Phase 7 / Ep 37: MemSkill Practical Application — Teaching Agents to "Remember" and "Forget"

⏱ Est. reading time: 3 min Updated on 4/13/2026

🎯 Learning Objective: Configure and use Memory-related Skills.

1. Memory-Related Skill Matrix

Skill Functionality Trigger Scenario
memory-manager Automatically writes journal At the end of each conversation
memory-search Semantic search of historical memories When Agent needs to recall
memory-compact Compresses old memories When memory files become too large
memory-people People relationship management When new people are mentioned

2. Installing MemSkill

openclaw skills install memory-manager
openclaw skills install memory-search
openclaw skills install memory-compact
openclaw skills install memory-people

3. memory-manager — Automatic Journaling

After installation, the Agent automatically performs the following at the end of each conversation:

  1. Extracts key events from the conversation
  2. Writes to the day's journal file memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md
  3. If new people are mentioned, automatically creates memory/people/xxx.md

4. memory-search — Semantic Search

You: "Last week, I discussed a database selection issue with you. What exactly was it?"

Agent (Internal): memory_search("database selection last week")
→ Found in memory/decisions/db-choice.md:
  "2026-03-30: Eric decided to use PostgreSQL, the reasons are..."

Agent: "Last Wednesday, we discussed database selection. You ultimately decided to use PostgreSQL,
the main reasons being: 1. Best Prisma support 2. JSON field support 3. Low cost"

5. memory-compact — Forgetting Strategy

As time progresses, memory files will grow larger. memory-compact will:

  • Merge journal entries older than 30 days into monthly summaries
  • Delete duplicate information
  • Retain key decisions and user preferences
# Manually trigger compression
openclaw chat "Please organize your memories"

6. memory-people — People Relationship Graph

graph TD
    Eric["👤 Eric\nOwner · Independent Developer"] --> Alice["👤 Alice\nColleague · Backend Engineer"]
    Eric --> Bob["👤 Bob\nClient · Designer"]
    Eric --> Charlie["👤 Charlie\nPartner · PM"]

The Agent maintains a people relationship graph, remembering each person's information and their relationship with you.

Next Episode Preview: Phase 8 begins! Ep 38, AgentMail — Empowering Agents with their own email inbox to send and receive emails.