Sessions and memory

Dreaming

Dreaming is the background memory consolidation system in memory-core. It helps OpenClaw move strong short-term signals into durable memory while keeping the process explainable and reviewable.

What dreaming writes

Dreaming keeps two kinds of output:

Machine state in memory/.dreams/ (recall store, phase signals, ingestion checkpoints, locks).
Human-readable output in DREAMS.md (or existing dreams.md) and optional phase report files under memory/dreaming/<phase>/YYYY-MM-DD.md.

Long-term promotion still writes only to MEMORY.md.

Phase model

Dreaming uses three cooperative phases:

Phase	Purpose	Durable write
Light	Sort and stage recent short-term material	No
Deep	Score and promote durable candidates	Yes (`MEMORY.md`)
REM	Reflect on themes and recurring ideas	No

These phases are internal implementation details, not separate user-configured "modes."

Light phase

Light phase ingests recent daily memory signals and recall traces, dedupes them, and stages candidate lines.

Reads from short-term recall state, recent daily memory files, and redacted session transcripts when available.
Writes a managed ## Light Sleep block when storage includes inline output.
Records reinforcement signals for later deep ranking.
Never writes to MEMORY.md.

Deep phase

Deep phase decides what becomes long-term memory.

Ranks candidates using weighted scoring and threshold gates.
Requires minScore, minRecallCount, and minUniqueQueries to pass.
Rehydrates snippets from live daily files before writing, so stale/deleted snippets are skipped.
Appends promoted entries to MEMORY.md.
Writes a ## Deep Sleep summary into DREAMS.md and optionally writes memory/dreaming/deep/YYYY-MM-DD.md.

REM phase

REM phase extracts patterns and reflective signals.

Builds theme and reflection summaries from recent short-term traces.
Writes a managed ## REM Sleep block when storage includes inline output.
Records REM reinforcement signals used by deep ranking.
Never writes to MEMORY.md.

Session transcript ingestion

Dreaming can ingest redacted session transcripts into the dreaming corpus. When transcripts are available, they are fed into the light phase alongside daily memory signals and recall traces. Personal and sensitive content is redacted before ingestion.

Dream Diary

Dreaming also keeps a narrative Dream Diary in DREAMS.md. After each phase has enough material, memory-core runs a best-effort background subagent turn and appends a short diary entry. It uses the default runtime model unless dreaming.model is configured. If the configured model is unavailable, Dream Diary retries once with the session default model.

There is also a grounded historical backfill lane for review and recovery work:

Backfill commands

memory rem-harness --path ... --grounded previews grounded diary output from historical YYYY-MM-DD.md notes.
memory rem-backfill --path ... writes reversible grounded diary entries into DREAMS.md.
memory rem-backfill --path ... --stage-short-term stages grounded durable candidates into the same short-term evidence store the normal deep phase already uses.
memory rem-backfill --rollback and --rollback-short-term remove those staged backfill artifacts without touching ordinary diary entries or live short-term recall.

The Control UI exposes the same diary backfill/reset flow so you can inspect results in the Dreams scene before deciding whether the grounded candidates deserve promotion. The Scene also shows a distinct grounded lane so you can see which staged short-term entries came from historical replay, which promoted items were grounded-led, and clear only grounded-only staged entries without touching ordinary live short-term state.

Deep ranking signals

Deep ranking uses six weighted base signals plus phase reinforcement:

Signal	Weight	Description
Frequency	0.24	How many short-term signals the entry accumulated
Relevance	0.30	Average retrieval quality for the entry
Query diversity	0.15	Distinct query/day contexts that surfaced it
Recency	0.15	Time-decayed freshness score
Consolidation	0.10	Multi-day recurrence strength
Conceptual richness	0.06	Concept-tag density from snippet/path

Light and REM phase hits add a small recency-decayed boost from memory/.dreams/phase-signals.json.

Scheduling

When enabled, memory-core auto-manages one cron job for a full dreaming sweep. Each sweep runs phases in order: light → REM → deep.

The sweep includes the primary runtime workspace and any configured agent workspaces, deduped by path, so subagent workspace fan-out does not exclude the main agent's DREAMS.md and memory state.

Default cadence behavior:

Setting	Default
`dreaming.frequency`	`0 3 * * *`
`dreaming.model`	default model

Quick start

Enable dreaming

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "memory-core": {
        "config": {
          "dreaming": {
            "enabled": true
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Custom sweep cadence

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "memory-core": {
        "config": {
          "dreaming": {
            "enabled": true,
            "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles",
            "frequency": "0 */6 * * *"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Slash command

/dreaming status
/dreaming on
/dreaming off
/dreaming help

CLI workflow

Promotion preview / apply

openclaw memory promote
openclaw memory promote --apply
openclaw memory promote --limit 5
openclaw memory status --deep

Manual memory promote uses deep-phase thresholds by default unless overridden with CLI flags.

Explain promotion

Explain why a specific candidate would or would not promote:

openclaw memory promote-explain "router vlan"
openclaw memory promote-explain "router vlan" --json

REM harness preview

Preview REM reflections, candidate truths, and deep promotion output without writing anything:

openclaw memory rem-harness
openclaw memory rem-harness --json

Key defaults

All settings live under plugins.entries.memory-core.config.dreaming.

enabledboolean

Enable or disable the dreaming sweep.

frequencystring

Cron cadence for the full dreaming sweep.

modelstring

Optional Dream Diary subagent model override. Use a canonical provider/model value when also setting a subagent allowedModels allowlist.

Dreams UI

When enabled, the Gateway Dreams tab shows:

current dreaming enabled state
phase-level status and managed-sweep presence
short-term, grounded, signal, and promoted-today counts
next scheduled run timing
a distinct grounded Scene lane for staged historical replay entries
an expandable Dream Diary reader backed by doctor.memory.dreamDiary

Dreaming never runs: status shows blocked

If openclaw memory status reports Dreaming status: blocked, the managed cron exists but the default agent heartbeat is not firing. Check that heartbeat is enabled for the default agent and that its target is not none, then run openclaw memory status --deep again after the next heartbeat interval.

# What dreaming writes

# Phase model

# Session transcript ingestion

# Dream Diary

# Deep ranking signals

# Scheduling

# Quick start

Enable dreaming

Custom sweep cadence

# Slash command

# CLI workflow

Promotion preview / apply

Explain promotion

REM harness preview

# Key defaults

# Dreams UI

# Dreaming never runs: status shows blocked

# Related

What dreaming writes

Phase model

Session transcript ingestion

Dream Diary

Deep ranking signals

Scheduling

Quick start

Slash command

CLI workflow

Key defaults

Dreams UI

Dreaming never runs: status shows blocked

Related