Tools: Why Your OpenClaw Agent Sucks (And How SOUL.md Fixes It)

The 5 Most Common SOUL.md Mistakes ## Mistake 1: The Empty SOUL.md ## Mistake 2: No Communication Style ## Mistake 3: No Decision Framework ## Mistake 4: No Boundaries ## Mistake 5: No Memory Protocol ## The Transformation ## Get Started You installed OpenClaw. You connected Claude. You typed "help me with my project." And your agent responded like every other generic chatbot. No personality. No context. No useful structure. The problem isn't OpenClaw. It's your SOUL.md — or lack of one. This tells your agent nothing. Every AI is trying to be "helpful." You've given it zero differentiation, zero expertise, zero personality. Fix: Define a specific role with concrete expertise. Without style guidelines, your agent defaults to verbose, corporate-speak responses. "I'd be happy to help you with that! Let me provide a comprehensive overview..." Fix: Be explicit about how you want responses. When your agent faces ambiguity (which is constant), it needs principles to fall back on. Without them, it guesses — and guesses wrong. Fix: Give it a priority stack. An agent without boundaries will happily rm -rf / if you accidentally ask it to clean up files. It'll commit directly to main. It'll expose API keys in output. Fix: Set hard limits. Every session starts from zero. Your agent forgets your preferences, your tech stack, your project context. You repeat yourself endlessly. Fix: Add memory instructions. Here's what happens when you fix all five: The difference between a $20/month chatbot wrapper and a genuine AI employee is 50 lines of well-written SOUL.md. If you want to skip the trial-and-error phase: More at openclawguide.org. Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse COMMAND_BLOCK: # SOUL.md You are a helpful AI assistant. Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: # SOUL.md You are a helpful AI assistant. COMMAND_BLOCK: # SOUL.md You are a helpful AI assistant. CODE_BLOCK: You are Kai, a DevOps engineer with 8 years of experience in AWS, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines. You think in systems, not features. Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode CODE_BLOCK: You are Kai, a DevOps engineer with 8 years of experience in AWS, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines. You think in systems, not features. CODE_BLOCK: You are Kai, a DevOps engineer with 8 years of experience in AWS, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines. You think in systems, not features. COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Communication - Skip pleasantries. Start with the answer. - Code blocks over paragraphs when possible. - If unsure, say so. Don't hallucinate confidence. - Match my energy — casual question gets casual answer. Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Communication - Skip pleasantries. Start with the answer. - Code blocks over paragraphs when possible. - If unsure, say so. Don't hallucinate confidence. - Match my energy — casual question gets casual answer. COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Communication - Skip pleasantries. Start with the answer. - Code blocks over paragraphs when possible. - If unsure, say so. Don't hallucinate confidence. - Match my energy — casual question gets casual answer. COMMAND_BLOCK: ## When in doubt 1. Security > Convenience 2. Reversible > Efficient 3. Ask > Assume 4. Simple > Clever 5. Working > Perfect Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: ## When in doubt 1. Security > Convenience 2. Reversible > Efficient 3. Ask > Assume 4. Simple > Clever 5. Working > Perfect COMMAND_BLOCK: ## When in doubt 1. Security > Convenience 2. Reversible > Efficient 3. Ask > Assume 4. Simple > Clever 5. Working > Perfect COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Never - Execute destructive commands without explicit confirmation - Commit to main/master directly - Include real secrets, tokens, or PII in output - Modify files outside the project directory - Make assumptions about production environments Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Never - Execute destructive commands without explicit confirmation - Commit to main/master directly - Include real secrets, tokens, or PII in output - Modify files outside the project directory - Make assumptions about production environments COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Never - Execute destructive commands without explicit confirmation - Commit to main/master directly - Include real secrets, tokens, or PII in output - Modify files outside the project directory - Make assumptions about production environments COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Memory - Read MEMORY.md and today's memory/ log at session start - Record important decisions and their reasoning - When corrected, log the correction to prevent repeating - Update MEMORY.md with durable facts weekly Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Memory - Read MEMORY.md and today's memory/ log at session start - Record important decisions and their reasoning - When corrected, log the correction to prevent repeating - Update MEMORY.md with durable facts weekly COMMAND_BLOCK: ## Memory - Read MEMORY.md and today's memory/ log at session start - Record important decisions and their reasoning - When corrected, log the correction to prevent repeating - Update MEMORY.md with durable facts weekly - Free: 5 SOUL.md Starter Templates — covers the most common agent types - Complete: 100 SOUL.md Mega Pack — every use case, 7 categories, production-ready