My bot has no memory
✅Solved
I have installed openclaw on two separate macbooks, one in a docker container, one - on my older Intel based Macbook - just plain with the curl line. Both of them don't have any memory at all. They reply to every message with a variant of "I just came online who are you?". The .md files in workplace are untouched. I have tried permissions 777/666 on workplace items but the bots still don't write there. My model is a local ollama, accessed with the :11434/v1 url. The model works: The bots give intelligent answers, they just don't remember anything.
Solution
Yep — that test is definitive.
- OpenClaw’s side is fine: the
- The failure was model behavior: it defaulted to an incompatible tool name (
So “no memory” was really “model isn’t reliably tool-calling”, which blocks:
- deleting
- writing daily memory files
- any durable workspace updates unless you micro-manage prompts
1) Unstick bootstrapping
Since you’ve proven file writes can work, you can either:
- manually delete
- do one more explicit instruction to the bot: “Update IDENTITY.md + USER.md and then delete BOOTSTRAP.md using the
- OpenClaw’s side is fine: the
write- The failure was model behavior: it defaulted to an incompatible tool name (
repo_writewriteSo “no memory” was really “model isn’t reliably tool-calling”, which blocks:
- deleting
BOOTSTRAP.md- writing daily memory files
- any durable workspace updates unless you micro-manage prompts
What you can do now
1) Unstick bootstrapping
Since you’ve proven file writes can work, you can either:
- manually delete
BOOTSTRAP.mdUSER.mdIDENTITY.md- do one more explicit instruction to the bot: “Update IDENTITY.md + USER.md and then delete BOOTSTRAP.md using the
write
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