Thalamus
Cognitive routing layer for OpenClaw multi-agent crews. Replaces transcript paste with a 3-field reference, receiver resolves only relevant atoms from a local vector store.
What it does
- Packet store with content-hash resolver keys (
packet_id,resolver_key) - Vector store: 9 namespaces (atoms.code, atoms.audit, atoms.plan, atoms.memory, atoms.audio.raw/text, atoms.image.raw/text, atoms.crossmodal)
- Encoder daemon: Qwen3-Embedding-0.6B Q4_0 GGUF on CPU + optional Hailo-NPU encoders
- FAISS RaBitQ codebook for concept compression
- MCP server tools:
thalamus_route,thalamus_resolve,thalamus_search,thalamus_search_with_vector,thalamus_promote_packet,thalamus_telemetry - HTTP dashboard with HMAC bearer auth (optional)
Install
Via OpenClaw plugins CLI (recommended):
openclaw plugins install clawhub:openclaw-thalamus
Or via npm:
npm install -g openclaw-thalamus
openclaw-thalamus health
Wire as MCP server
Add to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
{
"mcpServers": [
{ "name": "thalamus", "command": "openclaw-thalamus-mcp" }
]
}
Restart the gateway: systemctl --user restart openclaw-gateway.
Config
The plugin manifest declares a configSchema with these fields:
| Field | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
encoderHost | 127.0.0.1 | Host of the local Qwen3 encoder daemon |
encoderPort | 28760 | Port of the encoder daemon |
vectorStorePath | ~/.openclaw/state/thalamus/vectors | FAISS + BBQ codebook directory |
packetStorePath | ~/.openclaw/state/thalamus/packets | Content-addressed packet store |
namespaces | 9 default namespaces | Vector store namespace ids |
dashboardEnabled | false | Enable HTTP telemetry dashboard |
dashboardPort | 28761 | Dashboard port |
Real metrics
Raw measurement output is paste-in verbatim in BENCHMARKS.md on the upstream repo:
- 95.84% combined token reduction (packet handoff + Alcyone Protocol @-codes, single production session)
- BBQ codebook: mean cosine 0.978, p10 0.985 on 100K corpus
- Qwen3 warm latency: 167ms p50 on Pi 5 CPU
These are single-machine measurements on a Raspberry Pi 5 4GB, not a benchmark suite. Take them as a directional signal, not a comparative claim.
License
MIT. Source: https://github.com/msbel5/openclaw-thalamus