| title | Giving Your AI Agent a Memory That Actually Works |
|---|---|
| description | The openclaw-basic-memory plugin gives OpenClaw agents persistent, searchable memory — two commands, zero configuration. |
Most AI assistants wake up every morning with amnesia. You explain your project. Again. You remind them about that decision you made last week. Again. You re-establish context that took three conversations to build. Again.
We built a plugin that fixes this for OpenClaw agents. Two commands, zero configuration, and your agent remembers everything — across sessions, across days, across context window resets.
openclaw plugins install @basicmemory/openclaw-basic-memory
openclaw gateway restartThat's the whole setup.
Composited memory search. When your agent searches its memory, the plugin queries three sources in parallel: your MEMORY.md file, the full knowledge graph, and any active tasks. One search, three data sources, merged results. The agent doesn't need to know where something is stored — it just finds it.
Auto-capture. Every conversation turn gets recorded as a timestamped entry in a daily note. You're not maintaining a journal — it happens in the background. Weeks later, when you need to know "what did we decide about the database migration?", it's there.
Auto-recall. Session starts, the agent immediately loads active tasks and recent notes. No "let me catch you up" ritual. No "read my files first" prompt engineering. It just knows what it was working on.
14 tools, 7 slash commands, 6 skills. The full Basic Memory toolset — search, read, write, edit, schema validation, project management. Plus shortcuts like /remember (save something), /recall (find something), and /reflect (review and consolidate).
Here's what's different: everything your agent remembers is stored as plain markdown files that you can open and read.
Not embeddings in a vector database you can't inspect. Not JSON blobs in a cloud API you don't control. Markdown files. In a folder. On your machine.
Your agent writes a note about a meeting? Open it in VS Code. See exactly what it captured. Fix the part it got wrong. Add the context it missed. Save the file — your agent sees the change instantly.
This is what "bidirectional" means in practice. The AI writes things down. You read them. You correct them. The AI reads your corrections. The knowledge base gets better because both sides are working with the same transparent format.
It's the difference between an AI that claims to remember and an AI whose memory you can verify.
Because the plugin connects to the full Basic Memory stack, your agent isn't limited to a single workspace. It can search across every project in your knowledge base — personal notes, work projects, research, whatever you've organized.
Some projects stay local. Some route through Basic Memory Cloud for cross-device access. The agent uses the same tools either way. You decide what lives where.
The plugin bundles six pre-built skills that teach your agent best practices:
- memory-notes — How to write well-structured notes with proper frontmatter, observations, and relations
- memory-tasks — Structured task tracking that survives when the context window resets
- memory-schema — Keeping note structures consistent as your knowledge base grows
- memory-reflect — Reviewing recent work and consolidating insights (inspired by how humans review journals)
- memory-defrag — Splitting bloated files, merging duplicates, pruning stale info
- memory-metadata-search — Finding notes by status, priority, or any custom field
These aren't documentation. They're instructions your agent reads and follows — like onboarding a new team member by handing them a playbook.
openclaw plugins install @basicmemory/openclaw-basic-memory
openclaw gateway restartThe plugin auto-detects your Basic Memory installation and starts working. If you don't have Basic Memory installed yet, it handles that too.
From there, just talk to your agent. Say "remember that we decided to use Postgres for the new service." Say "what were we working on yesterday?" Say "create a task for the API refactor." The plugin handles the rest.
Basic Memory gives AI assistants persistent knowledge stored as plain text you own. Works with Claude, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, and anything that supports MCP. Try it →