Migrate from OpenClaw to Hermes Agent (official hermes claw migrate)

Hermes ships an official OpenClaw migration: hermes claw migrate imports memories, SOUL.md, command allowlists, skills, and compatible settings from ~/.openclaw. Preview with --dry-run first.

Who this is for：Users moving from OpenClaw who want to keep their memories and customizations.

Steps

  1. Preview first

    The dry run reports what would migrate, what cannot, and what would be archived, without changing anything.

    hermes claw migrate --dry-run

  2. Run the interactive migration

    Officially migrated: SOUL.md, MEMORY.md and USER.md (as Hermes memories), command allowlists, compatible messaging settings like TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS, and OpenClaw skills into ~/.hermes/skills/openclaw-imports/.

    hermes claw migrate

  3. Skip secrets with a preset

    The user-data preset skips secrets; --migrate-secrets imports only the allowlisted set (currently TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN).

    hermes claw migrate --preset user-data

  4. Conflicts and custom source paths

    hermes claw migrate --overwrite
hermes claw migrate --source /custom/path/.openclaw

  5. Fresh installs don't need to run it manually

    The hermes setup wizard auto-detects ~/.openclaw and offers migration before configuration begins.

    hermes setup

How to verify

FAQ

Will it migrate my API keys?

Secrets are skipped by default. With --migrate-secrets only allowlisted items move; the current official list is TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN.

Do unmigratable items get lost?

No. Non-secret docs without a Hermes destination are archived, and the report lists every skipped item with the reason.

Do OpenClaw skills work directly?

They are copied to ~/.hermes/skills/openclaw-imports/ for review; compatibility is not guaranteed per skill.

Related pages