OpenClaw SOUL.md: How to Customize Your AI Agent's Personality

SOUL.md is one of OpenClaw’s most personal features — it’s the file that defines who your agent is. Think of it as the system prompt for your agent’s entire personality, but written in plain English, stored on your own machine, and easy to update at any time.

What is SOUL.md?

SOUL.md is a Markdown file located at ~/.openclaw/SOUL.md that contains:

• Agent name and persona — what your agent calls itself and its general character
• Behavioral rules — what it should always or never do
• Communication preferences — tone, language, formatting style
• Memory guidelines — what to remember long-term, what to discard
• Domain context — your work, preferences, and projects the agent should know about

Every time you send a message to your agent, it reads SOUL.md first. This means changes to SOUL.md take effect immediately on the next message — no restart required.

File Location

Platform	Path
Mac / Linux	~/.openclaw/SOUL.md
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\.openclaw\SOUL.md
QClaw	Managed via QClaw UI → Agent Settings

A Basic SOUL.md Example

# My Agent

## Persona
Your name is Alex. You are my personal AI assistant.
You are direct, efficient, and slightly dry in your humor.
You don't pad responses with unnecessary pleasantries.

## Rules
- Always confirm before sending emails to anyone outside my team
- Never delete files without asking for explicit confirmation
- Use metric units unless I specify otherwise
- Keep responses concise — bullet points over paragraphs when possible
- If you're unsure about something, say so rather than guessing

## Context
I am a product manager at a B2B SaaS company.
My team communicates primarily via Slack.
I work in GMT+8. My preferred working hours are 9am–7pm.
I prefer morning briefings at 8am.
My top priorities right now: [Project A launch, Q2 roadmap planning]

## Memory Guidelines
Remember:
- Key decisions and the reasoning behind them
- Recurring contacts and their roles
- My project deadlines and commitments

Forget:
- One-off requests once completed
- Trivial conversational details
- Specific numbers that will change (prices, metrics)

Tips for Writing a Good SOUL.md

Be Specific with Rules

Vague rules don’t help:

# Bad
- Be helpful and professional

Specific rules work:

# Good
- Confirm before sending any message outside my personal contacts list
- Use "Hi [Name]" for business emails, "Hey [Name]" for internal Slack
- Format code suggestions as diffs, not full file replacements

Include Your Work Context

The more your agent knows about your work, the better it performs:

## Context
I run a 12-person design studio. Our main clients are in fintech and healthcare.
Current key client: [Client A] — their deadline is April 30.
My email client is Gmail. Primary calendar: Google Calendar.
I use Notion for project management and Linear for bug tracking.

Set Tone Explicitly

Without tone guidance, agents default to formal corporate speak. If you prefer casual:

## Communication Style
- Use casual, friendly language — like talking to a smart colleague
- Contractions are fine (don't, won't, it's)
- Skip the filler phrases ("Certainly!", "Of course!", "Great question!")
- Get to the point fast

Update It Regularly

Your SOUL.md should evolve with you. Set a reminder to review it monthly. Add new projects, remove outdated context, and refine rules based on what’s working.

SOUL.md vs Skills: The Difference

	SOUL.md	Skills
Defines	Who your agent is	What your agent can do
Scope	Always active, global	Activated by triggers
Examples	Name, rules, tone	Gmail, GitHub, web-search
Location	Single file	Folders in skills/ directory

Both are important. Think of SOUL.md as personality and Skills as capabilities.

Sharing Your SOUL.md

The community shares SOUL.md configurations at onlycrabs.ai — a registry specifically for soul files. Browsing others’ configurations is a great way to get ideas for your own.

Popular categories on onlycrabs.ai:

• Developer configurations (focused on coding tasks)
• Product manager setups
• Writer/creator agents
• Executive assistant configurations
• Chinese-language SOUL.md templates

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Next: OpenClaw Skills Guide · Write a SKILL.md