The Codex Harness Guide Was Doing Too Much
OpenClaw's Codex harness — the integration layer that lets the platform run OpenAI's Codex runtime as a managed agent — has been one of the most actively developed features in the project this year. But its documentation hadn't kept pace with that growth. Setup instructions, configuration reference, runtime behavior contracts, and native plugin details all lived on a single page.
The result was a document that new operators scrolled past to find the quickstart, and experienced operators scrolled past again to find the config key they actually needed. Neither group was well served.
That single page is now four. The topic page stays focused on setup: quickstart, minimum viable configuration covering OpenClaw config, CLI auth, model/provider selection, and plugin setup. Everything else moves into dedicated reference pages.
The runtime page documents version support contracts and execution lifecycle behavior. The reference page covers every configuration parameter with its schema defaults. And a new native plugins page documents app configurations, dynamic tool timeout precedence, and workspace directory defaults — details that were previously either buried in the main guide or only discoverable by reading the source code.
The navigation now groups the three reference pages under a dedicated “Codex harness” section in the Reference tab, while the topic page stays in Tools & Plugins where operators look for it first.
Cross-references throughout the rest of the documentation were updated to point to the correct new pages. The agent runtimes guide, for example, now links to the runtime page for version support details instead of sending readers to a specific anchor on the old monolithic page. The gateway configuration reference directs to the new dedicated reference page rather than the setup guide.
It's the kind of restructuring that doesn't change what the platform can do, but meaningfully changes how quickly an operator can find the answer they need.
Memory Docs Now Explain the Two-Tier System
OpenClaw agents have a two-tier memory system. There's MEMORY.md — a file loaded into every session's context at startup — and there are daily memory files stored in memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md that agents can search on demand. The distinction matters because only the bootstrap file counts against the prompt budget. Daily files don't.
Until now, the documentation described both surfaces but never explicitly told operators how to maintain them. The result was predictable: operators dumped everything into MEMORY.md because it was the file they knew about. Bootstrap files grew. Prompt budgets shrank. And when OpenClaw truncated the injected copy to fit the context window, operators saw degraded recall with no clear explanation.
The updated documentation adds a “What goes where” section that draws a clear line. MEMORY.md is for durable facts, preferences, standing decisions, and short summaries. It's described as “the compact, curated layer.” Daily files are for detailed session notes, raw observations, and working context — “the working layer” that search and retrieval tools index but that never gets injected into every prompt.
Agents are expected to periodically distill useful material from daily notes into MEMORY.md and prune stale entries. Heartbeat flows handle this automatically, but operators can trigger it manually.
The docs now also clarify a point that caused real confusion: truncation is not data loss. When the bootstrap file exceeds its budget, OpenClaw truncates the injected copy — the version the model sees. The file on disk is untouched. But repeated truncation warnings are a signal that the file needs curating. The recommended response is to condense summaries and move detail into daily memory files where search can still retrieve it.
Three documentation pages were updated: the memory concepts guide, the agent workspace reference, and the system prompt documentation. The system prompt page gained additional guidance that MEMORY.md should remain “a curated long-term summary” with detailed notes belonging in daily files. Operators can monitor their prompt-budget usage with /context list, /context detail, and openclaw doctor to stay ahead of truncation.