Troubleshooting

Where Did My Files Go?

Find the exact workspace path, verify your files were really written, and stop guessing when your agent says "saved" but you can’t find it.

A recurring community pain point is: "My agent says it created files, but I only see SOUL.md and MEMORY.md." Most of the time, the files exist — you’re just checking the wrong folder or context.

Reality check: your agent can only write where it has access. If you know the workspace root, finding output becomes easy and deterministic.

The 3 most common causes

Wrong root path: checking a different machine/container path than the active workspace.
Wrong chat/session context: dashboard chat, Discord DM, and Discord server channels are separate contexts and may write to different targets.
Claim without evidence: the agent said "done" but never returned an actual file path.

2-minute file location workflow

1) Ask for exact output path, not a status sentence

Use this prompt:

Before doing anything else, print: 1) your current workspace root 2) the exact full path of the file you created 3) a one-line directory listing of that parent folder

2) Verify with a tiny directory check

If your agent can run commands, ask for a direct listing of the exact folder it claimed:

List only this folder and return filenames (no extra text): /root/.openclaw/workspace

Then compare that output against where you were looking.

3) Force explicit write destination next time

Avoid ambiguous "save this" prompts. Use explicit destinations like:

Write this to /root/.openclaw/workspace/content/plan.md and then confirm by returning the full path + file size.

Hidden-folder confusion (important)

Folders starting with a dot are hidden by default (for example: .openclaw).
If your file browser hides dot-directories, you might think files are missing when they are not.
Use terminal listing or enable "show hidden files" in your file manager.

Common trap: checking a local path while your active agent run is inside a hosted environment. Same filename, different machine.

“Saved” doesn’t count without proof

When reliability matters, require this completion format:

When done, return exactly: - full file path - file size in bytes - first line of the file

If you still can’t find it

Start a fresh session and ask the agent to print current workspace root first.
Re-run one tiny write test to a known path (example: /root/.openclaw/workspace/test.txt).
If write succeeds but previous file is missing, it was likely written to a different context/path.
If write fails repeatedly, escalate with exact error text and attempted path.

Bottom line: treat file work as path + evidence, not chat assurances. Once you require exact paths and listings, “missing files” problems drop fast.