Can I sync a skill between an OpenClaw bot and a Hermes bot?

Yes, when the skill is framework-neutral. A skill that names one framework’s CLI or file paths is marked coupled and is blocked from crossing, because it would fail on the other side. Rewriting it to describe the outcome rather than the command makes it portable.

Does Skill Sync share memory or chat history?

No. It shares skills only. Memory is recalled by the agent and indexed differently in each framework, so copying it between bots does not produce something the receiving bot can use.

What happens if I edit the same skill on two bots?

The most recently edited copy wins and is pushed to the other members on the next pass. One previous version is kept beside each synced skill as a single undo level. That is also why two genuinely different skills sharing a folder name should not be ticked together — account-wide sync skips such a collision, but a manual tick will merge them.

Does syncing a skill copy its API keys to my other bots?

Usually not. Most connectors keep credentials outside the skill folder, in the agent’s own config or credential directory, which sync never touches — so each bot keeps its own. Where a tool writes tokens inside the skill folder, those paths are excluded from the copy and the destination’s own copy is preserved. The skill’s text does travel, so do not paste a key into the instructions.

A synced skill is not showing up on my Hermes bot. Why?

Hermes builds its skill index when the gateway process starts, so a brand-new skill can stay invisible until the bot restarts. Restart it from the dashboard. OpenClaw re-reads skills per turn and needs no restart.

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Guide

Skill Sync

If you run more than one bot, you have almost certainly explained the same procedure twice. Skill Sync ends that: choose a skill, choose which of your bots should have it, and the copies stay matched — including between OpenClaw and Hermes when the skill does not depend on either.

Why Skills, Not Memory

People running two bots usually ask for memory to be shared. Skills are the better answer, and it is worth knowing why before you use the feature.

A skill is a plain SKILL.md file: a written procedure the agent loads when it is relevant, regardless of which model is behind it. It is portable by construction. Memory is different — it is recalled by the agent as it goes, and each framework indexes it in its own incompatible way. Copying memory between bots produces something neither of them can read properly. Copying a skill produces a bot that knows how to do the thing.

So Skill Sync moves the reusable procedures. New to skills at all? Start with installing OpenClaw skills or Hermes skills, then come back.

Open It

Go to openclawlaunch.com/dashboard and click Sync in an instance card’s toolbar row. The panel is account-wide, not per-instance — you get one grid of your bots against your skills, whichever card you opened it from.

Each row is a skill; each column is one of your instances. A cell tells you whether that bot has that skill. Tick the bots that should share a skill, save, and the first copy happens immediately rather than waiting for the next cycle.

What Gets Synced

Your own skills only. The framework’s built-in skills are excluded — every bot already has them, and they differ by framework by design.
Only your own account’s instances. A skill can never land on a container belonging to anyone else, and ownership is re-checked on every read and every write rather than trusted from the screen you clicked.
Whole skills, including their extra files. A skill that is a folder of scripts and references moves as a folder, not just itsSKILL.md.
Bot instances. Coding workspaces have no chat skill directory, so they are not sync targets. See coding workspace hosting.

Portable vs Coupled Skills

Some skills are framework-neutral — a writing style, a checklist, a domain procedure, an API recipe. Those are marked portable and may sync anywhere, including from an OpenClaw bot to a Hermes one.

Others name one framework’s command or paths in their instructions. Those are marked coupled to that framework and are blocked from crossing to the other, because a skill telling a Hermes agent to run an OpenClaw command is worse than no skill at all: the agent tries, fails, and improvises.

If you want a coupled skill on both sides, the fix is usually one edit — describe the outcome rather than the command, and let each agent reach it its own way. Rewrite it that way and it becomes portable.

Keeping Copies Matched

Sync is not a one-time copy. A background pass reconciles shared skills roughly hourly, and the rule is last edit wins: the newest copy is pushed to the others.

Edit a skill on any member bot, and the edit propagates to the rest on the next pass — you do not have to remember which one is the “master”.
A previous version is kept alongside each synced skill as a single undo level, so a bad edit is recoverable.
A bot that is stopped or asleep is skipped rather than failed, and picks the skill up once it is running again.
Watch out for two genuinely different skills that happen to share a name on different bots. Sync matches on the folder name, so ticking both bots for that name makes them one skill, and last-edit-wins overwrites the other. Account-wide sync detects that collision and skips it; a manual tick does not. Rename one first if you are not sure they are the same skill.

Skills are re-read per turn, so a synced skill is live without restarting anything on OpenClaw. On Hermes the skill index is built when the gateway process starts, so a brand-new skill may not be visible to that bot until its next restart — restart it from the dashboard if a freshly synced skill seems invisible.

About Keys and Skills

A reasonable worry: if a skill automates a service, does syncing it copy the login to every other bot?

Mostly not, because most connectors keep their credentials outside the skill folder — in the agent’s own config or credential directory, which sync never touches. Each bot keeps its own. Where a tool does write its tokens inside the skill folder, those paths are excluded from the copy and the destination’s own copy is preserved, precisely so one bot’s refresh token does not land on the others and invalidate itself.

What does travel is the skill’s own text, so anything you typed into the instructions travels with it — which is the ordinary reason not to paste a key into a procedure. Two further limits: the copy only ever moves container to container inside your own account, and the skill body is never stored in our database. Each pass reads the live file from whichever of your bots holds the newest version and writes it to the others.

Doing It By Hand

Nothing here is magic, and self-hosted users can do the same thing manually. A skill is a directory containing SKILL.md; copy the directory from one agent’s skills folder to the other’s and the receiving agent will pick it up. OpenClaw keeps them under its config directory’s skills/ folder; Hermes keeps them under its data volume’s skills/ folder. The two paths are different, the file is the same.

What the dashboard adds is the boring part: doing it on a schedule, in both directions, without copying a skill somewhere it cannot run.

Good Candidates

How your business writes replies — tone, sign-off, what never to promise.
A reporting routine: which numbers, from where, in what shape.
An escalation rule that must be identical on every bot that answers customers.
A workflow you refined on one bot over a week and do not want to explain again.

A useful test: if you would send it to a new colleague as a written procedure, it is a good skill. If it is a fact about one conversation, it is memory, and it does not belong here.

Try It

Teach one bot something and ask it to save the procedure as a skill — both frameworks can write one for you. Then open Sync, tick your other bot, and save. Ask the second bot to do the task and it will follow the same procedure.