Smart Context Manager

Context Manager Skill

AI-powered context management for OpenClaw sessions. Uses the agent itself to generate intelligent summaries, then resets the session with compressed context.

Quick Start

# List all sessions with usage stats ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh list # Check status of a specific session ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh status agent:main:main # Generate AI summary (read-only, safe) ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh summarize agent:main:main # Compress session: generate summary, reset, inject (DESTRUCTIVE) ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh summarize agent:main:main --replace

When to Use

Context usage approaching 70-80%+ Long sessions with extensive conversation history Before the session becomes slow or loses coherence Proactively to maintain fast, focused sessions

How It Works

AI Summarization: Sends a prompt to the agent asking it to summarize its own context Backup: Saves the original JSONL session file to memory/compressed/ Reset: Deletes the JSONL file (official reset method) Inject: Sends the AI-generated summary as the first message in the fresh session Result: Same session key, new session ID, compressed context Key insight: The agent has full visibility into its own context, so it generates the best possible summary.

Session Commands

CommandDescriptionlistList all sessions with token usagestatus [KEY]Show detailed status for a sessionsummarize [KEY]Generate AI summary (read-only)summarize [KEY] --replaceSummarize AND reset session with compressed contextcompress [KEY]Legacy grep-based extraction (not recommended)check [KEY]Check if session exceeds thresholdcheck-allCheck all sessions at once

Configuration Commands

CommandDescriptionset-threshold NSet compression threshold (50-99%, default: 80)set-depth LEVELSet depth: brief/balanced/comprehensiveset-quiet-hours HHSet quiet hours (e.g., "23:00-07:00")helpShow help and usage examples

List All Sessions

$ ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh list 📋 Available Sessions (4 total) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ # SESSION KEY KIND TOKENS USAGE 1 agent:main:main direct 70188 70% 2 agent:main:slack:channel:c0aaruq2en9 group 20854 20% 3 agent:main:cron:0d02af4b-... direct 18718 18%

Check Session Status

$ ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh status agent:main:main 📊 Context Manager Status ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Session Key: agent:main:main Session ID: fc192a2d-091c-48c7-9fad-12bf34687454 Kind: direct Model: gemini-3-flash ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Threshold: 80% Tokens: 70188 / 100000 Usage: 70%

Generate AI Summary (Safe, Read-Only)

• $ ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh summarize agent:main:main
• 🧠 Requesting AI summary for session: agent:main:main
• Session ID: fc192a2d-091c-48c7-9fad-12bf34687454
• ✅ AI Summary generated!
• Saved to: memory/compressed/20260127-123146.ai-summary.md
• ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• ### Session Summary: January 27, 2026
• #### 1. What was accomplished
• System audit completed
• Essay generation with sub-agents
• ...

Full Compression (Summarize + Reset + Inject)

$ ~/openclaw/skills/context-manager/compress.sh summarize agent:main:main --replace 🧠 Requesting AI summary for session: agent:main:main Session ID: fc192a2d-091c-48c7-9fad-12bf34687454 Mode: REPLACE (will reset session after summary) ✅ AI Summary generated! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [AI-generated summary displayed] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔄 Resetting session and injecting compressed context... Backing up session file... Backup saved: memory/compressed/20260127-123146.session-backup.jsonl Deleting session JSONL to reset... Injecting compressed context into fresh session... ✅ Session compressed successfully! Old session ID: fc192a2d-091c-48c7-9fad-12bf34687454 New session ID: a1b2c3d4-... Session is ready to continue with compressed context Result: 70k tokens → 16k tokens (77% reduction)

Output Files

When compression occurs, these files are created in memory/compressed/: FileDescription{timestamp}.ai-summary.mdAI-generated session summary{timestamp}.session-backup.jsonlFull backup of original session (can restore if needed){timestamp}.transcript.mdRaw transcript extraction (legacy){timestamp}.summary.mdGrep-based summary (legacy)

Requirements

openclaw - Gateway must be running jq - JSON parsing (brew install jq) Gateway access - Script uses openclaw agent and openclaw sessions

Session Reset Method

The script uses JSONL deletion to reset sessions (official method): Backup JSONL to memory/compressed/ Delete ~/.openclaw/agents/{agent}/sessions/{sessionId}.jsonl Send compressed context via openclaw agent --to main New session is created automatically with summary as first message

Why Not /reset?

The /reset slash command only works in the chat interface. When sent via openclaw agent --session-id, it's treated as a regular message and the agent tries to interpret it as a task.

AI Summarization Prompt

The script asks the agent to provide: What was accomplished (key tasks) Key decisions made (with rationale) Current state (where we left off) Pending tasks (what still needs doing) Important context (critical info to remember)

Summary Text Empty

If the AI summary extraction fails, check stderr redirect: # The script uses 2>/dev/null to avoid Node deprecation warnings breaking JSON openclaw agent --session-id $ID -m "..." --json 2>/dev/null

Session Not Resetting

Verify the JSONL file path: ls ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/

Restore From Backup

If something goes wrong: cp memory/compressed/{timestamp}.session-backup.jsonl \ ~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/{sessionId}.jsonl

Check Logs

Use openclaw logs to troubleshoot: openclaw logs --limit 50 --json | grep -i "error\|fail"

Best Practices

Backup first: The script auto-backs up, but you can also manually backup before testing Test on non-critical sessions first: Try on a Slack channel or cron session before main Check the summary: Run summarize without --replace first to verify the summary quality Monitor token count: Use status to verify compression worked

See Also

openclaw sessions --help openclaw agent --help