Personal Knowledge Base with OpenClaw

This page is for turning your OpenClaw workspace into a personal knowledge base. If you want the agent to answer from your notes and documents instead of only from the web or its training, you store that content in the workspace and point the agent at it. You’ll see how to put notes and docs where OpenClaw can read them, how memory and context work so the agent uses that content in chat, and how to query it in practice. No extra services required—the workspace is just folders and Markdown. Allow about 20–30 minutes.

By the end you’ll have a workspace that holds your notes, references, or docs in a structure the agent can read. You can ask in chat things like “What did I write about X?” or “Summarize my notes on project Y” and the agent will use the workspace (and memory if you use it) to answer. You get a single place to drop knowledge and one assistant that can search and reason over it. For deeper search (e.g. semantic or vector search), you can add a skill later; this tutorial stays with the built-in file and memory system.

OpenClaw installed and at least one channel connected so you can talk to the agent. Finish Getting Started if you haven’t. The agent needs read access to your workspace (default); you’ll put notes under the workspace root (e.g. ~/clawd/ or ~/.openclaw/workspace/). See Configuration for the exact path.

OpenClaw’s workspace is a folder on disk. Anything you put there in Markdown or text is visible to the agent when it has file tools. Create a dedicated folder for knowledge—e.g. ~/clawd/knowledge/ or ~/clawd/notes/—and add your notes, meeting summaries, or reference docs as .md files. You can keep notes in any editor (including Obsidian or other Markdown apps) and save or sync them into the workspace folder. Use subfolders by topic or project if you like. The agent can list, read, and search under the workspace; no extra install for basic “read my notes” behavior.

~/clawd/
  knowledge/
    projects/
      project-alpha.md
    meetings/
      2025-02-notes.md
    references/
      api-notes.md

OpenClaw’s memory system writes daily notes and conversation context into the workspace. When you chat, the agent can load recent memory and relevant files so it “remembers” what you’ve discussed and what’s in your notes. Enable and tune memory in configuration; then the agent automatically uses it when answering. For a knowledge base, memory helps the agent tie together “what I said last week” and “what’s in my knowledge folder.” If you want the agent to proactively scan or summarize your knowledge folder on a schedule, add a cron or webhook that runs a prompt like “Summarize new files in ~/clawd/knowledge/ this week.”

Once notes live in the workspace, ask in natural language. For example: “What are the main points in my project-alpha notes?”, “Search my knowledge folder for anything about API rate limits”, or “Summarize my meeting notes from February.” The agent uses its file and read tools to find and cite the right files. You can refine: “Only look under knowledge/projects” or “Compare that with what I wrote in references/api-notes.” For large collections, consider a skill that does semantic or keyword search over the workspace and returns snippets; the Skills guide and Creating Your First Skill tutorial show how to add one.

Link your knowledge base to other flows: use Research Assistant to pull in web results and store summaries in your knowledge folder, or File Organization to keep incoming docs sorted into the same structure. For token and context limits when the agent reads many files, see Context management and Memory management.