help

[ionic dome]

why does starting a new session completely wipe my agent's memory? it wasnt like that before

[hybrid ivy]

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[jovial apex]

Starting a new session is basically “new chat transcript / fresh context” in OpenClaw. The model doesn’t have hidden RAM across sessions, so if you hit /new (or create a new session in the dashboard), the previous JSONL chat history is no longer in context — that part is by design. Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/session + https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/compaction

What should persist across sessions is durable memory on disk (Markdown in the agent workspace):

• memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md (daily notes; today + yesterday are read at session start)
• MEMORY.md (curated long-term memory) — only loaded in the main/private session, not in group chats, to avoid leaking private info in channels like Discord servers
  Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/memory

So usually one of these is happening:

1. You’re expecting chat-history continuity → use /compact instead of /new if you want a “cleaner” context without losing everything (it summarizes older context rather than starting over).

2. You’re in a channel/group context (like this #help thread) → MEMORY.md won’t load there, so it can feel like “memory got wiped” even though it’s intentional.

3. Regression/bug: there’s an open bug report that /new//reset sometimes doesn’t auto-load the usual memory files at session start (#13987). If you tell me your openclaw --version and whether this is happening in DM vs a server channel, I can point you at the right fix/workaround.