For OpenClaw users + AI-curious devs

Make your AI agent stop being a chatbot.

A scaffold for a real personal AI — memory, identity, heartbeats, and the discipline rules that prevent the predictable failure modes. Drop it into ~/clawd and you have working staff in 30 minutes.

What this is

Most “AI assistants” are dumb because they have no memory, no identity, and no rules of engagement. They restart from zero every session. They post private context to public channels. They guess at APIs instead of reading docs.

This template is the discipline scaffold that fixes that. It's the same shape Todd uses to run Ea, his personal AI Chief of Staff — stripped of secrets and personal info, structured so you can clone it and have a working agent today.

The differentiator isn't the model. It's six things: persistent identity, three-layer memory, a heartbeat pattern, sub-agent delegation, project-context auto-injection, and standing rules that prevent the predictable failure modes.

What you get

Every file is templated. Real content gets filled in during onboarding — either manually or by pasting a setup prompt into your AI of choice.

Three-layer memory

Daily journal, curated long-term memory, per-person profiles. Your agent stops restarting from zero every session.

Heartbeats

A small tiered checklist your agent runs every 20–30 minutes. Useful background work without being a chatbot pinging you on a timer.

Sub-agent by default

Anything >2–3 tool calls gets delegated. The main thread stays responsive. You stay in flow.

Project context auto-inject

Each project has its own CONTEXT.md. When your agent is routed to project X, it starts the conversation already informed.

Standing rules

Privacy, project guard, ship-don't-start, research-before-assuming. Each one prevents a real failure that's already happened.

Evolves itself

Trajectory tips after every task, weekly self-review, proposed updates to identity files. A year in, your agent isn't the agent you started with.

A folder. That's the whole thing.

No SaaS. No vendor lock-in. No new app to install. Just a folder of markdown files your OpenClaw agent reads on every session.

The structure is the product. Memory layers, identity files, project context, skills. Each one templated, each one yours to fork.

clawd-template/
├─ BOOTSTRAP.mdfirst run
├─ AGENTS.mdoperating manual
├─ SOUL.mdwho the agent is
├─ USER.mdwho you are
├─ IDENTITY.mdname + vibe
├─ TOOLS.mdlocal notes
├─ MEMORY.mdlong-term curated
├─ HEARTBEAT.mdproactive checks
├─ EVOLVE.mdself-improvement
├─ memory/
├─ YYYY-MM-DD.mddaily journal
├─ people/
├─ <name>.mdper person
├─ trajectory-tips.md
├─ skills/
├─ projects/
├─ <name>/CONTEXT.md
├─ playbook/SOPs

Ready to give your agent a soul?

The setup walkthrough takes you through filling in USER.md, IDENTITY.md, and SOUL.md with prompts you paste into any AI. No coding required.