vestige

Vestige 4.2.0, an agent-agnostic guard for your AI agent. It judges the whole chain of steps, stops it before it does damage, keeps a hash-chained receipt of every decision, and saves that chain to memory so an old yes is never permission to act now. Local Rust MCP server, exact-handle recall, causal_walk from a failure back to its cause.

Vestige Skill

Vestige is an agent-agnostic guard for your AI agent. It judges the whole chain of steps, not just one command, and stops it before it does damage, keeping a receipt of every decision. It works with Claude Code, OpenClaw, any agent, and it saves that chain to memory so an old yes is never treated as permission to act now.

This skill wraps the official vestige-mcp server, version 4.2.0. Memory lives on Strata, an append-only hash-chained log: every write returns a receipt, and nothing is found by similarity. A memory is found by its exact id or an exact tag.

This skill is not OpenClaw default memory and not a plugins.slots.memory plugin. OpenClaw's memory-core stays as it is; Vestige runs beside it as an MCP server.

Install

bash

npm install -g vestige-mcp-server@4.2.0
which vestige-mcp          # macOS / Linux
where vestige-mcp          # Windows

Put the absolute path in OpenClaw's MCP config (GUIs do not inherit your shell PATH or expand ~):

json

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "vestige": {
        "command": "<absolute path from which vestige-mcp>",
        "args": []
      }
    }
  }
}

For a per-project store add "args": ["--data-dir", "<absolute dir>"].

Tools to use

Tool	Use
session_start	Open intentions, status and code memories at the start of a session
smart_ingest	Save a memory (content, node_type, tags); returns a receipt
recall	Find by exact handle: a full memory id or an exact, case-sensitive tag. Free text returns similarity_disabled
causal_walk	Walk back from a failure along recorded causal edges: start_points=[{kind:"logged_write", node_id:"<failure memory id>"}]. Results are hypotheses, not proven causes
forgotten_lesson	From a failure memory, find earlier lessons on recorded edges that are fading
receipt	get shows what a write did; replay re-derives it from the log
codebase	ingest_repo records a checkout's commits, reverts, cherry-picks and Fixes: trailers as change records; remember_decision / remember_pattern anchor decisions to files
selftest	Planted-cause selftest on a throwaway log

Tag every memory on purpose: tags are the index.

When to use

• A decision, correction or verified fact worth keeping: smart_ingest with a narrow topic tag
• "What did we decide about X?": recall with that tag
• "Why did this break?": save the failure as an event, then causal_walk and forgotten_lesson from its id
• "Prove that write": receipt with the memory id

Never save API keys, passwords or other secrets.

Helper

vmem ships with this listing and resolves vestige-mcp with command -v. It needs jq.

bash

vmem recall <tag-or-id>            # exact handle
vmem save "text" [tag]             # smart_ingest, optional tag
vmem walk <failure-memory-id>      # causal_walk from a logged write
vmem receipt <memory-id>           # receipt get
vmem selftest

Data location

Default data directory (override with --data-dir):

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/com.vestige.core/
• Linux: ~/.local/share/vestige/core/
• Windows: %APPDATA%\vestige\core\

Credits

• Vestige by @samvallad33
• Original skill wrapper by @Belkouche