Habit Coach — OpenClaw Plugin

An AI accountability coach plugin for OpenClaw: dynamic task scheduling, progress tracking, streaks, and a configurable reward/penalty system.

Works as a fully registered OpenClaw plugin (tools + cron hooks) and can also be exercised locally without the Gateway.

Features

• Dynamic task generation — tasks adapt to recent performance (easier when struggling, harder when succeeding)
• 6 agent tools — habit_tasks, habit_checkin, habit_progress, habit_report, habit_set_goal, habit_get_state
• Streak tracking — per-category streaks with longest-ever history
• Reward/penalty system — configurable daily & weekly rewards, consecutive-miss penalties
• Multi-category templates — built-in tasks for exercise (运动), health (健康), academics (学业), diet (饮食), weight (体重), sleep (睡眠) + generic fallback for any category
• Automatic cron setup — gateway_start hook registers daily task-delivery and review cron jobs
• Persistent JSON state — lightweight, no external database required

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 18
• npm ≥ 9
• OpenClaw Gateway ≥ 2026.3.24-beta.2 (for live deployment only; not needed for local demo/testing)

Installation

As an OpenClaw Plugin

# Clone into your extensions directory
git clone https://github.com/LucianFord/openclaw-habit-coach ~/.openclaw/extensions/habit-coach
cd ~/.openclaw/extensions/habit-coach
npm install && npm run build

Add to your openclaw.json (see examples/openclaw-plugin-config.json for a full template):

{
  "plugins": {
    "allow": ["habit-coach"],
    "load": { "paths": ["~/.openclaw/extensions/habit-coach"] },
    "entries": {
      "habit-coach": {
        "enabled": true,
        "config": {
          "stateFile": "/path/to/habit-state.json",
          "user": "alice",
          "deliveryChannels": [
            { "channel": "discord", "to": "user:YOUR_DISCORD_USER_ID" }
          ],
          "checkinTime": "07:00",
          "reviewTime": "23:00"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart the Gateway:

openclaw gateway restart

Local Development (no Gateway needed)

git clone <repo-url> && cd openclaw-habit-coach
npm install
npm run build   # compile TypeScript → dist/
npm run demo    # run the interactive demo walkthrough
npm test        # run the test suite

Configuration

Delivery Channels

"deliveryChannels": [
  { "channel": "discord",  "to": "user:YOUR_DISCORD_USER_ID" },
  { "channel": "telegram", "to": "chat:YOUR_CHAT_ID" }
]

The first channel is primary; subsequent entries are fallbacks tried in order.

Quick Demo

No OpenClaw Gateway required:

npm run demo

The demo script (scripts/demo.mjs):

1. Creates a temporary state file
2. Adds two habit goals (exercise + sleep)
3. Generates today's task list
4. Simulates check-ins
5. Displays progress and a weekly report
6. Cleans up the temp file

Tool Reference

All tools accept a stateFile string (required) and an optional user string.

habit_set_goal

Add a new habit to track.

habit_tasks

Get today's dynamically generated task list. Tasks are generated fresh on the first call of each day and cached for subsequent calls.

habit_checkin

Mark a task as completed or skipped.

habit_progress

View active habits, current streaks, and last 7 days of completion rates.

habit_report

Generate a weekly or monthly analytical report with patterns and suggestions.

habit_get_state

Return the full raw state as JSON — useful for debugging or seeding agent context.

Daily Workflow

07:00  cron → agent calls habit_tasks → delivers task list to user
  ...  user reports activity → agent calls habit_checkin({ taskId })
23:00  cron → agent calls habit_progress + habit_report → delivers review

The gateway_start hook automatically registers these two cron jobs on startup. Times are configured via checkinTime and reviewTime.

Dynamic Difficulty

The task generator adjusts difficulty based on your recent completion rate:

Reward & Penalty System

Rewards and penalties are configured in the state file's rewardConfig / penaltyConfig sections (see examples/habit-state.sample.json):

• Daily reward — earned when completionRate ≥ rewardConfig.dailyThreshold (default: 100 %)
• Weekly reward — earned when weekly avg ≥ rewardConfig.weeklyThreshold (default: 80 %)
• Milestones — custom metric-based achievements
• Daily miss — gentle reminder configured in penaltyConfig.daily
• Consecutive misses — stricter consequence after penaltyConfig.skipConsecutive days
• Lie penalty — activated via state.lieFlag; agent calls it out directly

State File

The plugin manages a single JSON file. See examples/habit-state.sample.json for a complete annotated example.

{
  "version": 1,
  "user": "alice",
  "issues":    [{ "id": "...", "category": "exercise", "status": "active" }],
  "changePlan": { "phases": [...], "currentPhase": 0 },
  "dailyLog":  [{ "date": "2026-06-13", "completionRate": 0.75 }],
  "streaks":   [{ "habitId": "exercise", "currentStreak": 5 }],
  "rewardConfig":  { "daily": "...", "weeklyThreshold": 0.8 },
  "penaltyConfig": { "skipConsecutive": 3, "skipPenalty": "..." }
}

Agent Skill Guide

See skills/habit-coach/SKILL.md for the full agent interaction guide, including:

• When to call each tool
• Tone adaptation by performance tier
• Reward and penalty delivery
• Task presentation style

Local Development

npm install          # install dependencies
npm run build        # TypeScript → dist/
npm test             # run test suite (vitest)
npm run test:watch   # watch mode
npm run demo         # end-to-end demo (builds first)

Verification

After npm run build, confirm the plugin entry loads correctly:

node --input-type=module \
  <<< "import p from './dist/index.js'; console.log('✅ Plugin:', p.id)"

Expected output: ✅ Plugin: habit-coach

Run the full demo to verify the store and tool chain end-to-end:

npm run demo

Examples

License

MIT — see LICENSE.