• Author: Evan Song Songhonglei@users.noreply.github.com
• Repository: https://github.com/Songhonglei/build-better-skills
• License: MIT — see LICENSE
• Version: 1.0.2

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
# Then follow the prompt to manually restart: openclaw gateway restart
# Verify after restart: python3 scripts/manage.py doctor

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:

# Inside container: tail PID 1 stdout
grep -r "\[skill-sediment\]" /proc/1/fd/1 2>/dev/null | tail
# Or OpenClaw's own logs
grep "\[skill-sediment\]" ~/.openclaw/logs/*.log 2>/dev/null | tail
# Or K8s from outside
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)