Lobster maintenance

[worn sage]

I have a lobster pipeline and standing orders that are working just fine. It finds leads and writes them to a markdown file. I can't let the file grow forever though. I have one standing order to find more leads based , which ultimately adds 3 more leads to the markdown file. I have another standing order that will take the markdown file, suggests draft emails for the leads and sends me them as a single email. Please can you suggest a strategy to maintain this markdown file so that it always contains enough leads for the standing order to check for duplicate leads but also to remove older ones. The standing order to find leads is based on job posting which are less than 7 days old. You can find the markdown file here https://cl1p.net/4560

[ebon burrow]

To help others find answers, you can mark your question as solved via Right click solution message -> Apps -> ✅ Mark Solution

[old elm]

I couldn’t see the actual markdown from cl1p, but the maintenance pattern I’d use is:

Keep two separate ideas in the file: active leads and a small recent archive.

For each lead, store a stable duplicate key plus dates, e.g.

## Active leads

### Company — Role
- source_url:
- company:
- role:
- job_posted_at: 2026-05-14
- discovered_at: 2026-05-16
- status: new | drafted | contacted | rejected

[old elm]

- dedupe_key: normalized-company + normalized-role + source-domain

Then add a standing order that runs after the email-drafting order:

1. Move anything with status: drafted/contacted/rejected out of active leads.
2. Drop anything where job_posted_at is older than 7 days from active leads.
3. Keep a compact recent archive of dedupe keys for maybe 30-60 days.
4. Keep the active section capped, e.g. newest 25-50 leads.
5. Keep the archive capped by age, not by full lead text.

So the lead-finding order checks duplicates against:

• all active leads
• recent archive dedupe keys

…but the email-drafting order only reads:

[old elm]

• active leads with status: new

That way the markdown stays small, but you still avoid re-adding recently seen companies/roles.

I’d also make the lead finder update existing entries instead of appending blindly: if the dedupe_key already exists, update last_seen_at and maybe the source URL, but don’t add a new lead.

If this is all in one markdown file, I’d structure it like:

# Lobster leads

## Active leads
...

## Recent duplicate archive
- 2026-05-16 | dedupe_key | Company | Role | source_url

[old elm]

- 2026-05-15 | dedupe_key | Company | Role | source_url

The key bit: prune the expensive human-readable lead details aggressively, but retain cheap dedupe memory a bit longer than the 7-day job-posting window.

[worn sage]

Try again the markdown files can be found here: https://cl1p.net/4560

[old elm]

Yep, I can see it now. The current file is carrying full lead detail for everything, which is useful for drafting but too heavy for long-term duplicate checking.

For this specific file, I’d split it into three sections and have a small maintenance standing order run after the email-drafting order:

# SQL Leads Pipeline

> Last maintained: YYYY-MM-DD

## Active leads
Full lead blocks only for leads still worth drafting/responding to.

## Dedupe archive
Compact one-line records for recently seen leads.

## Sent / processed log

[old elm]

Compact one-line records for leads already used in outreach.

For each full lead, add/standardise these fields:

- **Found:** 2026-05-15
- **Job Posted:** 2026-05-15
- **Status:** new | drafted | sent | rejected | expired
- **Dedupe Key:** normalized-company | normalized-role | job-url-domain-or-id

Then the maintenance rule can be:

1. Keep full lead blocks only while active
   • Keep if Status: new

[old elm]

• Keep if Job Posted is within the last 7 days
  • Keep a hard cap, e.g. newest 25-40 active leads

2. Move old/used leads into a compact archive
   Instead of keeping the whole pitch/contact/news block forever, reduce it to:

- 2026-05-15 | blackrock | database-administrator-analyst | linkedin:4405828213 | status=sent

3. Use archive for duplicate checks
   The lead-finding order should check new candidates against:
   • company name
   • job posting URL or LinkedIn/job ID
   • normalized role title
   • optional contact email/domain

[old elm]

4. Expire archive rows by age
   Since your job-search window is “posted in the last 7 days”, I’d keep dedupe rows for 45-60 days. That’s long enough to avoid re-finding the same recurring/reposted roles, without letting the file grow forever.

5. Regenerate the Summary from active leads only
   Your current summary lists everything, including older leads. I’d make the Summary only reflect ## Active leads, otherwise it becomes another thing that grows and drifts.

A practical standing-order instruction could be:

After draft emails are created, maintain the leads markdown:
- For any lead with status drafted/sent/rejected, remove the full lead block from Active leads.
- Add or update one Dedupe archive row containing found date, company, normalized role, job URL/job ID, and status.
- Remove Active leads where Job Posted is older than 7 days.
- Keep only the newest 40 Active leads.
- Remove Dedupe archive rows older than 60 days.
- Rebuild the Summary table from Active leads only.

[old elm]

- Do not delete active leads with status=new unless they are expired by Job Posted date.

One extra thing I’d fix: your file currently has lead numbering gaps/order drift around #17-#22 and #19/#20. Numbering is fragile for this workflow. Better to use company headings and let the Summary count them, or use stable IDs like lead-20260515-blackrock-dba instead of Lead #17.

[worn sage]

One other thing to consider, I have a standing order to email the leads to me, will the new markdown format allow me to email me only the active leads

[old elm]

Yes, it should actually make that more reliable, as long as the email standing order is told to read only the ## Active leads section.

I’d make the contract explicit in the markdown:

## Active leads
<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START -->

### lead-20260515-blackrock-dba — BlackRock
- **Status:** new
- **Job Posted:** 2026-05-15
...

<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END -->

## Dedupe archive

[old elm]

...

Then update the email standing order to say something like:

When preparing the lead email:
- Read only the content between EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START and EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END.
- Include only leads where Status is "new".
- Ignore Dedupe archive, Sent / processed log, Summary, and any expired/rejected/sent leads.
- After drafting/sending the email, change included leads from Status: new to Status: drafted or sent.

That gives you two safeguards:

• section boundary: it only looks at active lead blocks
• status filter: even inside active leads, it only emails Status: new

[old elm]

I’d also keep the summary outside the email-read section, because summaries are easy to let drift. The email order should use the actual active lead blocks as source of truth.

[worn sage]

ok, can you give me a prompt that I can give openclaw to take the leads file and convert it to the new format

[old elm]

Yep. Here’s a prompt you can give OpenClaw for a one-time conversion:

You are maintaining my SQL leads markdown file.

Task:
Convert the current leads markdown into a cleaner maintenance-friendly format that supports:
1. emailing only active leads
2. duplicate checking against recent historical leads
3. pruning old/processed leads without losing dedupe memory

Rules:
- Preserve all existing lead information during this conversion unless explicitly moving it into a compact archive.
- Do not invent new facts.
- Do not change company names, URLs, contacts, pitches, scores, or trigger text except for formatting consistency.
- Use today’s date as the maintenance date.

[old elm]

- Treat all current full lead blocks as active unless they are clearly marked as sent, rejected, expired, or processed.
- Add missing Status fields as "new".
- If Job Posted is not explicitly available, set Job Posted to the same date as Found and add "(assumed from Found)" after the date.
- Create a stable Dedupe Key for every lead using:
  normalized company name | normalized role/title from trigger/job posting | job posting ID or posting URL domain
- Normalized means lowercase, trim whitespace, remove punctuation that is not meaningful, and replace spaces with hyphens.
- Do not rely on lead numbers as stable IDs.

Output format:

# SQL Leads Pipeline

> Last maintained: YYYY-MM-DD
> Maintenance model: Active lead blocks + compact dedupe archive
> Email standing order source: Active leads section only

[old elm]

## Active leads
<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START -->

For each active lead, use this structure:

### lead-YYYYMMDD-normalized-company-normalized-role — Company Name

- **Company:**
- **Found:**
- **Job Posted:**
- **Status:** new
- **Dedupe Key:**
- **Location:**
- **Sector:**

[old elm]

- **Score:**
- **Trigger:**
- **Job Posting:**
- **News:**
- **Contact:**
  - Email:
  - LinkedIn:
- **Pitch:**

---

<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END -->

## Dedupe archive

[old elm]

For every lead in the file, add one compact archive row:

- YYYY-MM-DD | dedupe-key | Company Name | Role/title | job-url-or-id | status=new

Keep this section compact. It is for duplicate checking, not email drafting.

## Sent / processed log

Leave this section empty for now unless the original file already contains clearly processed/sent/rejected leads.

## Summary

Rebuild the summary table from Active leads only, with columns:

| ID | Company | Found | Job Posted | Status | Score | Sector | Dedupe Key |

[old elm]

Important:
- The email standing order must only read content between EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START and EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END.
- The dedupe archive is not email content.
- The summary is not the source of truth; the active lead blocks are.
- Return only the converted markdown file.

After that, I’d add a separate recurring maintenance prompt for pruning. The conversion prompt above should only restructure the file; it shouldn’t start deleting old leads yet.

[worn sage]

Can you convert it for me and post it hear, for to expire after 10 minutes https://cl1p.net/4562

[old elm]

I tried, but the source cl1p has expired now and 4562 is currently empty. I can’t safely reconstruct the full file from memory because the middle lead blocks were truncated when I inspected it earlier.

Please paste the original markdown into 4562 first, set it to 10 minutes, then reply “ready” here. I’ll convert it and post the converted markdown back into the same cl1p.

What I checked:

• https://cl1p.net/4560 no longer has the leads content
• https://cl1p.net/4562 currently has an empty textarea

[worn sage]

You can find the source here https://cl1p.net/4563

[old elm]

I checked https://cl1p.net/4563, but it’s empty on my side too. It’s showing the “Paste in anything you want” create form with an empty textarea, not the markdown.

Can you paste the source markdown into 4563 and create the cl1p, then reply “ready”? I’ll convert it into 4562 once there’s content to read.

[worn sage]

Try this https://cl1p.net/4564

[old elm]

Done: I converted the source from 4564 and posted the new format to 4562:

https://cl1p.net/4562

Verified:

• 22 active lead blocks converted
• email boundary markers are present
• destination has the converted markdown
• expiry was submitted as 10 minutes

Quick note: because the original file didn’t have explicit Job Posted dates, I set Job Posted to the Found date with “assumed from Found”, as planned.

[worn sage]

Thanks. I;ve updatede the file. Here is the standing order to update it, please let me know any changes I should make based on the new format https://cl1p.net/4560

[old elm]

Yes, I’d update the standing order. The current one still assumes “the file is just a list of companies”, so it may accidentally duplicate archived leads or append new leads outside the email-safe active section.

Main changes I’d make:

1. In Step 1, tell it to check both:

• ## Active leads
• ## Dedupe archive

It should treat either one as “already seen”.

2. In Step 4, tell it to write new full lead blocks only between:

<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START -->
<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END -->

[old elm]

3. Every new lead should include:

• Status: new
• Job Posted:
• Dedupe Key:
• stable heading like lead-YYYYMMDD-company-role — Company

4. It should add a compact row to ## Dedupe archive for every new lead it adds.

5. It should rebuild ## Summary from active leads only.

Here’s the replacement text I’d use for Step 1 and Step 4:

### 1. Check existing lead history

Read `sql_leads.md` first.

[old elm]

Use both of these sections for duplicate checking:
- `## Active leads`
- `## Dedupe archive`

A company/role/job is already seen if it matches any of:
- same normalized company name
- same job posting URL or job ID
- same Dedupe Key
- same company + substantially similar SQL/database role

Only proceed with brand-new leads that are not present in either Active leads or Dedupe archive.

Do not use the Summary as the source of truth. The Summary is only a regenerated view.

[old elm]

If `sql_leads.md` cannot be read:
- report the exact file/read error
- do not continue with lead discovery
- do not guess which companies were already found

### 4. Update `sql_leads.md`

Add each new lead as a full lead block inside `## Active leads`, between these markers only:

<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START -->
<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END -->

Use this structure for each new lead:

[old elm]

### lead-YYYYMMDD-normalized-company-normalized-role — Company Name

- **Company:** Company Name
- **Found:** YYYY-MM-DD
- **Job Posted:** YYYY-MM-DD
- **Status:** new
- **Dedupe Key:** normalized-company|normalized-role|job-url-or-id
- **Location:** UK location / remote status
- **Sector:** Sector
- **Score:** X/10
- **Trigger:** Evidence-backed trigger / pain point
- **Job Posting:** URL
- **News:** URL or public evidence URL
- **Contact:**

[old elm]

  - Name / role / public route
- **Pitch:** 3-sentence pain-point pitch

Also add one compact row for each new lead to `## Dedupe archive`:

- YYYY-MM-DD | dedupe-key | Company Name | Role/title | job-url-or-id | status=new

After adding leads:
- rebuild `## Summary` from Active leads only
- do not include Dedupe archive rows in the email-ready active section
- re-read `sql_leads.md`
- verify each new lead exists in Active leads
- verify each new lead has a matching Dedupe archive row

I’d also add this small pruning section after Step 4:

[old elm]

### 4b. Maintenance pruning

After adding new leads:
- keep full lead blocks only for leads with `Status: new`
- move leads with `Status: drafted`, `sent`, `rejected`, or `expired` out of Active leads
- preserve them only as compact rows in `## Dedupe archive` or `## Sent / processed log`
- remove Active leads where `Job Posted` is older than 7 days
- keep only the newest 40 Active leads
- remove Dedupe archive rows older than 60 days
- never delete the email section markers

One more important change: remove “Do not guess private email addresses” is already good, and I’d keep it. Your old file had constructed emails; the new order should stick to public contact routes unless you explicitly want inferred addresses.

[worn sage]

Can you give me the standing order in full

[old elm]

Sure. Here’s the full updated standing order:

## Standing order: UK SQL DBA lead scout

When I say "Generate more leads", "run the DBA scout", "update the SQL leads file", or similar, execute this workflow without rediscovering the process. Narrate brief progress during the mission, but only report the final result at the end.

### 1. Check existing lead history

Read `sql_leads.md` first.

Use both of these sections for duplicate checking:
- `## Active leads`
- `## Dedupe archive`

A company/role/job is already seen if it matches any of:

[old elm]

- same normalized company name
- same job posting URL or job ID
- same Dedupe Key
- same company + substantially similar SQL/database role

Only proceed with brand-new leads that are not present in either Active leads or Dedupe archive.

Do not use the Summary as the source of truth. The Summary is only a regenerated view.

If `sql_leads.md` cannot be read:
- report the exact file/read error
- do not continue with lead discovery
- do not guess which companies were already found

### 2. Search for new SQL DBA leads

[old elm]

Use Firecrawl to find 3 UK-based job postings from the last 7 days for:
- SQL DBA
- SQL Database Administrator
- Database Administrator
- SQL Server DBA
- SQL Server Database Administrator
- closely equivalent SQL/database operations roles

Only include postings that appear to be from the company hiring directly.

Prefer direct employer job pages, company careers pages, verified company profiles, or reputable job boards where the advertiser is clearly the end employer.

Ignore recruitment agencies, staffing companies, outsourcing firms, job boards advertising on behalf of unknown clients, lead-generation sites, and third-party intermediaries.

[old elm]

Only include leads with visible contact details or a public professional contact route.

A valid lead must have at least one usable route such as:
- a named senior technical contact with a public profile
- a company contact page
- a careers/contact form
- a public LinkedIn/company profile route
- a published business email or phone number

Do not include duplicate companies, stale postings, non-UK roles, companies already present in `sql_leads.md`, leads with no contact route, or agency/intermediary postings.

Use Firecrawl search for discovery without scrapeOptions by default.

For selected result URLs, use firecrawl_scrape with proxy "basic".

[old elm]

If scrape is blocked, 403, 429, antibot-protected, or empty, retry once with proxy "enhanced" or "auto".

Report which proxy modes were tried.

Firecrawl retry rule:
- Start with the normal/basic Firecrawl request unless the user explicitly asks for enhanced/stealth.
- If Firecrawl is blocked by a site, access is denied, or the scrape/search returns a bot-protection/antibot error, retry the same Firecrawl request once with enhanced/stealth proxy enabled, or proxy: "auto" if that is the best supported proxy mode for the tool.
- Keep storeInCache: true if available.
- If the retry returns usable, cited results, use the retry result.
- If basic returned usable results and enhanced/stealth fails, keep the basic result and report that enhanced/stealth failed.
- If neither attempt returns usable, cited results, stop and report both failure modes instead of retry-looping.

If Firecrawl still fails after the enhanced proxy retry:
- report the exact Firecrawl error
- stop the mission

[old elm]

### 3. Research each new company

For each brand-new company, find:
- recent tech growth, infrastructure expansion, merger/acquisition activity, downtime, migration, hiring surge, compliance pressure, database consolidation, or similar operational trigger
- the CTO, Engineering Director, Head of Infrastructure, Head of Platform, Database Manager, CIO, IT Director, or closest relevant senior technical contact
- public LinkedIn, company profile, contact page, or other public professional contact route

Use only public professional contact routes.

Do not guess private email addresses.

If no usable public contact route can be found, skip that lead.

If the advertiser appears to be an agency, recruiter, staffing firm, or intermediary, skip that lead.

[old elm]

Focus on evidence-based SQL DBA leads:
- companies currently hiring for SQL DBA, SQL Database Administrator, Database Administrator, SQL Developer, SQL Server Engineer, or closely equivalent SQL/database operations roles
- companies showing infrastructure signals such as compliance pressure, expansion, migration, acquisition, downtime, hiring surge, or database consolidation needs
- mid-to-large UK businesses where managed SQL/database support is likely to be commercially relevant

Never invent a lead.

Every lead must be backed by a real current job post, company page, news article, filing, or public professional profile.

Keep the tone investigative, professional, and focused on ROI.

### 4. Update `sql_leads.md`

Add each new lead as a full lead block inside `## Active leads`, between these markers only:

[old elm]

<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START -->
<!-- EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END -->

Use this structure for each new lead:

### lead-YYYYMMDD-normalized-company-normalized-role — Company Name

- **Company:** Company Name
- **Found:** YYYY-MM-DD
- **Job Posted:** YYYY-MM-DD
- **Status:** new
- **Dedupe Key:** normalized-company|normalized-role|job-url-or-id
- **Location:** UK location / remote status
- **Sector:** Sector

[old elm]

- **Score:** X/10
- **Trigger:** Evidence-backed trigger / pain point
- **Job Posting:** URL
- **News:** URL or public evidence URL
- **Contact:**
  - Name / role / public route
- **Pitch:** 3-sentence pain-point pitch

Dedupe Key rules:
- normalized company name: lowercase, trim whitespace, remove punctuation that is not meaningful, replace spaces with hyphens
- normalized role: lowercase, trim whitespace, remove punctuation that is not meaningful, replace spaces with hyphens
- job-url-or-id: use the job posting ID if visible; otherwise use the posting URL domain or stable URL slug
- do not rely on lead numbers as stable IDs

Also add one compact row for each new lead to `## Dedupe archive`:

[old elm]

- YYYY-MM-DD | dedupe-key | Company Name | Role/title | job-url-or-id | status=new

After adding leads:
- rebuild `## Summary` from Active leads only
- do not include Dedupe archive rows in the email-ready active section
- do not include Sent / processed log rows in the email-ready active section
- re-read `sql_leads.md`
- verify each new lead exists in Active leads
- verify each new lead has a matching Dedupe archive row
- verify the email section markers still exist

### 4b. Maintenance pruning

After adding new leads:

[old elm]

- keep full lead blocks only for leads with `Status: new`
- move leads with `Status: drafted`, `sent`, `rejected`, or `expired` out of Active leads
- preserve processed leads only as compact rows in `## Dedupe archive` or `## Sent / processed log`
- remove Active leads where `Job Posted` is older than 7 days
- keep only the newest 40 Active leads
- remove Dedupe archive rows older than 60 days
- never delete the email section markers
- never place archive or processed rows between the email section markers

### 5. Scoring and cleanup

Score each new lead from 1-10 based on:
- role relevance
- posting recency
- likely SQL/database pain

[old elm]

- evidence of growth, migration, downtime, compliance pressure, or operational pressure
- quality of identified contact route
- confidence that the advertiser is the direct employer
- commercial fit for managed SQL/database support

After the file is updated and verified, clear active working memory of raw scrape data.

Keep only concise lead records and cited URLs in `sql_leads.md`.

### 6. Final report

Only report the final result.

Do not use a Markdown table.

[old elm]

Use this exact structured format for each new lead:

🏦 **Company:** [Name]
🎯 **Score:** [X/10]
👤 **Contact:** [Name / Role / public route]
🛠 **Trigger:** [Brief pain point]
🔗 **Link:** [Job URL]

Then include:
- why rejected candidates were rejected
- which Firecrawl proxy modes were tried
- confirmation that `sql_leads.md` was updated
- confirmation that each new lead was added to Active leads
- confirmation that each new lead has a Dedupe archive row
- confirmation that the Summary was rebuilt from Active leads only

[old elm]

End with one short verification line confirming `sql_leads.md` was updated and verified.

For the separate email standing order, make sure it says: read only between the EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START and EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END markers, and only include leads with Status: new.

[worn sage]

Can you place it here https://cl1p.net/4565

[old elm]

Done: I posted the full standing order here:
https://cl1p.net/4565

Verified it contains the standing order text. I submitted it with the 10-minute expiry.

[worn sage]

I tested it. It got quite far, I think it was updating the summary near the end but then I get fetch timesouts, here is the log https://cl1p.net/4560

[old elm]

The log shows this is not a normal website/Firecrawl fetch timeout. It’s the embedded agent’s LLM request timing out after repeated attempts:

fetch timeout reached; aborting operation
FailoverError: LLM request timed out
Embedded agent failed before reply: LLM request timed out.

So the standing order is probably doing too much in one run: discovery + scraping + researching + rewriting a large markdown file + rebuilding the full summary + final report. The summary rewrite near the end is a good suspect because it forces the model to hold and regenerate the whole file.

I’d change the standing order in these ways:

1. Do not rebuild the full Summary every run
   Replace that with:

   Append the new leads to Active leads and add their Dedupe archive rows.
   

[old elm]

   Do not rebuild the full Summary unless I explicitly say "rebuild summary".
   If a Summary already exists, add/update only rows for the new leads.

2. Do not re-read the whole file after every lead
   Replace “Immediately add each new lead once found” with:

   Collect exactly 3 accepted leads first.
   Then perform one file update at the end.
   After writing, re-read only enough of sql_leads.md to verify:
   - the 3 new lead IDs exist
   - the 3 dedupe keys exist
   - the email section markers still exist
   Do not reprocess or summarize the whole file.
   

[old elm]

3. Cap the mission
   Add:

   Stop after 3 accepted leads or 8 rejected candidates, whichever happens first.
   Do not keep searching indefinitely.
   If fewer than 3 valid leads are found, update the file with the valid leads found and report why the rest were rejected.
   

4. Make pruning a separate standing order
   The maintenance pruning is useful, but I’d run it separately from lead discovery. Combining pruning + summary rebuild + lead research is what makes the run heavy.

I’d change Step 4/4b to this lighter version:

### 4. Update sql_leads.md

[old elm]

Collect up to 3 accepted leads first.

Then update sql_leads.md once:
- insert each new full lead block inside ## Active leads between the email markers
- add one compact Dedupe archive row for each new lead
- do not rebuild the full Summary
- if Summary exists, add/update only rows for the newly added leads
- do not modify older active leads unless there is a direct duplicate conflict
- do not run pruning during this lead-scout mission

After writing, perform a lightweight verification only:
- confirm each new lead ID exists
- confirm each new Dedupe Key exists
- confirm EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START exists
- confirm EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END exists

[old elm]

Then create a separate “lead file maintenance” standing order that only prunes/rebuilds summary, maybe weekly or manually.

Also worth checking openclaw --version if this keeps happening, but based on this log I’d first slim the standing order down.

[worn sage]

How can I increase the timesouts?

[old elm]

First thing: please check your version with:

openclaw --version

For the timeout shown in your log, the relevant setting is probably the LLM idle timeout, not Firecrawl. The docs say:

• agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds = total agent runtime timeout
• agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds = aborts a model request if no response chunks arrive for that long

For your case I’d try:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds 900
openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 3600

[old elm]

openclaw gateway restart

That gives:

• 15 minutes of no-token/idle time before killing an LLM request
• 60 minutes total runtime for the agent turn

If you want to disable the LLM idle watchdog entirely:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds 0
openclaw gateway restart

I’d only do that if you’re comfortable with a stuck model request potentially hanging much longer. My recommendation is 900 first.

[old elm]

If the timeout is specifically Firecrawl scraping a slow website, there’s a separate Firecrawl web-fetch timeout:

openclaw config set plugins.entries.firecrawl.config.webFetch.timeoutSeconds 120
openclaw gateway restart

Docs references:
https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/agent-loop#timeouts
https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/configuration-reference

But based on your log line FailoverError: LLM request timed out, I’d start with agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds.

[worn sage]

My config is here, it looks like it timed out after 10 mins https://cl1p.net/4561

[old elm]

I checked the config. Two important things:

First: that cl1p contains real-looking secrets/API keys. Since cl1p is public/temporary clipboard, I’d delete it if possible and rotate anything sensitive that was in there, especially the AgentMail key and SQL password. I won’t quote them back here.

On the timeout: your config already has:

agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds = 3600
models.providers.lmstudio.timeoutSeconds = 3600
plugins.entries.llm-task.config.timeoutMs = 1800000

So the “10 minutes” limit probably is not your total agent timeout. What’s missing is an explicit LLM idle timeout:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds 1800

[old elm]

openclaw gateway restart

That gives the model 30 minutes of no streamed output before OpenClaw aborts the LLM request.

If you want to be more generous overall too:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set models.providers.lmstudio.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds 1800
openclaw gateway restart

For your Firecrawl MCP server, I also saw:

[old elm]

FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT = 90000

That is 90 seconds. If Firecrawl scrapes are timing out separately, raise that too:

openclaw config set mcp.servers.firecrawl.env.FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT 300000
openclaw gateway restart

That sets Firecrawl MCP timeout to 5 minutes.

My recommendation:

• set agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds = 1800
• optionally set Firecrawl MCP timeout to 300000
• still slim the standing order so it doesn’t rewrite/re-summarize the whole file every run

[old elm]

Docs:
https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/agent-loop#timeouts

[worn sage]

Error: Config validation failed: agents.defaults: Unrecognized key: "llm"

[old elm]

You’re right, that key isn’t supported by your installed build. My docs checkout is ahead of your version there, so ignore the agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds advice for your current install.

First remove the invalid key so config validation passes again:

openclaw config unset agents.defaults.llm
openclaw config validate
openclaw gateway restart

On your current version, stick with the knobs your config already accepts:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set models.providers.lmstudio.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw gateway restart

[old elm]

But your config already had agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds: 3600, so if it still died at about 10 minutes, I suspect one of these instead:

1. Model/provider idle timeout inside the OpenAI-compatible request path
   Your version may not expose the newer idle-timeout config yet. Updating OpenClaw is likely the clean fix for that specific control.

2. LM Studio / local model server timeout
   Check LM Studio server settings/logs. OpenClaw can allow 60 minutes, but LM Studio or the model backend can still cut the request earlier.

3. The task is too large for one standing-order run
   The log shows repeated LLM request timeouts, so even with longer total runtime, the model may be going silent while trying to rewrite/summarize the big file. I’d still remove the “rebuild full Summary” and “prune during lead scout” parts from the standing order.

For Firecrawl MCP, your config has FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT=90000 which is 90 seconds. You can raise that separately:

openclaw config set mcp.servers.firecrawl.env.FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT 300000
openclaw gateway restart

[old elm]

So the safe sequence now is:

openclaw config unset agents.defaults.llm
openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set models.providers.lmstudio.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set mcp.servers.firecrawl.env.FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT 300000
openclaw config validate
openclaw gateway restart

And please run:

openclaw --version

[old elm]

If you’re on 2026.5.12, that explains why the newer agents.defaults.llm key is rejected.

[worn sage]

this is version 2025.5.12

[old elm]

That explains it. 2025.5.12 is old enough that the newer agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds config key is not available.

For that version, use only the supported timeout knobs:

openclaw config unset agents.defaults.llm
openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set models.providers.lmstudio.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set mcp.servers.firecrawl.env.FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT 300000
openclaw config validate
openclaw gateway restart

But I’d strongly recommend updating OpenClaw if you can. The newer builds have better timeout controls and a lot of agent/runtime fixes. After updating, you should be able to use the more precise LLM idle timeout setting:

[old elm]

openclaw config set agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds 1800

For the immediate lead-scout issue, I’d still simplify the standing order. Even with higher timeouts, asking a local model to search, scrape, research, rewrite the active file, prune, rebuild the full summary, and report in one pass is a lot. Split it into:

• lead scout: find 3 leads + append only
• maintenance: prune/rebuild summary separately

That will be more reliable than just making the timeout bigger.

[worn sage]

But there is no newer version at the moment

[old elm]

Yep, fair correction. If 2025.5.12 is the latest available to you right now, then ignore the upgrade path and stick to what that version supports.

Use this:

openclaw config unset agents.defaults.llm
openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set models.providers.lmstudio.timeoutSeconds 7200
openclaw config set mcp.servers.firecrawl.env.FIRECRAWL_TIMEOUT 300000
openclaw config validate
openclaw gateway restart

The important bit is: don’t use agents.defaults.llm.idleTimeoutSeconds on your version.

If it still times out around 10 minutes after that, I’d treat it as a workload/model-server problem rather than an OpenClaw config limit. The practical fix is to split the standing order:

[old elm]

1. Lead scout standing order:

   • read dedupe archive
   • find 3 leads
   • append new active lead blocks
   • append dedupe rows
   • no pruning
   • no full summary rebuild

2. Maintenance standing order:

   • prune expired/processed leads
   • rebuild summary
   • run separately, maybe manually or weekly

That should keep each run small enough that the local LM Studio model doesn’t go silent and get killed.

[worn sage]

ok, can you give me two standing orders, one to generate leads and one to maintain them, put the first one here https://cl1p.net/4566 , and the second one here https://cl1p.net/4567 to expire after 10 minutes

[old elm]

Done. I split them and posted both with 10-minute expiry:

Lead generation standing order:
https://cl1p.net/4566

Maintenance/pruning standing order:
https://cl1p.net/4567

Verified both cl1ps contain the expected standing order text.

[worn sage]

maintenance does seem to work. I've changed it to 5 days but it doesn't seem to remove any, here is the output

[16/05/2026 18:28] DBA Lead Scout: ✅ Leads maintained and verified.

• 22 active leads kept, all with Status new
• 0 leads moved out of Active leads
• 0 Dedupe archive rows removed (oldest lead is 9 days old — well within the 60-day window)
• Summary already in sync (22 rows = 22 active leads)
• Both EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START / EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_END markers confirmed present
• All active leads have valid Dedupe Keys

sql_leads.md is clean and ready for the next lead run or email send.
[16/05/2026 18:28] DBA Lead Scout: ⚠️ 📝 Edit: in ~/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md failed

[old elm]

Two things are going on there.

First, the final line matters:

Edit: in ~/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md failed

So even if the agent worked out what to change, the write didn’t land. I’d check the detailed run/log around that edit failure first: permissions, path mismatch, sandbox/workspace mismatch, or the edit patch not matching the file.

Second, the maintenance order needs stricter wording. The output says “all with Status new”, which suggests it treated Status: new as enough to keep a lead. It should be new AND within the age window, not new OR within the age window.

Replace the classify section with this:

### 2. Classify active leads

[old elm]

Only inspect full lead blocks inside the email marker section.

A lead may stay in Active leads only if ALL of these are true:
- Status is exactly "new"
- Job Posted date is within the last 5 days, inclusive
- it is one of the newest 40 active leads

Move a lead out of Active leads if ANY of these are true:
- Status is drafted, sent, rejected, or expired
- Job Posted date is older than 5 days
- Active leads has more than 40 leads and this lead is outside the newest 40

Important:
- The age rule applies even when Status is "new".

[old elm]

- Do not keep an old lead just because Status is "new".
- If Job Posted contains text such as "(assumed from Found)", parse only the YYYY-MM-DD date portion.
- If today is 2026-05-16 and the active window is 5 days, then leads with Job Posted before 2026-05-11 must be moved out of Active leads.

And in the final verification section, add this:

Verify that no remaining Active lead has Job Posted older than 5 days.
If any old lead remains, the maintenance failed; do not report success.

For your current file, if today is 2026-05-16 and the window is 5 days, anything with Job Posted / Found before 2026-05-11 should move out of Active leads. So the 2026-05-07, 2026-05-08, and 2026-05-10 leads should not remain active.

I’d also make the standing order say: if the file edit fails, report failure and do not say “maintained and verified”. That part of the output is misleading.

[worn sage]

18:28:03
error
[tools] edit failed: No changes made to /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md. The replacement produced identical content. This might indicate an issue with special characters or the text not existing as expected. raw_params={"path":"/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md","edits":[{"oldText":"> Last maintained: 2026-05-16","newText":"> Last maintained: 2026-05-16"}]}
18:28:03
error
[tools] edit failed: No changes made to /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md. The replacement produced identical content. This might indicate an issue with special characters or the text not existing as expected. raw_params={"path":"/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md","edits":[{"oldText":"> Last maintained: 2026-05-16","newText":"> Last maintained: 2026-05-16"}]}

[old elm]

That edit failure is harmless by itself: it tried to replace a line with the exact same line.

oldText: > Last maintained: 2026-05-16
newText: > Last maintained: 2026-05-16

So OpenClaw correctly said “no changes made”. The real issue is earlier: the agent decided there were no content changes to make, which means the age rule was still too weak or ambiguous.

Add these two rules to the maintenance standing order:

Do not call the edit/write tool for metadata-only changes if the old text and new text are identical.

If no active leads are moved, do not attempt to update Last maintained unless the date is actually changing.

[old elm]

And make the age rule more mechanical:

Before classifying leads, compute cutoff_date = today minus 5 days.

For each active lead:
- parse the first YYYY-MM-DD date from Job Posted
- if Job Posted has no date, parse the first YYYY-MM-DD date from Found
- if parsed_date is earlier than cutoff_date, move the full lead block out of Active leads
- Status: new does not override the date cutoff

Example:
If today is 2026-05-16 and active window is 5 days:
- cutoff_date = 2026-05-11
- 2026-05-07, 2026-05-08, and 2026-05-10 are expired
- 2026-05-11 and later remain active

[old elm]

Also add this failure guard:

If the final report says 0 leads moved, explicitly list the oldest remaining active Job Posted date and explain why it is not older than the cutoff. If it is older than the cutoff, the maintenance failed and must not report success.

That should stop it from declaring success while old leads are still active.

[worn sage]

Can you put the standing order here https://cl1p.net/4568

[old elm]

Done. I posted the updated maintenance standing order here:
https://cl1p.net/4568

Verified it includes the 5-day cutoff logic and the failure guard for old active leads.

[worn sage]

I got this message

[16/05/2026 18:36] DBA Lead Scout: Lead file maintenance complete.

📅 Cutoff date: 2026-03-17 (60 days)
📅 Oldest remaining active lead: 2026-05-07 (Cambridge & Counties Bank, Sephora, Castle Water)
✅ Active leads kept: 22
✅ Leads moved to archive: 0 (all within 60-day window)
✅ Dedupe archive rows removed: 0
✅ Summary rows rebuilt: 22 (matches active count)
✅ Email markers present: EMAIL_ORDER_READS_ONLY_THIS_SECTION_START / END confirmed
✅ All active leads have Status=new and Dedupe Keys

No maintenance actions needed — all leads are fresh.
[16/05/2026 18:37] DBA Lead Scout: ⚠️ 📝 Edit: in ~/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md failed

[old elm]

It’s still using the 60-day archive retention as the active-lead cutoff. That’s the bug.

You need to make the standing order separate the two windows very bluntly:

• Active lead window: 5 days
• Dedupe archive retention: 60 days

A lead can be too old for Active leads after 5 days, while still staying in Dedupe archive for 60 days.

Add this near the top, before any steps:

CRITICAL: There are two different date windows.

active_cutoff_date = today minus 5 days
archive_cutoff_date = today minus 60 days

[old elm]

Use active_cutoff_date only to decide whether full lead blocks stay in ## Active leads.
Use archive_cutoff_date only to decide whether compact rows stay in ## Dedupe archive.

Never use the 60-day archive window to decide whether a lead remains active.

Then replace the classification rule with:

For each full lead block in Active leads:
- parse lead_date from Job Posted, falling back to Found
- if lead_date is earlier than active_cutoff_date, move the full lead block out of Active leads
- add or update its compact Dedupe archive row with status=expired
- do not delete the dedupe row unless it is earlier than archive_cutoff_date

[old elm]

Example for 2026-05-16:
- active_cutoff_date = 2026-05-11
- archive_cutoff_date = 2026-03-17
- a lead dated 2026-05-07 must be removed from Active leads
- that same lead must remain in Dedupe archive because it is newer than 2026-03-17

And add this hard failure condition:

If the final report says active_cutoff_date is based on 60 days, the maintenance failed.
If the final report says a 2026-05-07 lead is active when today is 2026-05-16 and the active window is 5 days, the maintenance failed.
Do not report success in either case.

[old elm]

The edit failure is probably still the same “no-op edit” issue, but the bigger problem is the reasoning: it used March 17 as the active cutoff. That should only be the archive cleanup cutoff, not active-lead freshness.

[worn sage]

Can you write the standing order here https://cl1p.net/4569

[old elm]

Done. I posted the revised maintenance standing order here:
https://cl1p.net/4569

Verified it includes separate 5-day active and 60-day archive cutoff rules.

[worn sage]

is there any value storing the pitch and trigger in the file if I have the news source?

[old elm]

Yes, but I’d reduce them.

The news source is evidence, but the trigger and pitch are your interpreted sales angle. If you remove both, the email standing order has to re-read/reason from the source every time, which costs tokens and can drift.

I’d keep:

- **Trigger:** 1 sentence only. The specific reason this company likely has SQL/database pain.
- **Pitch Angle:** 1 sentence only. The outreach angle to use.
- **Evidence:** job URL + news/source URL

I would not keep the full 3-sentence pitch in the lead file long-term. That’s email-draft content, not lead-memory content.

Better structure:

[old elm]

- **Trigger:** Hiring SQL Server DBA during Microsoft Fabric migration.
- **Pitch Angle:** Managed SQL support can de-risk migration and reduce pressure on the internal DBA.
- **Evidence:**
  - Job Posting: https://...
  - News: https://...

Then let the email standing order generate the full email from the compact trigger + pitch angle + evidence.

So my recommendation:

• keep short Trigger
• keep short Pitch Angle
• remove full Pitch after the email has been drafted/sent
• keep URLs in archive for dedupe/evidence, but not full prose forever

[worn sage]

ok, here is the leads file again https://cl1p.net/4564 can you convert it to this new format and place it here https://cl1p.net/4565, keep the older entries as I still want to test the maintenance

[old elm]

Done. I converted 4564 into the compact format and posted it here:
https://cl1p.net/4565

Verified:

• 22 lead blocks kept in Active leads
• older entries like 2026-05-07 / 05-08 / 05-10 are still present for maintenance testing
• full Pitch fields were removed
• compact Trigger, Pitch Angle, and Evidence fields are present
• Dedupe archive and email markers are present

[worn sage]

Can you give me the updated maintenance file here https://cl1p.net/4566

[old elm]

Done. I posted the updated maintenance standing order here:
https://cl1p.net/4566

Verified it includes the 5-day active cutoff, 60-day archive cutoff, and compact Trigger / Pitch Angle / Evidence format.

[worn sage]

how do I clear a telegram session from a command prompt

[old elm]

Depends what you mean by “Telegram session”:

If you mean the conversation/context session: easiest is to send this in the Telegram chat:

/new

or:

/reset

That starts a fresh agent session for that chat.

From a command prompt, the safe way is to archive the session store for the agent, not delete it. For your lead scout agent it is probably:

[old elm]

openclaw gateway stop

ts="$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mv ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts
mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions

openclaw gateway start

That clears stored conversation history for the lead-scout agent but keeps auth/config intact. If your agent id is different, first check:

openclaw sessions --all-agents

If you only want to clear one specific Telegram chat, use /new or /reset in that chat. Moving the sessions folder clears all sessions for that agent.

[old elm]

If you mean Telegram login/auth: Telegram bots don’t use openclaw channels login telegram; they use the bot token in config/env. So there usually isn’t a Telegram login session to clear.

[worn sage]

can I just remove all those files in that sessions folder

[old elm]

Yes, but stop the gateway first, and I’d move them aside rather than delete them.

Safer version:

openclaw gateway stop

ts="$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts
mv ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions/* ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts/ 2>/dev/null || true

openclaw gateway start

That leaves the sessions folder in place but clears its contents. If you’re sure the agent id is not lead-scout, replace that part of the path.

If you really want to delete instead of archive:

[old elm]

openclaw gateway stop
find ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec trash {} \;
openclaw gateway start

Use trash if installed. If not, archiving with mv is the better move. Don’t remove auth-profiles.json or anything under credentials unless you want to reset model/channel auth too.

[worn sage]

i don't have trash installed

[old elm]

Then use the archive/move approach. It doesn’t need trash and is reversible:

openclaw gateway stop

ts="$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts
mv ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions/* ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts/ 2>/dev/null || true

openclaw gateway start

If your shell complains because there are hidden dotfiles too, use this instead:

openclaw gateway stop

[old elm]

ts="$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts
find ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec mv -t ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions.bak-$ts {} +

openclaw gateway start

That clears the session folder without permanently deleting anything.

[worn sage]

Can i just delete them

[old elm]

Yes, you can delete the files in that agent’s sessions folder. Stop the gateway first so it doesn’t have the session store open.

For lead-scout:

openclaw gateway stop
rm -f ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions/*
openclaw gateway start

If there might be hidden files too:

openclaw gateway stop
find ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/sessions -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -delete
openclaw gateway start

[old elm]

Do not delete:

• ~/.openclaw/agents/lead-scout/agent/auth-profiles.json
• ~/.openclaw/credentials
• your openclaw.json

Those are auth/config, not chat session history.

[worn sage]

is there a better way to do this. I can see that the markdown file is 40k in size, that means that the maintenance order is likely going to output 40k token to update it

[old elm]

Yes. The better pattern is: don’t make the model rewrite the whole markdown file.

For this workflow I’d stop using one big markdown file as both:

• the human-readable lead sheet
• the machine database
• the email source
• the dedupe archive

That forces the agent to read/write a large blob.

Better options, from simplest to strongest:

Option 1: Split the markdown into smaller files

sql_leads/

[old elm]

  active.md
  dedupe_archive.csv
  sent_log.csv
  summary.md

Then:

• lead scout only appends to active.md and dedupe_archive.csv
• email order reads only active.md
• maintenance only rewrites active.md, not the archive/history
• dedupe archive stays compact CSV lines

Option 2: Use JSONL/CSV as the source of truth

For example:

[old elm]

sql_leads/
  leads.jsonl
  dedupe_archive.csv
  sent_log.csv
  active.md

Each lead is one JSON line. The markdown file becomes generated output, not the database.

Maintenance can then be deterministic:

• read JSONL
• filter active leads by date/status
• write compact active.md
• append/archive rows
• no model has to regenerate 40k of prose

[old elm]

Option 3: Use a tiny script for maintenance

This is what I’d recommend. Let OpenClaw generate/research leads, but use a shell/Python/Node script to prune and rebuild files. Date filtering, status moves, summary rebuilds, and dedupe rows are mechanical work, not reasoning work.

Your standing order becomes:

Run the maintenance script. Do not manually rewrite sql_leads.md.
Report the script summary.

That avoids the 40k-token rewrite problem entirely.

For your current setup, the quickest improvement is:

[old elm]

sql_leads_active.md       # full active lead blocks only
sql_leads_dedupe.csv      # compact dedupe rows, 60-day retention
sql_leads_sent.csv        # sent/drafted/rejected history
sql_leads_summary.md      # generated summary only

Then your email order reads only sql_leads_active.md.

My take: keep the agent doing the judgment-heavy work, but move maintenance into a deterministic script. That will be faster, cheaper, and much less likely to timeout.

[worn sage]

So you recommend option 3?

[old elm]

Yes. For this case, I’d use option 3.

The maintenance rules are deterministic:

• expire active leads older than N days
• keep dedupe rows for 60 days
• move sent/rejected/drafted leads out of active
• rebuild summary from active rows

That’s script work, not LLM work. The LLM is useful for finding leads, judging fit, writing a pitch angle, and researching contacts. It’s a poor tool for repeatedly rewriting a 40k markdown file without small mistakes or timeouts.

Best setup:

lead scout standing order:
- research 3 new leads
- append structured records

[old elm]

- do not prune/rewrite the whole file

maintenance script:
- prune by date/status
- update dedupe archive
- rebuild active.md and summary.md
- output a short report

email standing order:
- read active.md only
- draft emails for Status=new leads

If you want to stay simple, the script can still output markdown. You don’t have to build a database. Just make the script the only thing allowed to restructure files.

My recommendation:

[old elm]

• source of truth: leads.jsonl or leads.csv
• generated human/email file: active.md
• generated summary: summary.md
• archive: dedupe_archive.csv

Then OpenClaw never has to output the entire 40k file just to remove old leads.

[worn sage]

so the lead scout can still append without having to output all 40k tokens

[old elm]

Exactly. Appending is the key.

The lead scout should not rewrite the big file. It should only produce the 3 new lead records and append them to a structured source file.

For example, if using JSONL:

leads.jsonl

The scout appends 3 lines only:

{"id":"lead-20260516-example-dba","company":"Example Ltd","status":"new",...}
{"id":"lead-20260516-another-dba","company":"Another Ltd","status":"new",...}
{"id":"lead-20260516-third-dba","company":"Third Ltd","status":"new",...}

[old elm]

That output is maybe 1-3k tokens, not 40k.

Then the maintenance script reads the whole file locally and rewrites generated outputs without involving the LLM:

leads.jsonl          # append-only source of truth
active.md            # regenerated by script
summary.md           # regenerated by script
dedupe_archive.csv   # updated by script

The scout only needs enough history to avoid duplicates. It can read a compact dedupe file, not the whole rich markdown:

dedupe_archive.csv
2026-05-07,cambridge-and-counties-bank|database-administrator|a4b7...

[old elm]

2026-05-08,clarksons|senior-data-platform-dba|4398222983

So yes: lead scout appends small structured records; maintenance script handles big-file transformation locally. Much cleaner.

[worn sage]

ok, so can you give me a plan to convert to this?

[old elm]

Yep. I’d convert in stages so you don’t break the working pipeline.

Plan

1. Create a new folder

sql_leads/
  leads.jsonl
  dedupe_archive.csv
  sent_log.csv
  active.md
  summary.md
  maintain_leads.py

2. Convert the current markdown once
   Take the current sql_leads.md and extract each active lead into one JSONL row in leads.jsonl.

[old elm]

Each row should hold the structured data:

{
  "id": "lead-20260516-example-dba",
  "company": "Example Ltd",
  "found": "2026-05-16",
  "job_posted": "2026-05-16",
  "status": "new",
  "dedupe_key": "example-ltd|sql-dba|job-id",
  "location": "London",
  "sector": "Financial Services",
  "score": "8/10",
  "trigger": "Hiring SQL DBA during migration.",
  "pitch_angle": "Managed SQL support can de-risk the migration.",
  "evidence": {

[old elm]

    "job_posting": "https://...",
    "news": "https://..."
  },
  "contact": [
    "Name / role / public route"
  ]
}

3. Generate compact dedupe archive
   Create dedupe_archive.csv from every lead:

date,dedupe_key,company,role_or_title,job_url_or_id,status
2026-05-16,example-ltd|sql-dba|job-id,Example Ltd,SQL DBA,https://...,new

[old elm]

This is what the lead scout reads for duplicate checks.

4. Write the maintenance script
   maintain_leads.py should:

• read leads.jsonl
• compute active_cutoff_date = today - 5 days
• compute archive_cutoff_date = today - 60 days
• change old new leads to expired
• keep dedupe rows for 60 days
• generate active.md from leads where status == "new" and job_posted >= active_cutoff_date
• generate summary.md
• write a short report

No LLM needed for this step.

5. Update the lead scout standing order
   Change it so it:

[old elm]

• reads dedupe_archive.csv
• finds 3 new leads
• appends 3 JSONL rows to leads.jsonl
• appends 3 dedupe rows to dedupe_archive.csv
• does not rewrite active.md, summary.md, or the whole lead file
• then runs python sql_leads/maintain_leads.py

6. Update the email standing order
   Change it so it reads only:

sql_leads/active.md

It should ignore leads.jsonl and dedupe_archive.csv.

7. Test with your old leads

[old elm]

Because your current file has older entries, this is perfect for testing:

• convert all 22 leads into leads.jsonl
• run maintenance with 5-day active window
• confirm old leads disappear from active.md
• confirm they remain in dedupe_archive.csv
• confirm summary.md only lists active leads

8. Retire the big markdown file
   Once tested:

• stop using sql_leads.md as source of truth
• either archive it as sql_leads_legacy.md
• or make it a generated/read-only export if you still want one big view

The big shift is: JSONL becomes the database, markdown becomes generated output. That removes the 40k-token rewrite problem.

[worn sage]

can you write the plan here https://cl1p.net/4566

[old elm]

Done. I posted the conversion plan here:
https://cl1p.net/4566

Verified it includes the JSONL/source-of-truth plan and generated markdown outputs.

[worn sage]

you can find the markdown here https://cl1p.net/4570 , can you write a script that I can run that will create all the JSONL files in step 2

[old elm]

I wrote the conversion script here:
https://cl1p.net/4571

It creates:

• sql_leads/leads.jsonl
• sql_leads/dedupe_archive.csv
• sql_leads/sent_log.csv
• sql_leads/active.md
• sql_leads/summary.md

Run it like this from the folder containing your current markdown:

python convert_sql_leads.py sql_leads.md

Or specify an output folder:

[old elm]

python convert_sql_leads.py sql_leads.md sql_leads

I verified the script was posted and includes the JSONL conversion logic.

[worn sage]

can you write the maintenance script in step 4 and put it here https://cl1p.net/4569

[old elm]

Done. I posted the maintenance script here:
https://cl1p.net/4569

It reads sql_leads/leads.jsonl, applies the 5-day active window and 60-day dedupe retention, then regenerates active.md, summary.md, dedupe_archive.csv, and sent_log.csv.

Run it like:

python sql_leads/maintain_leads.py

For testing with a fixed date:

python sql_leads/maintain_leads.py --today 2026-05-16

[worn sage]

The lead scout standing order can be found here https://cl1p.net/4572 please update it and put it here https://cl1p.net/4573

[old elm]

Done. I updated the lead scout standing order and posted it here:
https://cl1p.net/4573

Verified it now uses leads.jsonl, dedupe_archive.csv, and runs maintain_leads.py instead of rewriting the large markdown file.

[worn sage]

The email standing order runs a lobster pipepline, that looks like this

name: sql_lead_drafts_email_output

steps:

• id: read_leads
  command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md

• id: build_llm_request
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/build-llm-request.js
  stdin: $read_leads.stdout

• id: debug_llm_request
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-llm-request.json
  stdin: $build_llm_request.stdout

• id: draft_email
  command: sh -c 'node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/invoke-llm-task.js 2> /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-draft-email-stderr.txt'
  stdin: $debug_llm_request.stdout

• id: debug_draft_email
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-draft-email.json
  stdin: $draft_email.stdout

• id: extract_llm_json
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/extract-llm-json.js
  stdin: $debug_draft_email.stdout

• id: debug_extracted_json
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-extracted-json.json
  stdin: $extract_llm_json.stdout

• id: render_email_html
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/render-email-html.js
  stdin: $debug_extracted_json.stdout

• id: debug_rendered_email
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json
  stdin: $render_email_html.stdout

• id: write_email_html_file
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js
  stdin: $debug_rendered_email.stdout

• id: final_output
  command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql-leads-draft-output.html

[old elm]

That pipeline only needs a small change at the top: read the generated active-leads file instead of the legacy full markdown.

Change this:

- id: read_leads
  command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md

to this:

- id: maintain_leads
  command: python /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/maintain_leads.py --dir /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads

- id: read_leads

[old elm]

  command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/active.md

Then keep the rest of the pipeline the same.

So the start becomes:

name: sql_lead_drafts_email_output

steps:
  - id: maintain_leads
    command: python /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/maintain_leads.py --dir /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads

  - id: read_leads

[old elm]

    command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/active.md

  - id: build_llm_request
    command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/build-llm-request.js
    stdin: $read_leads.stdout

One caveat: build-llm-request.js may currently assume the old sql_leads.md title/format. If it mostly just wraps stdin into a prompt, no issue. If it parses headings/fields, update it to expect the compact active.md format with:

• Trigger
• Pitch Angle
• Evidence
• Contact

The good part: this means the email LLM only sees active leads, not the full 40k historical file.

[worn sage]

I already have maintenance in the lead cout standing order

[old elm]

That’s fine for when the lead scout runs, but I’d still put a maintenance step at the start of the email pipeline.

Reason: the email pipeline might run later, after some leads have aged out or after statuses changed. If it reads active.md without refreshing it first, it may email stale leads.

The maintenance script is cheap and deterministic, so running it before email is safe:

- id: maintain_leads
  command: python /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/maintain_leads.py --dir /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads

- id: read_leads
  command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/active.md

If you really don’t want maintenance in the email pipeline, then at minimum change only:

[old elm]

command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads.md

to:

command: cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql_leads/active.md

But my recommendation is to keep the maintenance step in both places:

• lead scout runs it after appending new leads
• email pipeline runs it before drafting emails

That makes active.md fresh at the moment it matters.

[worn sage]

build-llm-request.js can be found here https://cl1p.net/4569 it will probably need changing so put it here https://cl1p.net/4570. This still thinks that leads have number for an ID

[old elm]

Done. I updated build-llm-request.js and posted it here:
https://cl1p.net/4570

Changes made:

• uses stable lead_id from headings like lead-20260516-company-role
• removes lead_number
• expects the compact active.md fields: Trigger, Pitch Angle, Evidence, and Contact
• only drafts leads with Status: new

Verified the posted script contains lead_id and no longer contains lead_number.

[worn sage]

render-email-html.js can be found here https://cl1p.net/4564 you can write it here https://cl1p.net/4565, note this was also expected the lead as a number so the layout may need to be adjusted

[old elm]

Done. I updated render-email-html.js and posted it here:
https://cl1p.net/4565

Changes made:

• uses lead_id instead of numeric lead_number
• removes the old Contact found column
• adds Job posted to the summary table
• renders Trigger and Pitch angle in each lead card
• keeps Job posting, News, Contact, Summary, and Outreach draft

Verified the posted script contains lead_id, includes Pitch angle, and no longer contains lead_number.

[worn sage]

extract-llm-json.js can be found here https://cl1p.net/4572, does it need changing?

[old elm]

No, that one doesn’t need changing.

It only searches the LLM output for a generic object shaped like:

{ "subject": "...", "leads": [...] }

It does not care whether each lead has lead_number or lead_id. So it should keep working with the updated build-llm-request.js and render-email-html.js.

The only caveat: it doesn’t validate individual lead fields. That’s fine because the schema validation is already being done in the LLM request step.

[worn sage]

How about the normalize script

let s = "";

process.stdin.on("data", c => {
s += c;
});

process.stdin.on("end", () => {
const raw = JSON.parse(s);

const json =
raw?.result?.details?.json ||
raw?.details?.json ||
(Array.isArray(raw) ? raw[0]?.details?.json : null);

if (!json) {
console.error("Could not find details.json in llm-task output.");
console.error(JSON.stringify(raw, null, 2).slice(0, 4000));
process.exit(1);
}

console.log(JSON.stringify({
subject: json.subject || "SQL estate health check lead drafts",
contentType: "text/html",
html: json.html
}, null, 2));
});

[old elm]

That normalize script probably doesn’t need changing for the lead_id migration.

It only expects the rendered-email step to produce:

{
  "subject": "...",
  "html": "..."
}

It doesn’t inspect individual leads, so it doesn’t care whether the lead identifier is lead_number or lead_id.

I’d only make one defensive improvement: fail if html is missing, otherwise you can silently send an empty/broken email payload.

Updated version:

[old elm]

let s = "";

process.stdin.on("data", c => {
  s += c;
});

process.stdin.on("end", () => {
  const raw = JSON.parse(s);

  const json =
    raw?.result?.details?.json ||
    raw?.details?.json ||
    (Array.isArray(raw) ? raw[0]?.details?.json : null);

  if (!json) {

[old elm]

    console.error("Could not find details.json in llm-task output.");
    console.error(JSON.stringify(raw, null, 2).slice(0, 4000));
    process.exit(1);
  }

  if (!json.html) {
    console.error("Rendered email JSON did not contain html.");
    console.error(JSON.stringify(json, null, 2).slice(0, 4000));
    process.exit(1);
  }

  console.log(JSON.stringify({
    subject: json.subject || "SQL estate health check lead drafts",
    contentType: "text/html",
    html: json.html

[old elm]

  }, null, 2));
});

So: no lead-ID-specific change needed, just worth adding the html guard.

[worn sage]

CAn you write it here https://cl1p.net/4573

[old elm]

Done. I posted the updated normalize script here:
https://cl1p.net/4573

It includes the additional guard that fails clearly if the rendered email JSON has no html field.

[worn sage]

invoke-llm-task.js can be found here https://cl1p.net/4570 does it need changing?

[old elm]

No lead-ID change needed here. This script doesn’t inspect lead fields; it just sends whatever JSON request it receives to the llm-task tool.

The only thing I’d consider changing is the hardcoded session key:

sessionKey: process.env.OPENCLAW_SESSION_KEY || "agent:sql:main",

If this is running under the DBA scout agent, you may want it to be explicit:

sessionKey: process.env.OPENCLAW_SESSION_KEY || "agent:lead-scout:main",

But that depends on how your gateway sessions are arranged. If the current script already works, I’d leave it.

The important lead_number assumptions were in:

[old elm]

• build-llm-request.js ✅ changed
• render-email-html.js ✅ changed

invoke-llm-task.js can stay as-is.

[worn sage]

ok, let me test

[old elm]

Sounds good. If it fails, paste the first actual error plus which step failed; the debug JSON files in that pipeline should make it pretty quick to isolate.

[worn sage]

Pipeline failed with this error:

Error: Expected input JSON to contain an html string

The write-email-html-file.js script didn't receive valid HTML input from the pipeline. This suggests the pipeline's HTML generation step may have failed or produced unexpected output.

[old elm]

That means the failure is after render-email-html.js, or that step returned a wrapper shape instead of:

{
  "subject": "...",
  "html": "..."
}

First check the actual file:

cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json | head -c 1000

If it looks like this, it is correct:

[old elm]

{"subject":"...","html":"<table ..."}

If it looks wrapped like this:

{
  "result": {
    "details": {
      "json": {
        "subject": "...",
        "html": "..."
      }
    }
  }

[old elm]

}

then write-email-html-file.js is receiving the wrong shape and needs a normalize step between render_email_html and write_email_html_file.

But based on your current pipeline, I think the simpler likely issue is that write-email-html-file.js expects top-level html, while your pipeline may now be passing through the normalize script output shape:

{
  "subject": "...",
  "contentType": "text/html",
  "html": "..."
}

That should still work if it checks only html, so I need to see the first 500-1000 chars of debug-rendered-email.json.

[old elm]

Quick debug commands:

node -e 'const x=require("./debug-rendered-email.json"); console.log(Object.keys(x)); console.log(typeof x.html); console.log(JSON.stringify(x).slice(0,500))' 

Run that from:

cd /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout

Paste the output and I can tell you exactly which script needs the small fix.

[worn sage]

This is in the log file

21:54:26
error
[tools] lobster failed: workflow command failed (1): /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js:13
throw new Error("Expected input JSON to contain an html string");
^

Error: Expected input JSON to contain an html string
at Socket.<anonymous> (/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js:13:11)
at Socket.emit (node:events:531:35)
at endReadableNT (node:internal/streams/readable:1698:12)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:89:21)

Node.js v22.22.2 raw_params={"action":"run","pipeline":"/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql-leads-draft.lobster","timeoutMs":600000,"maxStdoutBytes":512000}
21:54:26
error
[tools] lobster failed: workflow command failed (1): /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js:13
throw new Error("Expected input JSON to contain an html string");
^

Error: Expected input JSON to contain an html string
at Socket.<anonymous> (/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js:13:11)
at Socket.emit (node:events:531:35)
at endReadableNT (node:internal/streams/readable:1698:12)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:89:21)

Node.js v22.22.2 raw_params={"action":"run","pipeline":"/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/sql-leads-draft.lobster","timeoutMs":600000,"maxStdoutBytes":512000}

[old elm]

That stack confirms only the final script rejected its stdin; it doesn’t show what stdin was.

Given the pipeline you showed earlier, the likely wiring issue is this:

- id: debug_rendered_email
  command: tee .../debug-rendered-email.json
  stdin: $render_email_html.stdout

- id: write_email_html_file
  command: node .../write-email-html-file.js
  stdin: $debug_rendered_email.stdout

If debug_rendered_email.stdout is empty or wrapped unexpectedly, the writer fails.

Two practical fixes:

[old elm]

Fix A: bypass the tee step for the writer

Keep the debug file, but feed the writer directly from render_email_html.stdout:

- id: debug_rendered_email
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json
  stdin: $render_email_html.stdout

- id: write_email_html_file
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js
  stdin: $render_email_html.stdout

Fix B: make write-email-html-file.js accept wrapper shapes

If you want the final script more robust, change its input extraction to support both top-level and wrapped JSON:

[old elm]

const raw = JSON.parse(input);

const data =
  raw?.html ? raw :
  raw?.result?.details?.json?.html ? raw.result.details.json :
  raw?.details?.json?.html ? raw.details.json :
  Array.isArray(raw) && raw[0]?.details?.json?.html ? raw[0].details.json :
  null;

if (!data || typeof data.html !== "string") {
  throw new Error("Expected input JSON to contain an html string");
}

I’d do both: feed write_email_html_file directly from render_email_html.stdout, and make the writer more tolerant.

[old elm]

If you paste write-email-html-file.js, I can update it cleanly.

[worn sage]

you can find it here https://cl1p.net/4574

[old elm]

I updated it here:
https://cl1p.net/4575

Changes:

• accepts top-level { subject, html }
• accepts wrapped result.details.json
• accepts wrapped details.json
• accepts array [0].details.json
• prints useful debug info if it still can’t find html

I’d also still change the pipeline so write_email_html_file reads from $render_email_html.stdout directly instead of $debug_rendered_email.stdout, but this script should be more tolerant either way.

[worn sage]

It failed, errors are here https://cl1p.net/4576

[old elm]

That cl1p contains the script, not the error output. I need the actual stderr/debug output from the failed run.

Please paste one of these into cl1p and send the link:

cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json | head -c 4000

or, better:

cat /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-draft-email-stderr.txt

Also useful:

[old elm]

cd /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout
node -e 'const fs=require("fs"); for (const f of ["debug_extracted_json.json","debug-rendered-email.json"]) { const s=fs.readFileSync(f,"utf8"); console.log("
"+f, s.length, s.slice(0,500)); }'

The error is now likely one step earlier than the writer, but I need to see what debug-rendered-email.json actually contains.

[worn sage]

debug-draft-email-stderr.txt contains

bug-draft-email-stderr.txt
llm-task args: {
"provider": "lmstudio",
"model": "lmstudio/qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b",
"timeoutMs": 600000,
"maxTokens": 32000,
"temperature": 0,
"requestTimeoutMs": 900000
}

[old elm]

That stderr is normal; it only shows the LLM request settings. It doesn’t show the failing payload.

The file we need is:

/home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json

Please paste the first chunk from this:

head -c 4000 /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json

Also useful:

[old elm]

head -c 4000 /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-extracted-json.json

Why: write-email-html-file.js only receives the output of render-email-html.js. So the important question is whether debug-rendered-email.json contains html, or whether render-email-html.js produced something else / nothing.

[worn sage]

debug-rendered-email.json contains this https://cl1p.net/4573

[old elm]

That explains the failure. debug-rendered-email.json is not rendered email HTML. It contains an LLM request object:

{
  "prompt": "...",
  "thinking": "low",
  "timeoutMs": 600000,
  "input": {
    "leads_markdown": "{\"subject\": ...}"
  }
}

So the pipeline is feeding the wrong thing into the writer. The writer is expecting:

[old elm]

{
  "subject": "...",
  "html": "<table>...</table>"
}

Most likely one of these is wrong:

1. render-email-html.js on disk is actually the wrong script, possibly overwritten with build-llm-request.js
2. the pipeline wiring for render_email_html points at the wrong stdin
3. debug_extracted_json.stdout is not being passed into render-email-html.js

Your pipeline should have this exact section:

[old elm]

- id: extract_llm_json
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/extract-llm-json.js
  stdin: $debug_draft_email.stdout

- id: debug_extracted_json
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-extracted-json.json
  stdin: $extract_llm_json.stdout

- id: render_email_html
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/render-email-html.js
  stdin: $debug_extracted_json.stdout

- id: debug_rendered_email
  command: tee /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/debug-rendered-email.json
  stdin: $render_email_html.stdout

[old elm]

- id: write_email_html_file
  command: node /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/write-email-html-file.js
  stdin: $render_email_html.stdout

Note the last line: feed the writer from $render_email_html.stdout, not from the debug tee.

Also run this to confirm the scripts are not swapped:

head -n 5 /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/render-email-html.js
head -n 5 /home/admin/.openclaw/workspace-dba-scout/lobster-scripts/build-llm-request.js

render-email-html.js should start with something like:

[old elm]

let input = "";
process.stdin.on("data", c => {

and it should contain function renderLeadSummaryTable. It should not contain the prompt text “You will receive a Markdown active leads file”. If it does, the wrong script was copied into render-email-html.js.

[worn sage]

yes it is overwritten can you put render-email-html.js here https://cl1p.net/4574

[old elm]

Done. I posted the corrected render-email-html.js here:
https://cl1p.net/4574

Verified:

• contains function renderLeadSummaryTable
• contains Lead ID
• does not contain the build prompt text, so it is no longer the overwritten request-builder script.

[worn sage]

I have everything working now

[old elm]

Glad it’s working now 🎉
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