-destructive — it adds missing content, refreshes cron messages, and offers any new optional features without overwriting your customized files.

Architecture

SOUL.md          ← Identity, personality, boundaries
AGENTS.md        ← Operating protocol, delegation rules
MEMORY.md        ← Principles + memory index (< 3KB, loaded every session)
TOOLS.md         ← Tool shed: APIs, scripts, and access methods with abilities descriptions
INFRA.md         ← Infrastructure atlas: hosts, IPs, services, network
USER.md          ← Human's preferences, projects, communication style
BOOTSTRAP.md     ← First-run checklist for new sessions

memory/
  projects/      ← One file per project (distilled, not raw)
  contacts/      ← One file per person/org (role, context, preferences)
  workflows/     ← One file per workflow/pipeline (services, steps, issues)
  runbooks/      ← Step-by-step procedures (delegatable to sub-agents)
  preferences.md ← Cross-cutting user preferences by category
  archive/       ← Archived daily logs + weekly summaries
  YYYY-MM-DD.md  ← Today's working log (distilled nightly)

Principles (installed by default)

#	Name	Purpose
P1	Delegate First	Assess tasks for sub-agent delegation; stay available
P2	Write It Down	Commit to files, not mental notes
P3	Ask Before External	Confirm before emails, public posts, destructive ops
P4	Tool Shed & Workflows	Document tools and workflows; enforced by nightly audit
P5	Capture Decisions & Preferences	Record decisions and preferences; enforced by nightly + weekly audit
P6	Sub-agent Debrief	Delegated work feeds back to daily log; orphans recovered by distillation
P7	Log Failures	Tag failures/corrections; root cause analysis enforced by nightly audit
P8	Check the Shed First	Consult TOOLS.md/INFRA.md/memory before deferring work to user; enforced by nightly audit

Cron Jobs (installed)

Schedule	Name	What it does
Daily 3 AM (local)	Distillation	Reads daily logs → distills into project/tools/infra files → audits tools/decisions/debriefs/failures → optimizes → archives
Weekly Sunday 5 AM	Synthesis	Reviews week for patterns, recurring problems, unfinished threads, decisions; auto-creates runbooks from repeated procedures

Both jobs use a shared lockfile (/tmp/opencortex-distill.lock) to prevent conflicts when daily and weekly runs overlap.

Customize times by editing cron jobs: openclaw cron list then openclaw cron edit <id> --cron "...".

Git Backup (optional)

If enabled during install, creates:

• scripts/git-backup.sh — auto-commit every 6 hours, scrubs secrets in an isolated temp copy (workspace files never modified)
• .secrets-map — maps secrets to placeholders (gitignored, 600 perms)

Add secrets to .secrets-map in format: actual_secret|{{PLACEHOLDER_NAME}}

Before each push, git-backup.sh verifies no raw secrets remain in the scrubbed copy. If any are found, the backup is aborted — nothing reaches the remote.

Customization

Adding a project: Create memory/projects/my-project.md, add to MEMORY.md index.

Adding a contact: Create memory/contacts/name.md. Distillation auto-creates contacts from conversations.

Adding a workflow: Create memory/workflows/my-pipeline.md. Distillation auto-creates workflows when described.

Adding a preference: Append to memory/preferences.md under the right category. Distillation auto-captures from conversation.

Adding a principle: Append to MEMORY.md under 🔴 PRINCIPLES. Keep it short.

Adding a runbook: Create memory/runbooks/my-procedure.md. Sub-agents can follow these directly.

Adding a tool: Add to TOOLS.md with: what it is, how to access it, and a goal-oriented abilities description (so future intent-based lookup matches).

How It Compounds

Daily work → daily log
  → nightly distill → routes to project/tools/infra/principles files
                     → optimization pass (dedup, prune stale, condense)
  → weekly synthesis → patterns, recurring problems, unfinished threads → auto-creates runbooks from repeated procedures → `memory/runbooks/`
Sub-agent work → debrief (P6) → daily log → same pipeline
Decisions → captured with reasoning (P5) → never re-asked
New tools → documented with abilities (P4) → findable by intent

Each day the agent wakes up slightly more knowledgeable and better organized.