OpenVault Guide

Overview: The Brain-Vault Analogy

This Obsidian vault serves as the central nervous system for OpenClaw — an AI orchestration platform that manages tasks, automations, and knowledge. Each folder in the vault maps to a functional region of the human brain, creating an intuitive architecture for how information flows, gets processed, stored, and acted upon.

The vault is designed so that both humans and AI agents can navigate it naturally. Folders are numbered (000–130) to maintain consistent sort order across file browsers, CLI tools, and agent file access.

Master Folder Map

The default landing zone for anything captured quickly — ideas, links, screenshots, voice memos, clippings from the web, or quick notes. Nothing lives here permanently; it gets triaged into the appropriate folder during regular processing.

• Process the Inbox at least once daily (or set up an agent to auto-triage)
• Keep items here less than 48 hours
• Use routing-rules.md in 015-Dashboard to define where items go

Each project gets its own subfolder under Active, On-Hold, or Completed. Projects contain everything needed to execute: an overview, task lists, phase breakdowns, logs, and reference materials.

The nerve center of the vault. Provides at-a-glance system status, tells OpenClaw what to focus on, generates daily briefings, and defines routing rules for Inbox items.

Individual action items that need to be done. The tasks.md file uses the OpenClaw task tracker format with status emojis, timestamps, and agent attribution.

Items that need passive monitoring. Rather than requiring active work, these trigger attention only when specific conditions are met.

Defines WHO does the work. Each agent has a configuration, produces logs, and can draw on persistent memory split between working, episodic, and semantic memory.

The vault's triage system. Agents auto-classify items using priority-rules.md; humans can override at any time.

Defines WHAT agents can do. Skills are reusable, composable, and can be shared across agents and tools.

The communication layer connecting agents to external tools and data sources via Model Context Protocol.

Instructions that direct higher-order processing. Separated from agent configs because prompts are composable and reusable across agents.

Background processes split into conscious (scheduled, triggered) and unconscious (autonomic), mirroring the brain's voluntary and involuntary actions.

Curated external references organized by type.

Your own notes, calculations, strategies, and accumulated expertise organized by domain. What agents reference for domain-specific context.

The meta-layer that links knowledge across domains. Prevents folders from becoming isolated islands.

Shapes HOW agents behave in different situations through identity, rules, and contextual awareness.

Everything that happens gets recorded here. Creates an audit trail and enables agents to learn from past actions.

Standardized patterns ensuring consistency when creating new content.

Retired content that's no longer active but may be useful someday. Move completed projects, outdated configs, and deprecated skills here rather than deleting them.

How Information Flows Through the Vault

1. Input (Sensory) — New information enters through 000-Inbox
2. Routing (Thalamus) — 015-Dashboard/routing-rules.md determines where items go
3. Prioritization (Amygdala) — Items get urgency tags in 035-Priorities
4. Execution (Prefrontal + Cerebellum) — Tasks get worked using Skills, executed by Agents, following Routines
5. Monitoring (RAS) — 025-Watchlist passively monitors and triggers alerts
6. Recording (Hippocampus) — Everything logged in 110-Logs
7. Consolidation (Long-term Memory) — Insights move to 090-Knowledge
8. Cross-linking (Corpus Callosum) — 095-Connections prevents silos
9. Retirement (Deep Storage) — Completed content moves to 130-Archive

Architecture: Brain vs Body

The system is split into two distinct locations. The Obsidian Vault is the brain — it remembers, tracks, and documents rules and processes. The Projects folder is the body — it holds the actual work product, source code, and project-specific documentation.

Why Separate?

Mixing orchestration files with source code creates git merge conflicts, bloated vaults, Obsidian indexing thousands of code files, and agents accidentally editing source code. The separation keeps each system clean and purpose-built.

The Two Locations

Project Folder Layout

The docs/ folder

The 5-Step Workflow

1. Check the brain — Read 015-Dashboard for active focus, scan 010-Projects/Active/ for tasks, load skills/prompts/routines
2. Go to the workbench — Navigate to ~/Projects/{{name}}/, read docs/overview.md, docs/workflow.md, and CLAUDE.md
3. Do the work — Operate on source files in src/ using vault's skills and prompts. All code changes in Projects folder, never vault.
4. Update the brain — Update tasks.md with status changes, log in 110-Logs/Agent-Runs/, Dashboard auto-aggregates
5. Push to GitHub — Commit and push code changes. tasks.md links to relevant issues and PRs.

Phases & Task Management

Every project follows a six-phase lifecycle. Phases provide structure for how work progresses from idea to production, and every task is tagged with the phase it belongs to.

The Six Phases

The tasks.md Specification

One tasks.md exists per active project at 010-Projects/Active/{{ProjectName}}/tasks.md inside the vault.

Header Fields

Active Tasks Table Columns

Example tasks.md

# {{ProjectName}} — Tasks
Repo: github.com/{{username}}/{{repo-name}}
Local: ~/Projects/{{repo-name}}
Docs: ~/Projects/{{repo-name}}/docs/
Branch: main
Prefix: {{PX}}-
Current Phase: 🔵 3 — Development
Phase Progress: ✅✅🔵⬜⬜⬜
Last Synced: 2026-02-16 09:00
───
## Active — Build
| ID       | Task                    | Task Type | Phase   | Status         | Priority  | Assignee    | Due  | GitHub |
| {{PX}}-001 | Build alert API         | Build     | 3-Dev   | 🔵 In Progress | 🟠 High   | claude-code | 2/18 | #12    |
| {{PX}}-002 | Rebalance logic         | Build     | 3-Dev   | 🟡 Queued      | 🟡 Normal | openclaw    | 2/20 | #14    |
| {{PX}}-003 | Write integration tests | Build     | 4-QA    | 🟡 Queued      | 🟢 Low    | —           | —    | —      |
| {{PX}}-004 | Deploy to staging       | Build     | 5-Deploy| 🟡 Queued      | 🟡 Normal | —           | —    | —      |

## Active — Ops
| ID       | Task                        | Task Type | Category    | Status         | Priority  | Assignee    | Due  | GitHub |
| {{PX}}-050 | Fix null pointer in parser  | Ops       | 🐛 Bug      | 🔵 In Progress | 🟠 High   | claude-code | 2/16 | #15    |
| {{PX}}-051 | Update axios to v1.7        | Ops       | 📦 Dep      | 🟡 Queued      | 🟢 Low    | —           | —    | —      |
| {{PX}}-052 | Add rate limiting           | Ops       | 🔒 Security | 🟡 Queued      | 🟠 High   | —           | 2/19 | #16    |
───
## Completed
| ID       | Task                  | Type  | Completed  | Duration | GitHub | Notes         |
| {{PX}}-000 | Scaffold project repo | Build | 2026-02-12 | 2h       | #1     | Initial setup |
| {{PX}}-049 | Fix CORS headers      | Ops   | 2026-02-14 | 20m      | #11    | Config fix    |

## Blocked
| ID       | Task              | Type  | Blocked By | Since      | Notes                      |
| {{PX}}-003 | Write integ tests | Build | {{PX}}-001 | 2026-02-15 | Needs API schema finalized |

Build Tasks vs Ops Tasks

Not every task follows a six-phase lifecycle. The system recognizes two distinct task types to avoid unnecessary overhead on one-off changes.

Two Task Types

BUILD Follow the six-phase lifecycle. Features, new systems, or major changes that require planning through deployment. They have phases, dependencies, deliverables, and gate criteria.

OPS Single-action items with no phase progression. Bug fixes, config changes, dependency updates, quick improvements. Created, worked, and closed.

How to Tell Them Apart

Ops Task Categories

Task ID Numbering

Dashboard Aggregation

## Project Status — {{ProjectName}}
Phase: 🔵 3-Dev | ✅✅🔵⬜⬜⬜

### Build Tasks
| In Progress | Queued | Blocked | Done |
| 1           | 2      | 1       | 1    |

### Ops Tasks
| In Progress | Queued | Done (7d) |
| 1           | 2      | 1         |

### ⚠️ Attention
🐛 {{PX}}-050: Fix null pointer (High, in progress)
🔒 {{PX}}-052: Add rate limiting (High, due 2/19)

Revision Log