openclaw transcripts

Inspector and export command for durable meeting transcripts. Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom browser participants capture notes automatically; the transcripts agent tool also supports provider capture and manual import.

Canonical transcript state lives in the shared SQLite database at $OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/state/openclaw.sqlite. show and path explicitly materialize user-facing artifacts under the state directory:

$OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/transcripts/YYYY-MM-DD/<session>/  metadata.json  transcript.jsonl  summary.json  summary.md

These files are exports, not a second runtime store. OpenClaw does not read them back during capture, summarization, or listing. Default state directory is ~/.openclaw; override with OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR. The date directory comes from the session start time; the session directory is a filesystem-safe slug derived from the session id.

Commands

openclaw transcripts listopenclaw transcripts show <session>openclaw transcripts show YYYY-MM-DD/<session>openclaw transcripts path <session>openclaw transcripts path YYYY-MM-DD/<session>openclaw transcripts path <session> --diropenclaw transcripts path <session> --metadataopenclaw transcripts path <session> --transcriptopenclaw transcripts list --jsonopenclaw transcripts show <session> --jsonopenclaw transcripts path <session> --json

Use the selector printed by list to address an exact capture. An existing canonical selector takes priority over a raw session ID with the same text. Otherwise, show and path accept YYYY-MM-DD/<raw-session-id>, keeping the entire suffix literal, including punctuation and slashes. For example:

openclaw transcripts show '2026-05-22/notes: room/one'

If neither qualified form finds a capture, the complete input is matched as a literal raw session ID or export slug, case-sensitively. A date-like prefix in a raw ID does not prevent this lookup. Multiple matches require a dated selector; no raw ID is sanitized to choose a capture. Default session IDs include a timestamp and random suffix; give a session a fixed ID only when that ID is unique within the day.

If the filesystem-safe export name exceeds 255 bytes, OpenClaw shortens it to a prefix plus a deterministic SHA-256 hash of the complete original session ID. Only the derived export name and its selector change; the raw session ID, provider stop handle, and stored notes stay intact. Names that already fit remain unchanged. Use the selector printed by list for the shortened name. For existing sessions with oversized stored names, run openclaw doctor --fix to repair their derived selectors without changing stored notes.

Output

list prints one tab-separated line per session: selector, start time, title, summary path.

2026-05-22/standup  2026-05-22T09:00:00.000Z  Weekly standup  /Users/user/.openclaw/transcripts/2026-05-22/standup/summary.md

The selector is the safest value to pass back to show or path.

Tool selectors

The transcripts tool returns both the unchanged raw sessionId and a canonical selector from start, import, stop, and summarize. Authorized status results include selectors for active captures and entries awaiting finalization. Its model-facing text shows up to three complete selectors, prioritizing captures awaiting finalization and reporting any omitted count. Structured status details retain the full authorized list. Prefer selector for subsequent stop or summarize calls:

{ "action": "summarize", "selector": "2026-05-22/notes-room-one" }

Stop and summarize require exactly one of selector or sessionId. Other actions reject selector; start and import continue to accept raw IDs through sessionId. Explicit selector input accepts canonical selectors and the historical date/raw-ID form above, but never falls back to the whole input as a raw ID.

Legacy sessionId input considers qualified and raw/slug meanings together. If they identify different captures, the tool reports ambiguity without listing candidate details. This stays ambiguous after a capture ends. Use a selector returned by start, import, or authorized status, or inspect openclaw transcripts list locally and pass the desired value in the selector field. Both sides of a raw-ID/selector collision remain addressable by their own canonical selector.

Without a conflicting qualified meaning or a different raw-ID/slug candidate, legacy sessionId selects the current exact raw-ID capture for both stop and summarize, even when historical captures reuse that ID. With no current capture, repeated historical IDs require a dated selector. An explicit selector for an older capture does not stop its newer same-ID sibling.

JSON output

list --json returns objects with sessionId, selector, date, title, startedAt, stoppedAt, source, path, summaryPath, hasSummary. Stored meeting source URLs contain only the origin and path; query strings, fragments, and embedded credentials are removed before persistence.

show --json returns the stored session metadata, selector, session directory, summary path, and summary Markdown text.

path --json returns the selected path and whether that artifact could be materialized. Metadata and transcript exports always exist for a stored session; a summary path reports exists: false until the session has a summary.

Many sessions per day

Sessions group by date, then by session id. Ten meetings on one day become ten sibling folders:

~/.openclaw/transcripts/2026-05-22/  transcript-2026-05-22T09-00-00-000Z-a1b2c3d4/  transcript-2026-05-22T10-30-00-000Z-b2c3d4e5/  standup/

Use default generated ids for automation. Use a fixed id like standup only when it will not repeat on the same date.

Missing summaries

The tool's status action lists active capture subscriptions, not historical notes. When a provider ends or replaces a subscription, OpenClaw records stoppedAt and stores its summary; the transcript remains available to list, show, and the tool's summarize action. A temporary transport disconnect does not end a subscription. Stopping historical notes does not stop a newer capture or change the recorded stop time.

Provider-driven completion stores the summary without exporting files. Explicit tool stop, import, summarize, and configured auto-start shutdown also attempt to materialize summary.md. If terminal persistence fails, status reports the ended capture under pendingFinalization, separately from active captures. Use the tool's stop action for that session to retry persistence without stopping the provider again.

A session can appear in list without a summary while capture is still active, if a provider failed during stop, or if metadata was stored before any utterances arrived.

Use path <session> --transcript to inspect the raw append-only transcript, or run the transcripts tool's summarize action to regenerate the Markdown summary.

Summaries are saved in SQLite before optional artifact export. If export fails, the saved summary remains available even when summary.md is missing. Configured auto-start captures log warnings during shutdown for failed exports or provider stop errors. Correct the export destination problem, then run openclaw transcripts path <session> or openclaw transcripts show <session> to retry the export; an intended path in a warning is not proof of an exported file.

Historical sessions without complete account-owner metadata remain on a local recovery path. Recover an agent-owned row with a local turn for that agent; a row with no agent attribution requires a local main-agent turn. Sources without account binding retain main-agent access across their normal surfaces. Missing providers, partial owner metadata, and accountless historical sources also stay on this local recovery path.

openclaw agent --agent <owning-agent-or-main> --local --message \  "Use transcripts summarize for session <session>."

Upgrading the legacy file store

OpenClaw releases that predate the SQLite store wrote canonical runtime state directly beneath $OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/transcripts/. Run:

openclaw doctor --fix

Doctor imports the complete legacy tree into SQLite, verifies row counts and ordering, records migration receipts, and moves the verified source tree to a timestamped transcripts.migrated-* archive. Runtime commands do not fall back to the legacy files. Keep the archive until you have verified the imported sessions and any exports you rely on.

Configuration

Meeting transcript capture is enabled by default. To opt out globally:

{  "transcripts": {    "enabled": false  }}

• enabled (default true): enable automatic meeting notes, the transcripts tool, and configured auto-start sources. Set it to false when meeting notes should not be persisted on the host. An explicitly requested meeting transcribe mode keeps its existing bounded live-caption tail, but does not write durable rows while this setting is false. Configure auto-start sources with transcripts.autoStart. Each entry is enabled by being present; omit an entry to disable that source. discord-voice is the bundled auto-start-capable source and requires guildId and channelId. When exactly one configured Discord account has credentials and voice enabled, OpenClaw selects it automatically. When multiple accounts are voice-capable, OpenClaw selects a capable channels.discord.defaultAccount. Otherwise, set accountId to the corresponding key under channels.discord.accounts; an omitted account is rejected as ambiguous:

{  "transcripts": {    "enabled": true,    "autoStart": [      {        "providerId": "discord-voice",        "accountId": "work",        "guildId": "1234567890",        "channelId": "2345678901"      }    ]  }}

The meeting provider ids are google-meet, teams, and zoom. Their aliases are googlemeet/meet, teams-meetings/microsoft-teams/msteams, and zoom-meetings, respectively. Meeting providers attach to an already-active meeting bot session; normal meeting joins do not need an autoStart entry.