session-scribe

Reads OpenClaw session transcripts and writes summarized bullet points to a daily memory file — automatically, via system cron.

No gateway involvement. No context bloat. Just cheap, reliable scribing.

⚠️ Privacy notice

This skill sends conversation transcript content to an external LLM (OpenAI or Anthropic). If your sessions contain secrets, API keys, PII, or sensitive data — be aware that content will be sent to the provider for summarization. Use a dedicated low-privilege API key with spend limits, and consider running --dry-run first to see exactly what gets sent.

How it works

1. Reads /.jsonl for new entries since last run
2. Extracts user + assistant turns (skips tool calls, system events)
3. Sends to OpenAI or Anthropic API for summarization (gpt-4o-mini by default — cheap)
4. Appends bullet-point summary to /YYYY-MM-DD.md (date auto-generated)
5. Saves progress in .scribe-state.json so next run only processes new entries

Setup

# Install dependencies (one-time, in the skill directory)
cd /path/to/skills/session-scribe && npm install

# Set your API key — OpenAI or Anthropic both work
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
# or
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-api03-...

# Find your session ID
python3 -c "
import json, os
sessions = json.load(open(os.path.expanduser('~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/sessions.json')))
for k, v in sessions.items():
    print(k, '->', v.get('sessionId'))
"

# Test run (dry-run, prints summary without writing)
node scripts/scribe.js \
  --sessions ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions \
  --session-id <your-session-id> \
  --memory-dir ~/.openclaw/workspace/memory \
  --dry-run

# Or auto-resolve session by key suffix (e.g. your Discord channel ID)
node scripts/scribe.js \
  --sessions ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions \
  --auto-session "discord:channel:YOUR_CHANNEL_ID" \
  --memory-dir ~/.openclaw/workspace/memory \
  --dry-run

> Note: OpenClaw's internal oat tokens cannot be used for direct API calls. Use a standard API key from platform.openai.com or console.anthropic.com.

System cron setup

Add to crontab (crontab -e) to run every hour:

# Store your key in a protected file (do NOT inline secrets in crontab)
echo "sk-your-key" > ~/.openclaw/secrets/scribe-key
chmod 600 ~/.openclaw/secrets/scribe-key

# Single session (via key file)
0 * * * * node /path/to/session-scribe/scripts/scribe.js \
  --sessions ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions \
  --auto-session "discord:channel:YOUR_CHANNEL_ID" \
  --memory-dir ~/.openclaw/workspace/memory \
  --api-key-file ~/.openclaw/secrets/scribe-key \
  >> /tmp/scribe.log 2>&1

# All sessions across all agents
0 * * * * node /path/to/session-scribe/scripts/scribe.js \
  --agents-dir ~/.openclaw/agents \
  --all-sessions \
  --memory-dir ~/.openclaw/workspace/memory \
  --api-key-file ~/.openclaw/secrets/scribe-key \
  >> /tmp/scribe.log 2>&1

Options

Pairing with supermemory

For a full automated memory pipeline:

1. session-scribe runs hourly → appends to memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md
2. supermemory ingest runs every 2h → syncs changed files to Supermemory
3. supermemory recall at session start → enriched context from past sessions

References

• references/transcript-format.md — OpenClaw JSONL transcript structure and sessions.json format