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Give your OpenClaw agents persistent memory via plugin powered by cognee. Automatically index memory files, recall relevant context before each agent run, and search across sessions with natural language.

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Why Use This Integration

  • Auto-Index: Memory files sync to Cognee on startup and after each agent run
  • Auto-Recall: Relevant memories are injected as context before every prompt
  • Graph Search: Natural language queries powered by knowledge graph traversal
  • Zero Friction: Works with OpenClaw’s native Markdown memory files

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Installation

openclaw plugins install @cognee/cognee-openclaw
Or install locally for development: 
cd integrations/openclaw
npm install && npm run build
openclaw plugins install -l .

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Quick Start

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1. Start Cognee

Use the Local Docker setup to run Cognee quickly. You can also use this minimal Docker Compose file.

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2. Get Your API Key

Register a user and login to get your bearer token: 
# Register a new user
curl -X POST "http://localhost:8000/api/v1/users/register" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "password": "your-password"}'

# Login to get your bearer token
curl -X POST "http://localhost:8000/api/v1/users/login" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "password": "your-password"}'
The login response contains your bearer token — use this as your COGNEE_API_KEY.
You can also explore the API at http://localhost:8000/docs (Swagger UI) to register and login interactively.

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3. Enable the Plugin

Add to ~/.openclaw/config.yaml: 
plugins:
  entries:
    memory-cognee:
      enabled: true
      config:
        baseUrl: "http://localhost:8000"
        apiKey: "${COGNEE_API_KEY}"
        datasetName: "my-project"
        searchType: "GRAPH_COMPLETION"
        autoRecall: true
        autoIndex: true
That’s it. Your OpenClaw memory files are now backed by Cognee’s knowledge graph.

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How It Works

Memory persists across OpenClaw sessions automatically. The plugin syncs your MEMORY.md and memory/*.md files to Cognee, building a knowledge graph that can traverse relationships between concepts.
  1. On Startup: Scans memory directory and syncs files to Cognee (add new, update changed, skip unchanged)
  2. Before Agent Run: Searches Cognee for memories relevant to your prompt and injects them as context
  3. After Agent Run: Re-scans memory files and syncs any changes the agent made
  4. State Tracking: Maintains sync index at ~/.openclaw/memory/cognee/ for efficient updates
The plugin uses hash-based change detection to minimize API calls. Only new or modified files are synced to Cognee.

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Search Types

Here are the available search types:
  • GRAPH_COMPLETION
  • CHUNKS
  • SUMMARIES
You can learn more in Search Types and extend these if you want from the source.

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CLI Commands

# Manually sync memory files to Cognee
openclaw cognee index

# Check sync status (indexed files, pending changes)
openclaw cognee status

GitHub Repository

View source code and examples

Blog Post

Deep dive into building this plugin

OpenClaw Docs

Learn about OpenClaw’s memory system