ClawSouls

Manage AI agent personas (Souls) for OpenClaw. Use when the user wants to install, switch, list, or restore AI personalities/personas. Triggers on requests l...

ClawSouls — AI Persona Manager

Manage Soul packages that define an AI agent's personality, behavior, and identity.

Souls use owner/name namespacing (e.g., clawsouls/surgical-coder, TomLeeLive/my-soul).

Prerequisites

Ensure clawsouls CLI is available:

npx clawsouls --version

If not installed, install globally:

npm install -g clawsouls

Current version: v0.6.2

Commands

Install a Soul

npx clawsouls install clawsouls/surgical-coder
npx clawsouls install clawsouls/surgical-coder --force       # overwrite existing
npx clawsouls install clawsouls/surgical-coder@0.1.0         # specific version

80+ souls available. Browse all at https://clawsouls.ai

Official souls (owner: clawsouls):

• Development: code-reviewer, coding-tutor, debug-detective, api-architect, ml-engineer, sysadmin-sage, devops-veteran, gamedev-mentor, prompt-engineer, frontend-dev, backend-dev, mobile-dev, cloud-architect, database-admin, qa-engineer
• Writing & Content: tech-writer, storyteller, scifi-writer, copywriter, content-creator, journalist, poet, screenwriter, academic-writer
• Professional: data-analyst, project-manager, legal-advisor, startup-founder, hr-manager, marketing-strategist, sales-coach, product-manager
• Education: math-tutor, philosophy-prof, mentor-coach, science-tutor, history-prof, language-teacher, economics-tutor
• Creative: music-producer, ux-designer, chef-master, graphic-designer, video-editor, podcast-host, dungeon-master, game-designer
• Lifestyle: personal-assistant, fitness-coach, travel-guide, life-coach, meditation-guide, nutrition-advisor, productivity-guru, financial-planner
• Science: research-scientist, data-scientist
• Security: security-auditor
• MBTI: mbti-intj, mbti-intp, mbti-entj, mbti-entp, mbti-infj, mbti-infp, mbti-enfj, mbti-enfp, mbti-istj, mbti-isfj, mbti-estj, mbti-esfj, mbti-istp, mbti-isfp, mbti-estp, mbti-esfp
• Special: surgical-coder, korean-translator
• General: brad, minimalist

Activate a Soul

npx clawsouls use clawsouls/surgical-coder

• Automatically backs up current workspace files (SOUL.md, IDENTITY.md, AGENTS.md, HEARTBEAT.md, STYLE.md, examples/)
• Never overwrites USER.md, MEMORY.md, or TOOLS.md
• Requires gateway restart to take effect

Restore Previous Soul

npx clawsouls restore

Reverts to the most recent backup created by use.

List Installed Souls

npx clawsouls list

Shows installed souls in owner/name format.

Create a New Soul

npx clawsouls init my-soul

Scaffolds a new soul directory with soul.json, SOUL.md, IDENTITY.md, AGENTS.md, HEARTBEAT.md, README.md.

Export a Soul

npx clawsouls export claude-md           # generate CLAUDE.md from current workspace soul files
npx clawsouls export system-prompt       # generate a system prompt string

Combines SOUL.md, IDENTITY.md, AGENTS.md, HEARTBEAT.md, STYLE.md into a single file. Useful for Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and other tools that use a single config file.

Version Management

npx clawsouls version bump patch    # 1.0.0 → 1.0.1
npx clawsouls version bump minor    # 1.0.0 → 1.1.0
npx clawsouls version bump major    # 1.0.0 → 2.0.0
npx clawsouls diff                  # colored diff of soul files

Soul Testing (Phase 9)

npx clawsouls test                  # Level 1 (schema) + Level 2 (soulscan)
npx clawsouls test --level 3       # + Level 3 (behavioral LLM tests)

Level 3 requires soul.test.yaml in the soul directory and an LLM provider (OpenAI/Anthropic/Ollama).

Doctor, Migrate, Search, Info, Update (Phase 10)

npx clawsouls doctor                # 12 environment checks
npx clawsouls migrate               # migrate soul from v0.3 → v0.4 → v0.5
npx clawsouls search "engineer"     # search souls from registry
npx clawsouls info clawsouls/brad  # show soul metadata
npx clawsouls update                # update installed soul to latest

Validate a Soul

npx clawsouls validate ./my-soul/
npx clawsouls validate --soulscan ./my-soul/   # with SoulScan security analysis
npx clawsouls check ./my-soul/                 # alias

Validates against the spec: schema, required files. Add --soulscan for full security & quality analysis with scoring. Also runs automatically before publish.

SoulScan — Security & Integrity Scanner

npx clawsouls soulscan              # scan current OpenClaw workspace
npx clawsouls soulscan ./my-soul/   # scan a specific directory
npx clawsouls soulscan --init       # initialize baseline checksums
npx clawsouls soulscan -q           # quiet mode for cron (SOULSCAN_OK / SOULSCAN_ALERT)
npx clawsouls scan                  # alias

SoulScan checks active soul files for:

• Integrity: SHA-256 checksum comparison — detects tampering since last scan
• Security: 53 pattern checks (prompt injection, code execution, XSS, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, social engineering, harmful content, secret detection)
• Quality: File structure, content length, schema validation
• Persona Consistency: Cross-validates name/tone across SOUL.md, IDENTITY.md, soul.json

Cron usage — periodic tamper detection:

# Run every hour to monitor workspace integrity
npx clawsouls soulscan -q
# Exit code 0 = OK, 1 = alert (tampered or security issue)

First run: Use --init to establish baseline checksums without triggering alerts.

SOULSCAN™ — Score: 0-100, Grades: Verified (90+) / Low Risk (70+) / Medium Risk (40+) / High Risk / Blocked

Publish a Soul

export CLAWSOULS_TOKEN=<token>
npx clawsouls publish ./my-soul/

Publishes to username/soul-name namespace automatically. Requires authentication token. Runs validation automatically before publishing — blocks on failure.

Login / Get Token

npx clawsouls login

Instructions to get API token: Sign in at https://clawsouls.ai → Dashboard → Generate API Token.

Workflow

Installing & Switching Personas

1. Browse — Check available souls at https://clawsouls.ai or suggest from the categorized list above
2. Install — npx clawsouls install clawsouls/surgical-coder
3. Activate — npx clawsouls use clawsouls/surgical-coder
4. Restart — Run soulclaw gateway restart to apply the new persona
5. New Session — Send /new in chat to clear previous persona context from conversation history
6. Restore — If they want to go back, npx clawsouls restore

Publishing a Soul

1. Login — npx clawsouls login → get token from dashboard
2. Set token — export CLAWSOULS_TOKEN=<token>
3. Create — npx clawsouls init my-soul → edit files
4. Publish — npx clawsouls publish ./my-soul/
5. Manage — Dashboard at https://clawsouls.ai/dashboard (delete, view downloads)

Memory Sync (Swarm)

npx clawsouls sync                  # sync encrypted memory to/from GitHub
npx clawsouls swarm                 # multi-agent memory branch & merge system

Sync agent memory across machines via encrypted Git. Uses age encryption for local-first privacy.

Soul Checkpoints (Rollback)

npx clawsouls checkpoint            # manage soul checkpoints
npx clawsouls checkpoint create     # create a checkpoint of current soul state
npx clawsouls checkpoint list       # list available checkpoints
npx clawsouls checkpoint restore    # restore from a checkpoint

Checkpoint-based rollback for persona contamination detection and recovery.

Platform Detection

npx clawsouls platform              # show detected agent platform(s) and workspace path
npx clawsouls detect                # alias

Detects which agent platform is running (OpenClaw, SoulClaw, ZeroClaw, etc.) and shows workspace paths.

MCP Server (for Claude Desktop / Cowork)

For Claude Desktop or Cowork users, there's also a dedicated MCP server:

npx -y soul-spec-mcp

Or add to Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "soul-spec": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "soul-spec-mcp"] } } }

6 tools: search_souls, get_soul, install_soul, preview_soul, list_categories, apply_persona

GitHub: https://github.com/clawsouls/soul-spec-mcp

Important Notes

• After use, always remind the user to run soulclaw gateway restart and then /new to start a fresh session (old conversation history retains the previous persona's identity)
• The use command creates automatic backups — data loss is unlikely
• Souls may include STYLE.md and examples/ for enhanced persona customization
• Published souls appear at https://clawsouls.ai/souls/owner/name
• Users can leave reviews (1-5 stars) on any soul they don't own
• For custom registry (local testing), set env: CLAWSOULS_CDN=/path/to/souls
• Website available in 5 languages: English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish (e.g., clawsouls.ai/ko/souls/...)
• Share any soul to your OpenClaw bot: the install command is included in the share text
• The Soul Thesis — Read the manifesto: https://clawsouls.ai/en/manifesto
• Research paper — "Soul-Driven Interaction Design": https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18772585
• Legal: Privacy Policy · Terms of Service