Skip to main content

​
Dreaming (experimental)

Dreaming is the background memory consolidation pass in memory-core. It is called “dreaming” because the system revisits what came up during the day and decides what is worth keeping as durable context. Dreaming is experimental, opt-in, and off by default.

​
What dreaming does

  1. Tracks short-term recall events from memory_search hits in memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md.
  2. Scores those recall candidates with weighted signals.
  3. Promotes only qualified candidates into MEMORY.md.
This keeps long-term memory focused on durable, repeated context instead of one-off details.

​
Promotion signals

Dreaming combines four signals:
  • Frequency: how often the same candidate was recalled.
  • Relevance: how strong recall scores were when it was retrieved.
  • Query diversity: how many distinct query intents surfaced it.
  • Recency: temporal weighting over recent recalls.
Promotion requires all configured threshold gates to pass, not just one signal.

​
Signal weights

SignalWeightDescription
Frequency0.35How often the same entry was recalled
Relevance0.35Average recall scores when retrieved
Diversity0.15Count of distinct query intents that surfaced it
Recency0.15Temporal decay (14-day half-life)

​
How it works

  1. Recall tracking — Every memory_search hit is recorded to memory/.dreams/short-term-recall.json with recall count, scores, and query hash.
  2. Scheduled scoring — On the configured cadence, candidates are ranked using weighted signals. All threshold gates must pass simultaneously.
  3. Promotion — Qualifying entries are appended to MEMORY.md with a promoted timestamp.
  4. Cleanup — Already-promoted entries are filtered from future cycles. A file lock prevents concurrent runs.

​
Modes

dreaming.mode controls cadence and default thresholds:
ModeCadenceminScoreminRecallCountminUniqueQueries
offDisabled———
coreDaily 3 AM0.7532
remEvery 6 hours0.8543
deepEvery 12 hours0.8033

​
Scheduling model

When dreaming is enabled, memory-core manages the recurring schedule automatically. You do not need to manually create a cron job for this feature. You can still tune behavior with explicit overrides such as:
  • dreaming.frequency (cron expression)
  • dreaming.timezone
  • dreaming.limit
  • dreaming.minScore
  • dreaming.minRecallCount
  • dreaming.minUniqueQueries

​
Configure

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "memory-core": {
        "config": {
          "dreaming": {
            "mode": "core"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

​
Chat commands

Switch modes and check status from chat: 
/dreaming core          # Switch to core mode (nightly)
/dreaming rem           # Switch to rem mode (every 6h)
/dreaming deep          # Switch to deep mode (every 12h)
/dreaming off           # Disable dreaming
/dreaming status        # Show current config and cadence
/dreaming help          # Show mode guide

​
CLI commands

Preview and apply promotions from the command line: 
# Preview promotion candidates
openclaw memory promote

# Apply promotions to MEMORY.md
openclaw memory promote --apply

# Limit preview count
openclaw memory promote --limit 5

# Include already-promoted entries
openclaw memory promote --include-promoted

# Check dreaming status
openclaw memory status --deep
See memory CLI for the full flag reference.

​
Dreams UI

When dreaming is enabled, the Gateway sidebar shows a Dreams tab with memory stats (short-term count, long-term count, promoted count) and the next scheduled cycle time.

​
Further reading