| name | skill-sediment |
| description | Install and operate the OpenClaw skill-sediment plugin extension (turns successful conversations into auto-generated SKILL.md files, then promotes them to skills/). Covers: install (with interactive agent selection), heal (self-repair: detect and fix whitelist/file loss, supplement missing validAgentId, auto-restart gateway), doctor (diagnostics), recover (restore after pod restart), status (sediment pool stats), config (current state), uninstall. Triggers on: sediment / auto-skill-sediment / install/port/clone sediment / sediment not working / sediment pool / uninstall sediment. Note: unrelated to the same-named Rust semantic-memory MCP (store/recall); does not cover OpenClaw installation itself nor publishing to Skill Hubs.
|
skill-sediment
One-shot installer for the OpenClaw skill-sediment plugin extension — auto-distill
successful conversation workflows into SKILL.md files, then promote them to skills/.
Core Facts
- What is being ported: an OpenClaw plugin extension (not an MCP, not a standalone
service) that listens to conversations and writes successful workflows as SKILL.md.
- The plugin is ≈340KB of pure TypeScript source (9 files), depending only on
OpenClaw core's built-in
plugin-sdk + typebox.
- No embedding model required — sediment uses LLM semantic judgement, not vector retrieval.
- The plugin source is already embedded in
assets/plugin-source/ (flat directory
of 9 TypeScript files + package.json + openclaw.plugin.json) — offline install
works out of the box. A legacy .tar.gz fallback path is also supported for
backward compatibility.
Quick Install
cd <this skill directory>
python3 scripts/manage.py install
In most cases plugins.allow is empty, so the plugin loads automatically from the
convention directory — no config change required, just restart.
--valid-agent-id is only needed when restricting which agents get sediment enabled
(comma-separated, e.g. main,debp; defaults to main).
Subcommands
| Command | Purpose |
|---|
install | Full install: env check → deploy plugin to convention dir → interactive agent selection → allow-empty auto-load / allow-nonempty whitelist append → restart prompt |
config | Print current allow state and recommended actions (helpful for managed pods) |
doctor | Diagnose: version / plugin-sdk / plugin files / allow whitelist / validAgentId / sediment_skills dir |
recover | Restore after pod restart (plugin present → OK; PVC volume swapped → redeploy) |
status | Inspect sediment pool: pending incubations (sediment_skills/) and activated promotions (skills/) |
heal | Self-repair: detect and fix whitelist/file loss, supplement missing validAgentId, auto-restart gateway |
uninstall | Remove allow/entries config entries (add --purge to also remove plugin dir; never deletes already-sedimented SKILL.md) |
Note: this open-source version intentionally omits the cron-setup subcommand
from the internal build, since unattended scheduling assumes platform-specific
orchestration. Use heal manually, or wire it into your own scheduler (cron, systemd
timer, K8s CronJob, etc.) by invoking python3 scripts/manage.py heal.
openclaw.json Changes
| Scenario | Change |
|---|
plugins.allow empty | No openclaw.json change, convention dir auto-loads ✨ |
plugins.allow non-empty without this plugin | Idempotently append "skill-sediment" to allow |
plugins.entries | Optionally append validAgentId config (can be added manually any time) |
Convention-dir loading no longer requires plugins.load.paths; install does
not touch it.
Key Constraints (must obey)
1. Plugin directory uses the workspace convention path
OpenClaw auto-discovers plugins under:
<workspace>/.openclaw/extensions/<plugin-name>/
The plugin is deployed here (mounted on PVC, survives container restart/volume swap).
Do not put it under /app/extensions (container layer is restored on restart).
When plugins.allow is empty, all plugins in this dir auto-load — no whitelist
needed. When non-empty, the plugin must be explicitly listed in allow.
2. Managed environments (Lobi / Apollo)
If plugins.allow is non-empty and requires a whitelist append, you'll be writing
openclaw.json. Managed pods face an override risk:
- Pre-detect:
LOBI_SYNC_ENABLED / APPID=clawbot* / Apollo signals → skip
local write, redirect to remote console config
- The plugin file itself (convention dir) lands locally regardless, unaffected by
managed-config sync
If plugins.allow is empty (most cases), managed and unmanaged pods behave
identically — zero config change.
3. Gateway restart is not automatic by default
By default install only prompts for manual restart. Pass --auto-restart to
have it restart the gateway automatically.
4. Version compatibility
Verified OpenClaw baseline: 2026.3.8. install auto-compares the target version:
= 2026.3.8 → green light> baseline → warn and continue (the plugin API surface is narrow; rely on
post-install smoke test)< baseline → refuse (missing-API risk); pass --force-version to override
Verify the plugin actually loaded
doctor checks files/config, but hook mount status only shows in gateway logs.
In K8s containers logs go to stdout (usually no systemd/journalctl), pick by env:
grep -r "\[skill-sediment\]" /proc/1/fd/1 2>/dev/null | tail
grep "\[skill-sediment\]" ~/.openclaw/logs/*.log 2>/dev/null | tail
kubectl logs <pod> | grep "\[skill-sediment\]"
Final confirmation that sediment actually works: after a normal conversation accumulates
~15 tool calls, status should show pending sediments under sediment_skills/.
doctor also prints these two steps at the end.
Path Environment Variables (multi-pod / non-standard environments)
| env | Default | Description |
|---|
OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE | ~/.openclaw/workspace | Workspace root (plugin dir lives here) |
OPENCLAW_CONFIG | ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json | Config file (only needed when allow non-empty) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_AGENTS | main | Default validAgentId |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_CDN | (empty) | Fallback URL for the plugin tarball (only used if the bundled assets/ copy is missing; typical installs never use this) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_SHA256 | (empty) | Optional sha256 checksum for the downloaded bundle |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_TZ | Asia/Shanghai | Timezone for any local time formatting in diagnostics |
Convention plugin path (auto-computed, no manual config needed):
<OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE>/.openclaw/extensions/skill-sediment/
Sediment Mechanism (FAQ after install)
- Trigger: every ~15 tool calls, a background review sub-Agent is kicked off (
nudgeInterval is tunable)
- Output:
sediment_skills/*.md (pending) → after a second hit, promoted to skills/*.md (activated)
- Second-hit logic: a different parent session hits again, OR the sediment is ≥1 day old and the same session hits again
- Eviction: untouched for 10 days → auto-evict / max 20 per agent / 3-day grace for new ones
- Full architecture (6 Gates / lifecycle / promote guards) is in
references/sediment-internals.md
License
MIT — see LICENSE for the full text.
When publishing to clawhub.com the platform re-licenses uploads as MIT-0 (No
Attribution); the GitHub source tree remains true MIT. See clawhub docs for details.
Dependencies
Runtime:
- Python 3.8+ (uses
pathlib, argparse, subprocess, urllib, json — all stdlib, no pip install needed)
- OpenClaw runtime with the
plugin-sdk module — the verified baseline is 2026.3.8;
install will warn or refuse on older versions
openclaw CLI available on PATH (used for gateway restart and optional
agents list discovery)
No third-party Python packages are required.
Environment Variables (read by scripts/manage.py)
The script reads the following environment variables. They are all optional with
sensible defaults; this list is provided for audit transparency.
| Env | Purpose |
|---|
OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE | Workspace root (default ~/.openclaw/workspace) |
OPENCLAW_CONFIG | Path to openclaw.json (default ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json) |
OPENCLAW_CORE_PKG | OpenClaw core package.json (default /app/package.json) |
OPENCLAW_PLUGIN_SDK | plugin-sdk directory (default /app/dist/plugin-sdk) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_AGENTS | Default validAgentId (default main) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_CDN | Optional fallback URL for the plugin tarball (default empty) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_SHA256 | Optional sha256 for the downloaded bundle (default empty) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_DETECT_WAIT | Read-back detection window in seconds (default 20) |
SKILL_SEDIMENT_TZ | Timezone for diagnostics formatting (default Asia/Shanghai) |
HOME | Standard POSIX home dir; used to resolve workspace/config defaults |
LOBI_SYNC_ENABLED, APPID, APOLLO_META, APOLLO_APP_ID | Managed-env signals (read-only detection; never written) |
