🎭 Amygdala Memory

Emotional processing layer for AI agents. Part of the AI Brain series.

Give your AI agent persistent emotional states that carry across sessions. Not just performing emotions — having them.

The Problem

Current AI agents:

• ✅ Remember facts
• ❌ Don't have persistent emotional states
• ❌ Start each session emotionally "blank"
• ❌ Can describe emotions but don't feel differently

Memory without emotion is just a database.

The Solution

Track five emotional dimensions that persist and decay over time:

Quick Start

# Check current emotional state
./scripts/load-emotion.sh

# 🎭 Current Emotional State:
# Overall mood: slightly positive, calm and relaxed
# Connection: moderately connected
# Curiosity: curious
# Energy: moderate energy

# Log an emotion
./scripts/update-state.sh --emotion joy --intensity 0.8 --trigger "shipped a feature"

# ✅ valence: 0.20 → 0.35 (delta: +0.15)
# ✅ arousal: 0.30 → 0.40 (delta: +0.1)
# 🎭 Logged emotion: joy (intensity: 0.8)

Scripts

Automatic Emotional Encoding (v1.5.0+)

The amygdala can automatically detect emotions from your conversations:

./scripts/encode-pipeline.sh

This:

1. Extracts new signals since last run (watermark-based)
2. Scores emotional content using rule-based patterns
3. Spawns a sub-agent for semantic emotional detection
4. Updates your emotional state automatically

Set up cron for automatic encoding every 3 hours:

0 */3 * * * ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/amygdala-memory/scripts/encode-pipeline.sh

Visualization (v1.6.0+)

Terminal

./scripts/visualize.sh

🎭 Emotional State  😄
═══════════════════════════════════════════════
Valence:      [██████████████████░░]  +0.86
Connection:   [███████████████████░]   0.97  💕
...

HTML Dashboard (Unified Brain)

Generated automatically on install and cron runs.

Access at: ~/.openclaw/workspace/brain-dashboard.html

# Generate manually
./scripts/generate-dashboard.sh

# Open (macOS)
open ~/.openclaw/workspace/brain-dashboard.html

# Open (Linux)
xdg-open ~/.openclaw/workspace/brain-dashboard.html

Shows tabs for all brain skills:

• 🎭 Emotions (Amygdala)
• 🧠 Memory (Hippocampus — or install prompt)
• ⭐ Drive (VTA — or install prompt)

Set avatar in IDENTITY.md:

- **Name:** YourAgent
- **Avatar:** avatar.png

Supported Emotions

How It Works

SESSION START
    │
    ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│  load-emotion.sh reads  │
│  emotional-state.json   │
└───────────┬─────────────┘
            │
            ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│  Agent sees current     │
│  mood, adjusts tone     │
└───────────┬─────────────┘
            │
            ▼
   DURING CONVERSATION
            │
            ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│  Something significant  │──▶ update-state.sh
│  happens emotionally    │
└───────────┬─────────────┘
            │
            ▼
      OVER TIME (CRON)
            │
            ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│  decay-emotion.sh       │
│  drifts toward baseline │
└─────────────────────────┘

Installation

For OpenClaw

clawdhub install amygdala-memory
cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/amygdala-memory
./install.sh --with-cron

Manual

git clone https://github.com/ImpKind/amygdala-memory.git
cd amygdala-memory
./install.sh --with-cron

The install script will:

• Create emotional-state.json with baseline values
• Generate AMYGDALA_STATE.md (auto-injected into sessions!)
• Set up cron for decay every 6 hours

Optional: Emotional Decay Cron

# Every 6 hours, emotions drift toward baseline
0 */6 * * * ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/amygdala-memory/scripts/decay-emotion.sh

AI Brain Series

Building cognitive architecture for AI agents:

Philosophy

Can an AI feel emotions, or only simulate them?

If emotional state persists, influences behavior, and the system acts as if it feels... does the distinction matter?

Functional emotions might be the only kind that exist — for any system.

Requirements

• Bash
• jq
• awk

License

MIT

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Part of the AI Brain series. Built with 🎭 by ImpKind