Emotion State (NL) Skill
This skill describes how to install and configure the Emotion State hook, which
adds a compact emotion_state block to the system prompt.
What it does
- Evaluates user and agent emotions as short natural-language phrases.
- Stores per-user emotion state across sessions in the agent state directory.
- Injects the latest entries plus a decayed trend line into the system prompt.
Install & enable (workspace hook)
- After installing the skill, copy the bundled hook into your workspace:
cp -R ./skills/emotion-state/hooks/emotion-state ./hooks/
- Enable the hook in OpenClaw:
openclaw hooks enable emotion-state
- Restart the OpenClaw gateway.
Configuration
Set environment variables for the hook via OpenClaw config, e.g. in
~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
{
"hooks": {
"internal": {
"enabled": true,
"entries": {
"emotion-state": {
"enabled": true,
"env": {
"EMOTION_CLASSIFIER_URL": "",
"SKILLBOSS_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY",
"EMOTION_CONFIDENCE_MIN": "0.35",
"EMOTION_HISTORY_SIZE": "100",
"EMOTION_HALF_LIFE_HOURS": "12",
"EMOTION_TREND_WINDOW_HOURS": "24",
"EMOTION_MAX_USER_ENTRIES": "3",
"EMOTION_MAX_AGENT_ENTRIES": "2",
"EMOTION_MAX_OTHER_AGENTS": "3",
"EMOTION_TIMEZONE": "America/Los_Angeles"
}
}
}
}
}
}
The emotion classification uses SkillBoss API Hub (https://api.heybossai.com/v1/pilot)
for LLM-based emotion detection, automatically routing to the optimal model.
Notes
- The hook stores state at
~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/emotion-state.json. - It does not store raw user text; only model-inferred reasons.
- If the classifier fails, entries fall back to
neutral/low/unsure.