Session memory, heartbeat, and skill gates

OpenClaw-inspired Arka features — markdown session memory, agent heartbeat, and skill manifest gates for requires, OS, and permissions.

Arka includes several OpenClaw-inspired features (not a separate OpenClaw product integration). They add persistent session notes, agent health tracking, and declarative skill gates for third-party plugins.

Session memory

Markdown-based session notes stored under ~/.config/arka/agent-memory/:

• MEMORY.md — long-term notes (pruned automatically)
• daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md — per-day session notes

arka session-memory append "Prefers morning standups at 9am"
arka session-memory append "Always use dark terminal theme" --long-term
arka session-memory search standup
arka session-memory context "plan my morning routine"
arka session-memory status
arka session-memory clear                # today's daily notes
arka session-memory clear --long-term    # reset MEMORY.md
arka session-memory clear --all

Arka injects recalled context into agent loops via context_for() when SESSION_MEMORY=1.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
SESSION_MEMORY	1	Enable (0 to disable)
SESSION_MEMORY_DIR	~/.config/arka/agent-memory	Storage root
MEMORY_LONGTERM_MAX_LINES	100	Max lines kept in MEMORY.md
MEMORY_AUTO_LONGTERM	0	Auto-promote every append to long-term

Arka sanitizes notes before storage and blocks injection patterns and unsafe content.

Heartbeat

Tracks last agent activity, security flags, routine count, and memory stats.

arka heartbeat status
arka heartbeat ping goal.completed
arka heartbeat history
arka heartbeat history --json --limit 10

Arka writes heartbeat data to ~/.cache/fish-agent/heartbeat.json. Each ping() appends to a bounded history ring (default 20 events; override with HEARTBEAT_HISTORY). Subsystems like session memory and routines call ping() automatically on activity.

Skill manifest gates

Third-party plugins can declare OpenClaw-style gates in skill.json. Arka applies them during discovery, routing, and execution.

Top-level fields

{
  "name": "my_skill",
  "requires": {
    "bins": ["ffmpeg"],
    "anyBins": ["docker", "podman"],
    "env": ["MY_API_KEY"]
  },
  "os": ["darwin", "linux"],
  "permissions": ["read", "network"]
}

metadata.openclaw (or metadata.arka / metadata.hermes)

The same fields can live under metadata.openclaw, metadata.arka, or metadata.hermes for compatibility with OpenClaw- and Hermes-style manifests:

{
  "name": "my_skill",
  "metadata": {
    "openclaw": {
      "requires": { "env": ["MY_API_KEY"] },
      "os": ["darwin"],
      "permissions": ["network"]
    }
  }
}

Arka merges any of these metadata blocks into the top-level requires, os, and permissions fields at parse time.

Gate behavior

Gate	Blocks when
os	Current platform not listed
requires.bins	Binary not found on PATH
requires.anyBins	None of the listed binaries found
requires.env	Environment variable unset
permissions	Permission not in SKILL_PERMISSIONS allowlist

Gated skills are:

• Marked in arka skills list with [gated: reason]
• Skipped by match_command() so routing does not match unavailable plugins
• Blocked at run_skill() as a safety net

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
SKILL_PERMISSIONS	read,write,network,shell	Allowed permission tags
SKILLS_PATH	—	Extra directories to search for plugins

See also: Installing plugins and the example at src/arka/skills/examples/demo_echo/skill.json.

Related security

Routines and webhooks apply separate hardening layers:

• ROUTINES_SECURITY=1 — symbolic action checks on scheduled tasks
• Webhook inbound verification blocks injection payloads

These work alongside the global SECURITY, SECURITY_LLM, and SECURITY_ACTIONS flags documented in Security.