OpenClaw Native Memory

@rushdb/openclaw-memory adds automatic, lifecycle-aware RushDB recall and persistence while leaving OpenClaw's local Markdown and SQLite memory active.

This is different from the existing MCP and skills integration:

Level	Behavior
RushDB MCP	The model can choose database tools
MCP + RushDB skills	Tools plus procedural query and modeling guidance
@rushdb/openclaw-memory	Automatic pre-inference recall and post-turn persistence

The plugin is additive. It does not claim OpenClaw's exclusive kind: "memory" capability.

Install

openclaw plugins install @rushdb/openclaw-memory

Set the API key in the gateway environment, then configure the plugin:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "rushdb-memory": {
        "enabled": true,
        "hooks": {
          "allowConversationAccess": true,
          "allowPromptInjection": true
        },
        "config": {
          "profileId": "default",
          "autoRecall": true,
          "autoCapture": true,
          "recallTimeoutMs": 300
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Requires Node.js 22.14 or newer and OpenClaw 2026.8.1-beta.2 or newer.

RushDB Cloud

export RUSHDB_API_KEY=your-project-api-key

Optionally set RUSHDB_API_URL to use a different RushDB Cloud API endpoint.

A self-hosted RushDB engine

Memory recall is a vector search. RushDB Cloud embeds memories for you; a self-hosted engine does not, so give the plugin an OpenAI-compatible embedding provider:

export RUSHDB_ENGINE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:3000"
export RUSHDB_ENGINE_TOKEN="your-engine-token"
# export RUSHDB_ENGINE_SCOPE="tenant-1"   # only for an engine started with --multitenant
export RUSHDB_EMBEDDING_API_KEY="sk-..."
export RUSHDB_EMBEDDING_MODEL="text-embedding-3-small"
export RUSHDB_EMBEDDING_DIMENSIONS="1536"
# export RUSHDB_EMBEDDING_BASE_URL="https://api.openai.com/v1"   # any OpenAI-compatible endpoint

The same settings are accepted in the plugin config (engineUrl, engineToken, engineScope, embeddingBaseUrl, embeddingApiKey, embeddingModel, embeddingDimensions). With RushDB Cloud the embedding settings are optional: set them to embed on your side instead of with the managed model. Without a usable configuration the plugin stays disabled and logs why.

Set RUSHDB_MEMORY_SCOPE_SALT in either mode so hashes of channel and participant identifiers cannot be correlated across deployments.

Privacy behavior

Every write and recall is constrained by agentId, profileId, privacyScope, participantScopeHash, and sandboxEligible before semantic ranking. The plugin fails closed for:

• group and channel sessions;
• cron, hook, node, subagent, heartbeat, and incognito sessions;
• sandboxed prompt contexts;
• channel conversations without a trusted participant identifier.

Local/CLI sessions default to the exact session as their participant scope. Set localScopeId only when multiple local sessions intentionally share memory.

Only the latest bounded user/assistant pair is captured. System messages, complete transcripts, tool calls, command output, and local file paths are not uploaded automatically.

Reliability

Completed episodes are first written to a local outbox at ~/.openclaw/rushdb-memory/outbox. A background writer uses deterministic eventId values and RushDB upsert with mergeBy: ["eventId"]. If RushDB is unavailable, OpenClaw's reply and local memory continue normally and the outbox remains available for replay after restart.

Embedding indexes fill asynchronously. A bounded recent-write cache supplies read-your-own-write recall until the EPISODE.summary index is ready.

Verify

1. Tell the agent a stable project decision.
2. End the session and start another authorized private session.
3. Ask about the decision without explicitly calling a RushDB tool.
4. Take RushDB offline and confirm the user conversation still completes.

Use MCP and Agent Skills alongside the plugin when the model also needs explicit graph operations.