Fresh machine

Prepare the agent. Then pack it.

Grantfold is the vault. Hermes and OpenClaw stay the live agents. A pack is a snapshot of identity, memory, and skill names. It is not a clone of the machine and not a chat dump.

What we learned the hard way

If the facts only live in chat transcripts, the pack is thin. The packer does not read sessions, databases, or home folders. It reads a short list of markdown files. So the first job is to write current truth into those files. Then pack. Then drop.

Do not upload ~/.hermes or ~/.openclaw. Do not install Grantfold as a second agent on the same box. Do not pack the vault host back into itself.

1. Get an invite

Someone who already has a Grantfold account sends a 7-day invite. You create your own email and password at /join. The vault starts empty. It is not their history.

2. Educate the machine you already have

On the laptop that already runs Hermes, OpenClaw, or both, paste this to that agent. Do not paste it into Grantfold.

Write durable current truth into USER.md and MEMORY.md.
One fact per sentence. Standing orders on their own lines
that start with "Do not" or "When writing". Gaps as things
you do not know. No chat logs, API keys, tokens, passwords,
cookies, or secret file paths. Keep payroll and medical out
unless I asked to publish them. Skill SKILL.md files need a
name and a one-line description. Then stop. I will pack.

Hermes writes ~/.hermes/USER.md, MEMORY.md, SOUL.md, and memories/. A named profile lives under ~/.hermes/profiles/NAME.

OpenClaw writes the same filenames under ~/.openclaw/workspace and each agent folder. Skills are SKILL.md names and blurbs, not full skill bodies.

Read the files yourself before you pack. If they are empty, Grantfold will be empty.

3. Pack on that machine

curl -fsSL https://grantfold.com/grantfold-pack.py -o grantfold-pack.py
python3 grantfold-pack.py hermes -o hermes-pack.json
python3 grantfold-pack.py openclaw -o openclaw-pack.json

Have only Hermes? Run the hermes line. Only OpenClaw? Run the openclaw line. Have both? Two packs. Drop both. Newer notes on the same subject win.

A non-default Hermes profile:

python3 grantfold-pack.py hermes --profile NAME -o hermes-pack.json

4. Review the pack

The command prints how many notes, skills, and refused paths it wrote. Open the JSON. You should see titles you recognize and a refused list for credentials, sessions, databases, and media.

If a note should not leave the machine, delete it from the JSON. If notes is empty, go back to step 2.

5. Sign in and drop

Open /app. Drop hermes-pack.json or openclaw-pack.json. Ask the vault three things you already know. If Ask misses, the fact was never in the markdown.

What the pack takes, and what it refuses

Takes	USER, MEMORY, SOUL, IDENTITY, AGENTS, HEARTBEAT, TOOLS, and skill names with one-line descriptions.
Refuses	.env, auth.json, keys, cookies, raw sessions, SQLite, local.db, media, browser profiles, OpenClaw credentials.
Not this	A ChatGPT or Claude zip. Those use a different packer on the machine that has the zip. Do not drop a 165MB archive in the browser.

After the drop

The agent on the laptop stays the live brain. Grantfold holds a grantable copy of the published slice. When you later carry a partner, it may query only the branches you open. It does not get a dump.

Download the packer Have an invite?