🎭 Session 3: Skills + Memory

Overview#

Same agent, different users — and you want them to see different behavior. This session adds skills (Markdown files with YAML frontmatter that shape agent behavior without code changes) and memory (automatic summarization to manage context windows, plus semantic search across past conversations). By the end, the agent is personalized, context-efficient, and remembers what happened last time.

"Skills are just markdown. Memory is transparent."

Prerequisites#

✅ Sessions 1 & 2 complete and working
✅ Local LLM running (Ollama with llama3.2 or Foundry Local)
✅ Understanding of: async/await, file I/O, EF Core basics
✅ Sample skill files in skills/built-in/ and skills/samples/

What You'll Learn#

🎭 Stage 1: Skill System (12 min)#

What a skill is — Markdown + YAML frontmatter, no code required
FileSkillLoader — scan directories, parse files, track enabled/disabled state
SkillParser — regex-based YAML extraction
How skills weave into the system prompt via DefaultPromptComposer

🧠 Stage 2: Memory & Summarization (15 min)#

The context window problem — token limits, cost, truncation
Summarization strategy — keep recent verbatim, compress older, search very old
DefaultMemoryService — EF Core persistence with IDbContextFactory
DefaultEmbeddingsService — local ONNX embeddings with cosine similarity

⚡ Stage 3: Integration + UI (15 min)#

Skills API — list, reload, enable/disable at runtime (no restart)
Memory stats — transparent dashboard with total messages, summary count
Before/after pattern — toggle skill → observe behavior change
Gateway endpoint wiring with Minimal API

Projects Covered#

Project	LOC	Key Responsibility
OpenClawNet.Skills	237	Skill definitions, FileSkillLoader, SkillParser
OpenClawNet.Memory	234	DefaultMemoryService, DefaultEmbeddingsService, MemoryStats
OpenClawNet.Agent	—	DefaultPromptComposer (skill + summary integration)
OpenClawNet.Storage	—	SessionSummary entity
OpenClawNet.Gateway	—	SkillEndpoints, MemoryEndpoints

Session Materials#

Resource	Link
📖 Presenter Guide	session-3-guide.md
📖 Guía (Español)	session-3-guide-es.md
🎤 Speaker Script	speaker-script.md
🤖 Copilot Prompts	copilot-prompts.md
🖥️ Slides	TBD

Git Checkpoints#

Starting tag: session-3-start (alias: session-2-complete)
Ending tag: session-3-complete

DI Registration Reference#

// Skills
services.AddSingleton<ISkillLoader>(sp =>
    new FileSkillLoader(skillDirectories, sp.GetRequiredService<ILogger<FileSkillLoader>>()));
 
// Memory
services.AddScoped<IMemoryService, DefaultMemoryService>();
services.AddSingleton<IEmbeddingsService, DefaultEmbeddingsService>();