Workspace Hygiene — Auto-Clean for AI Agents

Automation

Automatically enforces workspace file size limits, archives stale or bloated files, and organizes root contents to maintain efficient AI agent context.

Install

openclaw skills install talonforge-workspace-hygiene

Workspace Hygiene Skill

Auto-maintains workspace cleanliness. Prevents context bloat that burns tokens on every session boot.

Triggers

  • Cron: runs daily at 06:00 Europe/Berlin
  • Manual: when Zinou says "clean up", "audit workspace", "hygiene check"
  • Auto: after any session that creates 10+ files

Rules

1. BOOT FILE SIZE LIMITS (hard limits, enforce or trim)

  • AGENTS.md: max 50 lines
  • MEMORY.md: max 80 lines
  • STATE.md: max 60 lines
  • SOUL.md: no limit (identity, changes rarely)
  • USER.md: max 40 lines
  • IDENTITY.md: max 30 lines
  • TOOLS.md: no limit (reference, not loaded often)
  • HEARTBEAT.md: max 20 lines

If any file exceeds its limit:

  1. Identify bloat (action logs, duplicate info, stale references)
  2. Move old content to memory/archive/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md
  3. Leave a 1-line pointer: See archive/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md
  4. Log the trim in today's daily note

2. ROOT WORKSPACE RULES

  • NO image/video files in workspace root → archive/frames/ or archive/media/
  • NO package.json/package-lock.json in root (belongs in subprojects)
  • NO temp scripts in root → /tmp/ for those
  • NO .secrets in root → always in talonforge/.secrets/
  • Only .md files and directories allowed in workspace root

3. MEMORY/ RULES

  • Only keep files actively needed this week
  • Daily notes older than 3 days → archive (except today's)
  • Stale files (not updated in 7+ days, not referenced by STATE.md) → archive
  • Fragment daily notes (multiple per day) → consolidate into one
  • claude-task.md → archive when >7 days stale, keep latest 500 lines
  • Never delete, always archive to memory/archive/

4. AUTO-ARCHIVE PATTERNS

After any session:

  • If temp files created in /tmp/ → leave them (auto-cleaned)
  • If files created in workspace root → move to proper location
  • If memory/ grows past 10 active files → audit for archiving

5. BLOAT SIGNALS (check for these)

  • MEMORY.md action log >5 entries → consolidate to archive
  • Same info in 2+ files → keep one, archive the other
  • Files with "TODO" or "DRAFT" older than 3 days → flag or archive
  • Empty files (<10 bytes) → delete
  • Duplicate daily notes → merge

6. ARCHIVE STRUCTURE

memory/archive/
  action-log-day1-3.md
  day3-fragments/
  frames/
  media/
  <date>-<topic>.md

7. REPORT FORMAT

After each run, log to today's daily notes:

## Workspace Hygiene (HH:MM)
- Trimmed: X files, Y lines removed
- Archived: Z files
- Boot load: N lines (was M lines)
- Status: CLEAN / NEEDS ATTENTION

Cron Setup

Run: 0 6 * * * (daily at 06:00 Europe/Berlin) This is a lightweight check — most days it does nothing. Only acts when bloat exists.