INSTALL.md

openclaw-palinode — Installation & Host-Side Opt-in Flags

Prerequisites

• Palinode API server running and reachable (default: http://localhost:6340). See the root-level README.md for server setup.
• OpenClaw 2026.5.x or later.

Installing the plugin

For bundled releases, the plugin is included automatically. For non-bundled installs, copy or symlink the plugin/ directory into your OpenClaw plugins folder and reference it from your host config.

Host-side opt-in flags (required)

Non-bundled plugins on OpenClaw 2026.5.x load successfully — showing Status: loaded — but run with tools and hooks silently disabled unless you explicitly grant them in the host config. There is no error message. The plugin will appear to work, but autoRecall will never fire and none of the palinode_* tools will be reachable from the agent.

Add the following block to your OpenClaw host config under plugins.entries.openclaw-palinode:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "openclaw-palinode": {
        "hooks": {
          "allowPromptInjection": true,
          "allowConversationAccess": true
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Why each flag is required

Flag	Required for	Effect without it
allowPromptInjection	autoRecall — the before_prompt_build hook that prepends Palinode memory context to every agent turn	Hook is registered but its prependContext return value is silently dropped; the agent receives no injected memory
allowConversationAccess	Reading event.prompt inside the before_prompt_build hook to build the semantic recall query	Hook fires but event.prompt is undefined; semantic/associative/trigger recall is skipped, only core file injection can run

Both flags are required for full functionality. allowConversationAccess alone gives you the recall query; allowPromptInjection alone lets you inject — you need both for autoRecall to work end-to-end.

Note: These flags cover the before_prompt_build, after_compaction, agent_end, and before_reset hooks used by this plugin. The palinode_* tools (palinode_search, palinode_save, palinode_ingest, palinode_status, palinode_diff, palinode_blame, palinode_depends) are registered separately via api.registerTool and do not require hook flags — they are available to the agent as tools as long as the plugin is loaded.

Verifying the install

1. Check the gateway log at startup

When the plugin initializes successfully with hooks enabled, you should see a line like:

openclaw-palinode: registered (api: http://localhost:6340, dir: ~/palinode, autoRecall: true, autoCapture: true)

If that line appears but you see no subsequent openclaw-palinode: turn 1 — profile=... line on the first agent turn, the before_prompt_build hook is not firing — check that allowPromptInjection is set to true in the host config.

2. Confirm the agent quotes real injected memory

Send the agent a message that should match something in your Palinode memory store. If autoRecall is working, the agent's reply will reference specific facts from your memory files. If the agent's answer looks generic or hallucinates details that contradict your actual memory files, the context injection is not reaching it.

You can also ask the agent directly:

"What context did you receive from Palinode at the start of this session?"

A working install will quote the <palinode-memory profile="..."> block contents. A misconfigured one will say it received nothing.

3. Verify tool availability

Ask the agent to call palinode_status. It should return file counts and index health from your Palinode server. A tool not found error means the plugin did not register, not a hook issue — check that the plugin loaded at all (look for the registered log line).

Plugin config fields

These live under plugins.entries.openclaw-palinode alongside the hooks block:

Field	Default	Description
palinodeApiUrl	http://localhost:6340	Palinode API server URL
palinodeDir	~/palinode	Path to your Palinode memory directory
autoRecall	true	Inject core memory + semantic recall before each agent turn
autoCapture	true	Append session summaries to daily/ at agent end
recallProfile	coding	Named recall preset: coding, monitoring, investigation, writing, conversation, minimal, off
recallProfileConfig	—	Per-field overrides on top of the named preset
promptsDir	specs/prompts	Path to extraction prompts, relative to palinodeDir