Build an agent that thinks
the way you need it to.

What you just built

SOUL.md is your agent's personality and values — how it thinks, speaks, and behaves. IDENTITY.md is its name, emoji, and role description. Together they're the difference between a generic chatbot and your agent.

Where these files go

OpenClaw reads both files from the agent's workspace folder: ~/.openclaw/workspace/channels/your-agent-name/. The steps below create that folder and install the files.

Setup steps

Run these in order. Click Copy on each box, paste it into your terminal, and press Enter.

Verify it worked

• Your agent greets you in the voice you picked — that's your SOUL.md talking.
• Ask it "who are you?" — it should describe itself using the identity you built (name, role, personality), not a generic assistant answer.
• Run openclaw agents list — your agent's name appears with a workspace path.

Troubleshooting

• Agent still sounds generic. The file didn't land where OpenClaw reads it. Double-check the path — ~/.openclaw/workspace/channels/your-agent-name/SOUL.md — then restart the gateway.
• "command not found: openclaw" — the OpenClaw CLI isn't installed or isn't on your PATH. Install OpenClaw first (see openclaw.ai/docs).
• Copy button pastes the wrong thing. Some terminals paste on right-click, others with Cmd+V (Mac) or Ctrl+V (Windows/Linux). Paste into a plain text editor first to check what you got.
• You edited the files in Step 4 but the agent didn't change. The copy buttons always grab your latest edits, but the agent only re-reads files on restart. Copy again and restart the gateway.

What you just built

SOUL.md is your agent's personality and values — how it thinks, speaks, and behaves. Hermes uses a single SOUL.md as the agent's complete identity — there's no separate identity file, so we've folded your agent's name and emoji into the top of the file for you.

Put it into Hermes Desktop

Verify it worked

• Start a new session in the Hermes Desktop app — the very first reply should match the personality you chose.
• Ask it "who are you?" — it should describe itself using the name and role you built, not the default "You are Hermes Agent" answer.

Troubleshooting

• Agent still sounds like default Hermes. The SOUL field is empty or the save didn't take — an empty SOUL makes Hermes fall back to its built-in identity. Reopen the agent's profile, confirm your text is there, then start a new chat.
• Edits in Step 4 aren't showing up. Your agent reads its SOUL when a chat starts, so start a new chat after saving changes.
• Hermes scans the SOUL file for prompt-injection patterns. Keep it focused on personality and voice — meta-instructions about tools or files belong elsewhere and may be flagged.