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Case study: OpenClaw agent chat → ClawQL memory_recall — cross-session vault knowledge (June 2026)

A real end-to-end validation: an OpenClaw gateway agent (fresh session, no pasted history) calling ClawQL MCP memory_recall and returning ranked vault notes from prior working sessions — not model improvisation.

Audience: Solo builders and small teams using agent gateways (OpenClaw, Goose, Hermes, Cursor, Claude Desktop) who want durable memory that survives chat boundaries, product switches, and context-window limits.

1. Why this case study exists

Agent products ship with ephemeral chat context. A plan you worked through last week in Cursor, a K8s debugging arc from April, or an OpenClaw bootstrap session is gone when you start a new thread — unless you paste it back or it lives somewhere tools can read.

ClawQL's vault tools (memory_ingest / memory_recall) persist Markdown under CLAWQL_OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH with [[wikilinks]], indexes, and optional hybrid memory.db sidecars. The practical question for the solo-builder market: can an external agent product like OpenClaw call ClawQL MCP and pull back knowledge from previous sessions without copy-pasting? This session answers that with a verbatim chat transcript and a clear tool trace (clawql__memory_recall).

2. Architecture: gateway consumes MCP; ClawQL owns the tools

OpenClaw routes agent tool calls to the configured clawql MCP endpoint (Streamable HTTP or stdio). ClawQL's tools are registered by clawql-api, not inside OpenClaw. The same pattern applies to optional Helm workloads for Goose and Hermes: they are deployment opt-ins that consume in-cluster ClawQL MCP.

3. What was wired (local stack, June 2026)

Build prerequisite: npm run build must produce dist/server-http.js (after npm install for workspace deps such as effect).

Transport gotcha: HTTP MCP without "transport":"streamable-http" can yield SSE 400 errors. Restart the chat bridge after MCP config changes.

4. The agent chat interaction (verbatim)

4.1 Fresh agent — no vault context yet

User:

Hello

OpenClaw agent (claw):

Hey. I just came online — fresh slate, no memories, no name yet. So... who are you?
And what should we call me?

This is expected: the model has no session history. Vault recall is a separate tool call.

4.2 Explicit memory_recall request

User:

Use the clawql MCP tool memory_recall with query "comprehensive project summary",
limit 5. Return the JSON results paths and snippets — do not guess from your own knowledge.

OpenClaw agent (claw):

Here are the results from `clawql__memory_recall` — I'm returning them directly, no guessing:

---
**Query:** `comprehensive project summary`
**Files scanned:** 3 | **Results:** 3

### 1. `Memory/openclaw-mac-mini-clawql-mcp-setup.md` (score: 2)
Snippet references:
- Using `clawql` MCP in Cursor's `.cursor/mcp.json` (not bare `clawql`);
  registered as `project-0-ClawQL-clawql`
- Risks & caveats: `localhost:8080` must be reachable; port-forward to k8s Service
  or run local `PORT=8080 npm run start:http`
- Cluster/Ingress URL updates must happen in both Cursor `mcp.json` and `openclaw mcp set`

### 2. `Memory/_INDEX_ClawQL.md` (score: 1)
- Index of ClawQL memory notes — 2 notes total under `Memory/`
- Lists: [[Docker Desktop Kubernetes MCP Kyverno Cosign session]] and
  [[OpenClaw Mac mini ClawQL MCP setup]]

### 3. `Memory/docker-desktop-kubernetes-mcp-kyverno-cosign-session.md` (score: 1)
- End-to-end debugging of ClawQL MCP on Docker Desktop Kubernetes with Kyverno image verification
- Blockers included: admission policy digest/signature behavior, Cosign bundle format
  vs Kyverno `verifyImages`, Kyverno Helm migration hook image pulls,
  hostPath vault permissions for distroless nonroot, GitHub Actions publish queue/cancellations
- Outcome: user confirmed success (snippet cut off)
---

The agent then offered to continue bootstrap (name/vibe) — orthogonal to MCP validation.

5. What the agent did (tool trace)

A vague "what do you know about ClawQL?" prompt without naming the tool tends to produce a plausible but ungrounded answer. Naming memory_recall explicitly (or using a gateway skill that always recalls first) makes the tool path reliable.

6. What this validates

1. External agent → ClawQL MCP → vault — OpenClaw can invoke ClawQL tools over Streamable HTTP and return vault content.
2. Cross-session knowledge — Notes written during earlier engineering sessions (K8s, OpenClaw wiring) surface in a new agent thread without paste.
3. Solo-builder story — One person can use OpenClaw for chat and ClawQL for memory + APIs; the vault becomes the portable knowledge store across Cursor Monday and OpenClaw Friday.
4. Dashboard path — The same flow works through Agent Chat when the dashboard proxy points at the chat bridge (CLAWQL_DASHBOARD_OPENCLAW_CHAT_URL).

7. What this unlocks

Vault recall via OpenClaw makes a few previously manual workflows automatic. Re-explaining homelab or K8s debugging context at the start of every new chat gives way to the agent pulling Memory/docker-desktop-kubernetes-… snippets directly. Copy-pasting runbooks into prompts gives way to keyword + wikilink recall returning ranked pages. Switching between Cursor, OpenClaw, and Hermes stops losing context because the same clawql-mcp endpoint serves the same vault path across all three.

Follow-up steps in the same session or a follow-up:

• memory_recall → synthesize plan from vault.
• search + execute → GitHub issues, Cloudflare, GCP (see Cross-thread vault recall).
• memory_ingest → append outcomes so the next gateway session recalls today's work.

Goose / Hermes: Helm scaffolds wire CLAWQL_MCP_URL (Goose) and dashboard flags (Hermes) the same way — this case study's OpenClaw chat path is the reference interaction for "agent gateway + ClawQL memory."

8. Prompt and wiring tips

Reliable recall prompts:

Use the clawql MCP tool memory_recall with query "<concrete topic>", limit 5.
Return paths and snippets from the tool JSON only.

Checklist:

Vault path note: In this session, recalled filenames differed from another host path (~/.ClawQL) — recall still proved the tool chain. Align CLAWQL_OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH across local, K8s hostPath, and Compose mounts when you want one canonical vault (see TrueNAS homelab case study for the same class of mismatch).

9. Kubernetes and Helm (production-shaped path)

Optional openclaw.enabled in charts/clawql-mcp:

• Auto-wires mcp.servers.clawql in OpenClaw ConfigMap → in-cluster Streamable HTTP URL.
• Chat bridge sidecar on :8787 for dashboard Agent Chat.
• Dashboard helper sets CLAWQL_DASHBOARD_OPENCLAW_CHAT_URL when bridge is enabled.

Local validation in this case study precedes cluster deploy; the Helm templates encode the same URLs and tool surface for a solo builder who later moves to Docker Desktop K8s or a homelab cluster. See Helm and OpenClaw + ClawQL.

10. Reproduction checklist

1. Build ClawQL: npm install && npm run build
2. Start MCP: export CLAWQL_OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH="$HOME/.ClawQL" (or your vault); PORT=8080 npm run start:http
3. Register OpenClaw: openclaw mcp set clawql '{"url":"http://127.0.0.1:8080/mcp","transport":"streamable-http"}'
4. Start bridge: npm run openclaw:chat-bridge --prefix dashboard
5. Ingest at least one note (if vault empty): memory_ingest with stable title under Memory/
6. New thread: send the explicit memory_recall prompt via bridge POST /v1/chat or dashboard Agent Chat
7. Confirm: response cites clawql__memory_recall and vault path values

11. References

Ingest hook: After publishing, run memory_ingest with title OpenClaw agent chat memory_recall validation (June 2026) and wikilinks to prior setup notes so future memory_recall queries hit this narrative.

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