QMD Memory Engine

QMD is a local-first search sidecar that runs alongside OpenClaw. It combines BM25, vector search, and reranking in a single binary, and can index content beyond your workspace memory files.

What it adds over builtin

• Reranking and query expansion for better recall.
• Index extra directories -- project docs, team notes, anything on disk.
• Index session transcripts -- recall earlier conversations.
• Fully local -- runs via Bun + node-llama-cpp, auto-downloads GGUF models.
• Automatic fallback -- if QMD is unavailable, OpenClaw falls back to the builtin engine seamlessly.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Install QMD: npm install -g @tobilu/qmd or bun install -g @tobilu/qmd
• SQLite build that allows extensions (brew install sqlite on macOS).
• QMD must be on the gateway's PATH.
• macOS and Linux work out of the box. Windows is best supported via WSL2.

Enable

{
  memory: {
    backend: "qmd",
  },
}

OpenClaw creates a self-contained QMD home under ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/qmd/ and manages the sidecar lifecycle automatically -- collections, updates, and embedding runs are handled for you. It prefers current QMD collection and MCP query shapes, but still falls back to legacy --mask collection flags and older MCP tool names when needed.

How the sidecar works

• OpenClaw creates collections from your workspace memory files and any configured memory.qmd.paths, then runs qmd update + qmd embed on boot and periodically (default every 5 minutes).
• The default workspace collection tracks MEMORY.md plus the memory/ tree. Lowercase memory.md remains a bootstrap fallback, not a separate QMD collection.
• Boot refresh runs in the background so chat startup is not blocked.
• Searches use the configured searchMode (default: search; also supports vsearch and query). If a mode fails, OpenClaw retries with qmd query.
• If QMD fails entirely, OpenClaw falls back to the builtin SQLite engine.

Model overrides

QMD model environment variables pass through unchanged from the gateway process, so you can tune QMD globally without adding new OpenClaw config:

export QMD_EMBED_MODEL="hf:Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-0.6B-GGUF/Qwen3-Embedding-0.6B-Q8_0.gguf"
export QMD_RERANK_MODEL="/absolute/path/to/reranker.gguf"
export QMD_GENERATE_MODEL="/absolute/path/to/generator.gguf"

After changing the embedding model, rerun embeddings so the index matches the new vector space.

Indexing extra paths

Point QMD at additional directories to make them searchable:

{
  memory: {
    backend: "qmd",
    qmd: {
      paths: [{ name: "docs", path: "~/notes", pattern: "**/*.md" }],
    },
  },
}

Snippets from extra paths appear as qmd/<collection>/<relative-path> in search results. memory_get understands this prefix and reads from the correct collection root.

Indexing session transcripts

Enable session indexing to recall earlier conversations:

{
  memory: {
    backend: "qmd",
    qmd: {
      sessions: { enabled: true },
    },
  },
}

Transcripts are exported as sanitized User/Assistant turns into a dedicated QMD collection under ~/.openclaw/agents/<id>/qmd/sessions/.

Search scope

By default, QMD search results are surfaced in direct and channel sessions (not groups). Configure memory.qmd.scope to change this:

{
  memory: {
    qmd: {
      scope: {
        default: "deny",
        rules: [{ action: "allow", match: { chatType: "direct" } }],
      },
    },
  },
}

When scope denies a search, OpenClaw logs a warning with the derived channel and chat type so empty results are easier to debug.

Citations

When memory.citations is auto or on, search snippets include a Source: <path#line> footer. Set memory.citations = "off" to omit the footer while still passing the path to the agent internally.

When to use

Choose QMD when you need:

• Reranking for higher-quality results.
• To search project docs or notes outside the workspace.
• To recall past session conversations.
• Fully local search with no API keys.

For simpler setups, the builtin engine works well with no extra dependencies.

Troubleshooting

QMD not found? Ensure the binary is on the gateway's PATH. If OpenClaw runs as a service, create a symlink: sudo ln -s ~/.bun/bin/qmd /usr/local/bin/qmd.

First search very slow? QMD downloads GGUF models on first use. Pre-warm with qmd query "test" using the same XDG dirs OpenClaw uses.

Search times out? Increase memory.qmd.limits.timeoutMs (default: 4000ms). Set to 120000 for slower hardware.

Empty results in group chats? Check memory.qmd.scope -- the default only allows direct and channel sessions.

Workspace-visible temp repos causing ENAMETOOLONG or broken indexing? QMD traversal currently follows the underlying QMD scanner behavior rather than OpenClaw's builtin symlink rules. Keep temporary monorepo checkouts under hidden directories like .tmp/ or outside indexed QMD roots until QMD exposes cycle-safe traversal or explicit exclusion controls.

Configuration

For the full config surface (memory.qmd.*), search modes, update intervals, scope rules, and all other knobs, see the Memory configuration reference.