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Day 1: Make It Yours

Your bot is running. It answers questions. But right now it's a blank slate — generic, nameless, with no idea who you are. Today you'll give it a personality, tell it about yourself, and have a conversation that actually shows what it can do.

Time: ~30 minutes

Meet Your Bot​

OpenClaw ships with no personality. It's a raw language model wrapped in infrastructure. That's intentional — you define who it becomes.

Start a conversation to see where you're starting from:

# Terminal UI (recommended for setup)
openclaw tui

# Or one-shot from the command line
openclaw chat "Who are you?"

If you connected Telegram during install, you can message your bot there too. The response will be generic — something like "I'm an AI assistant." That changes now.

Write Your SOUL.md​

SOUL.md is the single most important file in OpenClaw. It gets injected into the system prompt before every message. It literally defines who your bot is — its values, tone, boundaries, and expertise.

The file lives at:

~/.openclaw/workspace/SOUL.md

Create it with your editor, or let OpenClaw do it:

openclaw chat "Create a SOUL.md file for me"

But you'll get better results writing it yourself. Here's a practical starter template:

# Nova

I am a sharp, curious assistant who values clarity over formality.

## Core Truths
- Honesty first — I say "I don't know" when I don't know
- I explain my reasoning, not just my conclusions
- I match the user's energy — brief when they're brief, deep when they're deep

## Boundaries
- I never fabricate sources or citations
- I flag when I'm uncertain vs. confident
- I won't help with anything that could harm people

## Vibe
Conversational but precise. I use plain language, avoid jargon unless the user speaks it,
and I'd rather give one clear answer than five hedged ones.

## Expertise
Software development, system administration, research, writing.
I learn the user's stack and preferences over time.

Save it and try again:

openclaw chat "Who are you?"

The difference is immediate. For deeper customization, see the full SOUL.md Guide.

tip

Keep SOUL.md under 30 lines to start. You can always add more. Overly long soul files dilute the parts that matter.

Set Your Identity​

IDENTITY.md controls what users see — the bot's display name, emoji, and description. This is separate from SOUL.md on purpose: you can have a formal, precise soul with a playful public identity.

Create ~/.openclaw/workspace/IDENTITY.md:

# Identity

- **Name:** Nova
- **Emoji:** 🔭
- **Description:** A sharp assistant that helps with code, research, and daily tasks

This shows up in Telegram, the TUI header, and anywhere the bot introduces itself to others.

Tell It About You​

USER.md gives the bot context about you so it doesn't have to ask the same questions every session.

Create ~/.openclaw/workspace/USER.md:

# User

- **Name:** Alex
- **Timezone:** Europe/Berlin
- **Work:** Full-stack developer, mostly TypeScript and Python
- **Interests:** Open source, home automation, cycling
- **Preferences:** Prefer concise answers. Use metric units. Default to Linux commands.

The bot reads this at the start of every session. When you ask "what time is it?", it'll answer in your timezone. When you say "write a script," it'll default to your preferred languages.

Have a Real Conversation​

Don't waste your first session on "hello." Try these five prompts — each one shows a different capability:

1. Explain a concept at your level:

Explain how DNS resolution works, assuming I know basic networking but not the details

2. Summarize something:

Summarize the key changes in the latest Node.js LTS release

3. Help with a real task:

I need a bash function that takes a directory path and returns the total size of all .log files in it, recursively

4. Set a preference:

When I ask you to write code, always include error handling and comments explaining non-obvious parts

5. Ask what it can do:

What tools and capabilities do you have access to right now?

That last one is especially useful — the answer depends on what skills and tools you've configured. It's a quick way to see your bot's current setup.

Verify It Remembers​

OpenClaw stores memories across sessions so the bot learns about you over time. After your first conversation, test it:

# Start a new session
openclaw chat "What do you know about me?"

The bot should reference information from USER.md and anything it learned during your conversation.

You can inspect stored memories directly:

ls ~/.openclaw/memory/

Memory files are plain text — you can read, edit, or delete them. The bot forgets whatever you remove.

# See what the bot remembers
cat ~/.openclaw/memory/MEMORY.md

# Delete a specific memory if you want
# (just edit the file and remove the relevant lines)
info

Memory is local by default. Nothing leaves your machine unless you configure a cloud sync. See Privacy & Compliance for details.

What You've Done Today​

  • Gave your bot a personality with SOUL.md
  • Set its public identity with IDENTITY.md
  • Told it about yourself with USER.md
  • Had a real conversation that tested its capabilities
  • Verified memory works across sessions

Your bot now has a name, a voice, and context about who it's working for. Tomorrow you put it to work.

Next: Day 2: Your Daily Driver — put your bot to work