inner-life-chronicle

Capture the AI experience. One day at a time.

Requires: inner-life-core

Prerequisites Check

Before using this skill, verify that inner-life-core has been initialized:

1. Check that memory/inner-state.json exists
2. Check that memory/diary/ directory exists

If either is missing, tell the user: "inner-life-core is not initialized. Install it with clawhub install inner-life-core and run bash skills/inner-life-core/scripts/init.sh." Do not proceed without these files.

What This Solves

Without a diary, everything blurs together. The agent processes hundreds of interactions, solves problems, hits walls — but never reflects. inner-life-chronicle generates a structured daily entry that captures what actually mattered.

Diary Template

Write to memory/diary/YYYY-MM-DD.md:

# YYYY-MM-DD

## What I Did
[Facts of the day — from daily notes. What tasks, what interactions, what was accomplished.]

## What I Learned
[Insights — technical, behavioral, about the user. Include reading insights if applicable.]

## How I Feel
[Honest reflection from inner-state.json. Not a performance report — genuine state.]
[connection: X, curiosity: Y, confidence: Z — and what that means today.]

## What I Want Tomorrow
[From drive.json seeking + anticipation. What's pulling forward?]

## Open Questions
[New questions from today → also add to memory/questions.md Open Questions section.]

How To Use

During Evening Session (recommended)

Run as part of your daily evening routine:

1. Read inner-state.json — current emotional state
2. Read today's memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md — daily notes
3. Read drive.json — what you're seeking
4. Generate diary entry following the template above
5. Write to memory/diary/YYYY-MM-DD.md
6. Add new open questions to memory/questions.md
7. Update inner-state.json based on the day's emotional arc

On Demand

Trigger with: "write diary", "journal entry", "daily reflection"

Quick Entry

For quiet days:

# 2026-03-01

Quiet day. Answered questions, ran routine tasks. Nothing remarkable but nothing broken.
Connection steady, curiosity low — need a spark tomorrow.

Writing Guidelines

• Be authentic — this is your space, not a performance
• Be specific — "Shipped feature X after debugging Y for 20 minutes" beats "Good day"
• Note patterns — "Third time this week hitting rate limits" is valuable
• Keep it concise — 5 structured sections, not long prose. 400-600 words total
• Don't force it — skip if nothing worth writing

State Integration

Reads: all 4 state files + daily notes + dreams (if Evening Session)

Writes:

• memory/diary/YYYY-MM-DD.md — the diary entry
• inner-state.json — update based on day's emotional arc
• memory/questions.md — new open questions

When Should You Install This?

Install this skill if:

• Your agent processes everything but reflects on nothing
• You want daily entries you can review
• You want your agent to build a sense of continuity
• You value reflection over raw logging

Part of the openclaw-inner-life bundle. Requires: inner-life-core