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Strategic Decisions Archive — Historical Timeline

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Strategic Decisions Archive — Historical Timeline

Chronological archive of major Henry-ratified decisions that shaped OpenClaw architecture, infrastructure, governance, and operations. This hub is the timeline view — a historical record organized by date. The LIVE decision register is decision-log, which tracks active ratifications with full options/rationale format. Cross-link freely; do NOT duplicate decision-log content here.

Rule: When a decision in decision-log is superseded or archived (>6 months old, context fully resolved), move the condensed entry here and remove from decision-log. This keeps decision-log fast-scannable.

Quick reference

FieldValue
Timeline coverage2026-03 → present
Decision count15+ major ratifications documented
FormatChronological (oldest → newest)
Live registerdecision-log
Companion hubincident-timeline (incidents that drove decisions)
Governance gateG-BLOCKER-SURFACING (decisions logged same session)

Do not look for current decisions here. This archive holds ratifications that are complete, superseded, or fully context-resolved. For active decisions and open blockers, go to the live register:

decision-log — active register, full options + rationale, Henry ratification status

Decision archive

Decisions ordered chronologically. Each entry is intentionally brief — full details live in the linked plan. This file is for timeline orientation, not deep analysis.

D-001 — VPS Substrate: Stay on Hostinger CCX43 (then right-size to CCX33)

Date: 2026-03 (pre-audit) → confirmed 2026-05-01 (post-reboot-5) Plan ref: vps-cascade-permanent-remediation-2026-05-04 Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

Henry chose to remain on Hostinger VPS (single-tenant root, systemd-native) rather than migrate to Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, or Mac mini substrate. Primary rationale: lowest operational complexity for a 1-person ops team; familiarity; no containerization overhead. Right-sizing from CCX43 → CCX33 approved 2026-05-01 (6.5 GB working set fits CCX33; over-provisioned on CCX43). Mac mini as Phase 3+ migration target remains deferred.

D-002 — Agent Memory: SQLite + vec0 + FTS5 per Agent

Date: 2026-03 (foundation decision) Plan ref: openclaw-self-improvement-layer-2026-05-03 §Tier 2 Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

Each of the 44 agents gets its own SQLite DB with chunks + chunks_fts (FTS5) + chunks_vec (vec0) schema. 70% vector weight (Voyage-4 embeddings) + 30% keyword weight hybrid search. Fleet-wide: ~5,568 chunks across 44 DBs in /home/opsadmin/.openclaw/memory/. No shared DB — per-agent isolation prevents cross-contamination. Anomaly: acquisitions.sqlite has 1 chunk; investigation in OSIL §A2.3.

D-003 — LLM Routing: Portkey Proxy as Chokepoint

Date: 2026-04 Plan ref: openclaw-fragmentation-fix-2026-05-01 §CHOKEPOINT-1 Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

All LLM calls MUST flow through Portkey proxy at 127.0.0.1:18900. No agent calls Anthropic/OpenAI directly. Portkey is the CHOKEPOINT-1 enforcement surface for tool_calls writes, cost attribution, and fallback routing. Related: portkey, anthropic.

D-004 — Credentials: 1Password Aurora Vault as Source of Truth

Date: 2026-04 Plan ref: openclaw-fragmentation-fix-2026-05-01 §G-NO-PLAINTEXT-CREDS Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

All credentials reference op://Aurora/<item>/<field>. No plaintext secrets in any tracked file (workspace/, ~/.claude/, ~/.openclaw/). master.env is the single source of runtime secrets (chmod 600, not tracked). The op CLI reads from Aurora vault via OP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN. Related: 1password.

D-005 — Aurora SOUL Protection (Skill Composition Over SOUL Edits)

Date: 2026-04-16 (incident) → policy ratified 2026-04-17 Plan ref: openclaw-fragmentation-fix-2026-05-01 §Agent Identity First Incident ref: incident-timeline → aurora-soul-overwrite Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

After Claude proposed a 350-line system prompt that would have overwritten Aurora’s Intelligence Layer, Henry ratified the strict policy: new agent capabilities = skill composition (additive), not SOUL.md edits. SOUL edits require explicit Henry approval + written justification. Related: feedback_agent_identity_first.

D-006 — Second Max Plan Activation (teamsteph@betterfiles.com)

Date: 2026-05-01 Plan ref: project_second_max_plan_decision Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

teamsteph@betterfiles.com Max plan activated on :18903 via anthropic-max-router serving 40 agents. henryRERI stays on :18900 interactive VSCode path. proxy.js Fix #1 (Kimi 404 → per-model gating) + Fix #16 (cache_control on max-plan path). Related: anthropic, portkey.

D-007 — Cascade-Failure Gates §A1 (10 Gates Ratified)

Date: 2026-05-01 (§A1 written) → 2026-05-03 (G-CHOKEPOINT + G-DUAL-WRITE added) Plan ref: openclaw-fragmentation-fix-2026-05-01 §Amendment §A1 Status: RATIFIED and LIVE (10 of 22 promised gates shipped)

Eight cascade-failure gates (G-PLAN-INDEX-REQUIRED, G-MEMORY-FOLD-PROTECTION, G-BLOCKER-SURFACING, G-NO-PLAINTEXT-CREDS, G-SERVICE-PRE-START-DOC, G-KB-SYNC-WITH-CLAUDEMD, G-GOVERNANCE-LOG-FRESHNESS, G-FAILED-SERVICE-MTTR) ratified 2026-05-01. Plus G-CHOKEPOINT + G-DUAL-WRITE (2026-05-02 Phase 1.4). 12 of 22 gates pending Phase 1.7. Related: g-gates-network.

D-008 — VPS Reboot #5 Post-Mortem: Internal oomd Cascade (Not Datacenter)

Date: 2026-05-01 Plan ref: vps-cascade-permanent-remediation-2026-05-04 Status: RATIFIED (F1-F4 applied; Phase 1 remediation in flight)

Root cause confirmed as internal oomd cascade (NOT Hostinger datacenter issue). Timer stampede + EADDRINUSE port flap triggered OOM kill. F1-F4 applied: portkey-proxy hardened, memory caps, timer stagger, StartLimitBurst. Phase 1 (slice hierarchy + port hardening) in flight. Phase 3 (Mac migration) deferred 2 weeks. Related: incident-timeline → vps-reboot-5.

D-009 — Obsidian Vault Canonicalization (openclaw-vault repo)

Date: 2026-05-02 Plan ref: openclaw-obsidian-vault-2026-05-02 Status: RATIFIED; Phase 1 ✅ LIVE; Phase 2 ~80%

Vault at ~/openclaw-vault/ (rsync from ~/.openclaw/, ~/.claude/plans/, memory) → git push → traewayrer/openclaw-vault private repo → Obsidian Sync → Mac. Timers: openclaw-vault-sync.timer (15 min push) + openclaw-vault-pull.timer (5 min pull). Related: github.

D-010 — OSIL B1-B12 + B16 Ratification Block

Date: 2026-05-03 Plan ref: openclaw-self-improvement-layer-2026-05-03 Status: RATIFIED (B1-B12, B16 ratified; B13a/B14a/B15 pending)

Block ratification: B1=C (borrow patterns first), B2=A (LangGraph main framework), B3=B (Voyage-4 vectors), B4=signoff first 4 weeks then auto-merge, B5=keep Hermes P2, B6=A (Portkey as observability hub), B7=cloud free tier, B8=B (DSPy+GEPA prompts), B9=B (quality gates at tier transitions), B10=A (LiveKit for voice substrate), B11=A (Langfuse OSS), B12=C (phased eval pipeline). B16=A (EC2 Mac Ultra for compute-heavy). Sub-projects: IL AI replication (B13), Twilio 10DLC resubmission (B14).

D-011 — WikiLink Plan Δ2 + Wave Framework (50 Hubs Ratification)

Date: 2026-05-03 Plan ref: openclaw-vault-wikilink-optimization-2026-05-03 Status: RATIFIED; Wave 1 + Wave 2 ✅ SHIPPED; Wave 3+ in flight

Henry ratified Q1-Q7 with 9 sharpenings. 50 hubs shipped (24 Wave 1 + 26 Wave 2). Self-correcting wave framework validated at 50-hub scale. Wikilinks 308 → 7,142 (23.2×). Wave 3-8 pending (historical + domain + team + per-item enrichment). Related: _index.

D-012 — NemoClaw: Borrow L7 Pattern + Defer Full Install (pending B1-B6)

Date: 2026-05-03 Plan ref: nemoclaw-audit-2026-05-03 Status: DRAFT — B1-B6 pending Henry ratification

Recommended: Option C (borrow cred-proxy pattern now as OSIL Tier 1.5, ~2 days Node.js; side-VM pilot at OSIL Phase 6 on EC2 Mac Ultra). Full NemoClaw install deferred (Docker + k3s overhead on single VPS is too high; alpha software). 6 blockers (B1-B6) open. Related: credential-security-policy, nemoclaw.

D-013 — G-MODEL-ROUTING-AT-EXEC Gate (Execution Mode → Sonnet Dispatch)

Date: 2026-05-04 Plan ref: openclaw-fragmentation-fix-2026-05-01 §G-MODEL-ROUTING-AT-EXEC Status: RATIFIED and LIVE

Execution mode fires Sonnet dispatch as Step 1 for all trigger surfaces: GSD commands, execution skills, TodoWrite in_progress, plan checkbox transitions, “implement/execute/go” keywords, pre-specified shipped-tool runs, multi-file batches. Opus role during execution = dispatcher + verifier + Henry-gate. Direct Opus edits during execution = governance violation. Filed after Henry flagged “burning credit” during plan execution. Related: feedback_model_routing_at_exec, feedback_model_routing_pattern.

Pending decisions (not yet ratified)

These are in decision-log as open blockers — listed here for historical thread continuity only:

Open issues / TODOs

Live register (must read first for current decisions)

  • decision-log — active register with full options + rationale

Governance hubs

Historical companion

Plans

Recent activity

  • 2026-05-04: Hub created (W3-S4, Wave 3)
  • 2026-05-04: D-013 added (G-MODEL-ROUTING-AT-EXEC)
  • 2026-05-03: D-010, D-011, D-012 added
  • 2026-05-02: D-009 added
  • 2026-05-01: D-006, D-007, D-008 added

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Backlinks