Getting it into your agent
It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/skillmds/skillmdnpx agentmods add skills/skillmds/skillmd/total-recallWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/total-recall)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/total-recall"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/total-recall/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/total-recall"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/total-recall.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00087 | $0.03502 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00035 | $0.01401 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00017 | $0.00700 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00009 | $0.00350 |
Grade B, and why
total-recall scanned grade B with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation
A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.
sudo apt install inotify-tools Makes network callslowCapability
Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.
bins: ["jq", "curl"] This is a copy
100% identical to total-recall — 1 line differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 343 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Total Recall — Autonomous Agent Memory
The only memory skill that watches on its own.
No database. No vectors. No manual saves. Just an LLM observer that compresses your conversations into prioritised notes, consolidates when they grow, and recovers anything missed. Five layers of redundancy, zero maintenance. ~$0.00/month (using free-tier models).
While other memory skills ask you to remember to remember, this one just pays attention.
Architecture
Layer 1: Observer (cron, every 15-30 min)
↓ compresses recent messages → observations.md
Layer 2: Reflector (auto-triggered when observations > 8000 words)
↓ consolidates, removes superseded info → 40-60% reduction
Layer 3: Session Recovery (runs on every /new or /reset)
↓ catches any session the Observer missed
Layer 4: Reactive Watcher (inotify daemon, Linux only)
↓ triggers Observer after 40+ new JSONL writes, 5-min cooldown
Layer 5: Pre-compaction hook (memoryFlush)
↓ emergency capture before OpenClaw compacts context
What It Does
- Observer reads recent session transcripts (JSONL), sends them to an LLM, and appends compressed observations to
observations.mdwith priority levels (high, medium, low) - Reflector kicks in when observations grow too large, consolidating related items and dropping stale low-priority entries
- Session Recovery runs at session start, checks if the previous session was captured, and does an emergency observation if not
- Reactive Watcher watches the session directory with inotify so high-activity periods get captured faster than the cron interval
- Pre-compaction hook fires when OpenClaw is about to compact context, ensuring nothing is lost
Quick Start
1. Install the skill
clawdhub install total-recall
2. Set your API key
Add to your .env or OpenClaw config:
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-xxxxx
3. Run the setup script
bash skills/total-recall/scripts/setup.sh
This will:
- Create the memory directory structure (
memory/,logs/, backups) - On Linux with inotify + systemd: install the reactive watcher service
- Print cron job and agent configuration instructions for you to add manually
What ships with it
7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 4d ago First seen · 343 lines · 87 tokens per session scan B 465c348b8db9
total-recall is a skill published in the GitHub repository skillmds/skillmd (1 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 87 tokens to every session and 3,502 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it B with 2 findings (asks for root, makes network calls). It is 100% identical to total-recall, differing in 1 line, and is treated as a copy.
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