Workspace Organization

Workspace Organization

Standards and automated maintenance for clean OpenClaw deployments.

Files Included

• SKILL.md — Agent instructions
• README.md — Setup guide
• maintenance-audit.sh — Run to audit workspace health
• setup.sh — Run once to initialize standard structure

Note: Scripts auto-detect your workspace. Pass a path as argument to override: ./maintenance-audit.sh /custom/path

Problem Solved

Workspaces degrade over time:

• Broken symlinks from moved files
• Empty directories from deleted projects
• Large files eating disk space
• Malformed names breaking scripts
• No visibility into workspace health

This skill provides automated audits + cleanup guidance to prevent entropy.

When to Use

• New workspace setup — Initialize standard directory structure
• Periodic maintenance — Weekly/monthly health checks (cron recommended)
• Pre-deployment cleanup — Remove cruft before backups
• Debugging workspace issues — Find broken symlinks, malformed names
• Disk space review — Identify large files and bloat

What It Provides

1. maintenance-audit.sh

Automated health check script that detects:

• ✅ Broken symlinks
• ✅ Empty directories (excluding node_modules, .git)
• ✅ Large files (>10MB)
• ✅ Malformed file/directory names (spaces, special chars)
• ✅ Disk usage by top-level directory
• ✅ File/directory counts
• ✅ Recent changes (last 24 hours)

2. setup.sh

Initializes standard workspace structure:

~/.openclaw/workspace/
├── projects/           # Active work
│   ├── writing/        # Writing projects
│   └── code/           # Code projects
├── notes/              # Organized notes
│   ├── daily-reviews/
│   ├── decisions/
│   └── cost-tracking.md
├── memory/             # Long-term memory
│   ├── owner/          # Cross-channel user memory
│   └── sessions/       # Per-session isolated memory
├── skills/             # Custom skills
├── subagents/          # Permanent specialists
│   └── _archived/      # Old/deprecated subagents
├── docs/               # Documentation
└── scripts/            # Utility scripts

3. Organization Standards (docs/)

Best practices for:

• File naming conventions (kebab-case, no spaces)
• Directory structure guidelines
• Cleanup policies (what to keep/delete)
• Git integration patterns

Setup

1. Install skill:

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills
clawhub install workspace-organization
# Or: download from ClawHub and extract

2. Initialize workspace (optional, if starting fresh):

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/workspace-organization
./setup.sh

3. Run first audit:

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/workspace-organization
./maintenance-audit.sh

4. Schedule automated audits (recommended):

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Weekly Workspace Audit" \
  --schedule "0 4 * * 0" \
  --task "Run workspace maintenance audit: bash skills/workspace-organization/maintenance-audit.sh. Log results to notes/maintenance-log.md"

Usage

Manual Audit

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/workspace-organization
./maintenance-audit.sh

Example output:

=== Workspace Maintenance Audit ===
Date: 2026-02-21 16:00
Path: /home/user/.openclaw/workspace

1. Checking for broken symlinks...
⚠️  Found broken symlinks:
/home/user/.openclaw/workspace/old-project/link-to-deleted

2. Checking for empty directories...
ℹ️  Found empty directories:
/home/user/.openclaw/workspace/projects/abandoned

3. Checking for large files (>10MB)...
ℹ️  Found large files:
24M	/home/user/.openclaw/workspace/logs/debug.log

4. Checking for malformed file/directory names...
⚠️  Found malformed names:
/home/user/.openclaw/workspace/projects/my project/file.md

5. Disk usage by top-level directory:
150M	skills
80M	notes
50M	projects
30M	memory

6. File counts:
  Total files: 1,234
  Total directories: 156
  Skills: 18
  Subagents: 3

7. Recently modified files (last 24 hours):
/home/user/.openclaw/workspace/notes/cost-tracking.md
/home/user/.openclaw/workspace/memory/owner/decisions.md

=== Audit Complete ===

Agent-Driven Audit

Ask your agent:

"Run workspace maintenance audit"
"Check workspace health"
"Audit my workspace"

Agent will execute script and present findings with cleanup recommendations.

Common Issues Caught

1. Broken Symlinks

Causes:

• Moved/renamed files
• Deleted dependencies
• Incorrect relative paths

Fix: Remove symlink or update target

2. Empty Directories

Causes:

• Deleted projects
• Failed installations
• Incomplete migrations

Fix: Remove unless intentionally placeholder

3. Large Files

Common culprits:

• Uncompressed logs (debug.log, error.log)
• Binary artifacts (.zip, .tar.gz)
• Downloaded datasets
• Video/media files

Fix: Compress, move to external storage, or delete

4. Malformed Names

Problems caused by:

• Spaces in filenames → breaks scripts
• Special characters → shell escaping issues
• Braces/brackets → glob conflicts

Fix: Rename using kebab-case or snake_case

Example:

# Bad
my project/file (copy).md

# Good
my-project/file-copy.md

Workspace Health Score

After running maintenance-audit.sh, your workspace gets a score:

Score is calculated based on: broken symlinks (-10 each), empty dirs (-2 each), files >100MB (-5 each), malformed names (-3 each).

Automation Strategy

Companion Skills

• system-resource-monitor — Disk usage alerts complement workspace health
• cost-governor — Track subagent costs alongside workspace hygiene

Integration with Other Skills

• openclaw-backup: Audit before backup to reduce size
• cost-governor: Track disk usage for storage costs
• drift-guard: Organizational entropy as drift indicator

Customization

Adjust Large File Threshold

Edit maintenance-audit.sh:

# Change from 10MB to 50MB
find "$WS" -type f -size +50M 2>/dev/null

Exclude Directories

Add to script:

find "$WS" -type d -empty 2>/dev/null \
  | grep -v "node_modules" \
  | grep -v ".git" \
  | grep -v "your-custom-dir"

Add Custom Checks

Extend script with:

• Git repo status checks
• Dependency vulnerability scans
• License compliance audits

Philosophy

• Prevent entropy — Structure degrades without maintenance
• Automate detection — Scripts catch what humans miss
• User-approved cleanup — Never auto-delete without permission
• Standards over rigidity — Guidelines, not laws

Troubleshooting

"Script fails on macOS"

• Install GNU findutils: brew install findutils
• Use gfind instead of find

"Too many empty directories flagged"

• Exclude more dirs in script (e.g., .cache, .venv)

"Large files are necessary"

• Document in notes/workspace-notes.md why they're kept
• Consider moving to external storage (S3, NAS)

Advanced: Multi-Workspace Support

If managing multiple OpenClaw instances:

# Audit all workspaces
for ws in ~/.openclaw-*; do
  WS="$ws/workspace" ./maintenance-audit.sh
done

Author: OpenClaw Community
License: MIT
Requires: Bash, GNU coreutils (find, du, sort)