How does memory work

OpenClaw memory is just Markdown files in the agent workspace:
Daily notes in memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md
Curated long-term notes in MEMORY.md (main/private sessions only)
OpenClaw also runs a silent pre-compaction memory flush to remind the model to write durable notes before auto-compaction. This only runs when the workspace is writable (read-only sandboxes skip it). See Memory.