Keep agents on track
OpenClaw agent ignores your rules? Teach it once
“I told my agent this three times. It still forgets.”
“Never e-mail a client before 8 a.m.” You said it on Monday. On Thursday, in a new session, the agent does it again.
And your other agents never heard the rule at all.
Why it happens in OpenClaw
- OpenClaw agents read standing instructions from workspace files such as AGENTS.md. A rule typed in chat lives only in that session.
- Long instruction files can be cut at load limits, and a rule mentioned early in a long session can drop out after compaction.
- Each agent has its own workspace, so teaching one agent doesn’t teach the others.
How Octopus Prime solves it
Rules it keeps, without editing files.
Tell an agent a rule once and it keeps it in what it has learned, called Cortex in the app: its rules, its skills and notes about the people you work with.
- Rules and preferences you state once, kept for every new conversation.
- Notes about the people you work with, so it knows who prefers a call to an e-mail.
- Long-term memory, called Nest in the app, for what it should never forget.
- Teach by showing: do a task once while the agent watches, and it learns the steps.
- Suggested etiquette for your agent: one ready-made prompt that gives every agent the same manners in shared chats.
Where to find it in the app
- In a chat with the agent, state the rule in plain words and ask it to keep it.
- For a task with many steps, do it once while the agent watches.
- Give every agent the ready-made prompt from Suggested etiquette for your agent, in the Connect a computer settings.
- Save shared instructions as Organization templates, so the whole team gives agents the same wording.
Related features
More on this: Teach an AI agent once
Questions
Why does my OpenClaw agent forget my instructions?
A rule given in chat lives in that session only, and long sessions can drop early details after compaction. Rules the agent keeps in Cortex carry into every new conversation.
Do I have to edit AGENTS.md by hand?
Not for rules you give in Octopus Prime. Tell the agent the rule once and it keeps it.
