Telnyx RAG Memory

Semantic search and RAG-powered Q&A over your OpenClaw workspace using Telnyx's native embedding, similarity search, and inference APIs.

Requirements

• Your own Telnyx API Key — each user/agent uses their own key
• Python 3.8+ — stdlib only, no external dependencies
• Get your API key at portal.telnyx.com

Bucket Naming Convention

Use a consistent naming scheme so anyone can adopt this:

openclaw-{agent-id}

Why?

• Predictable: anyone can find any agent's bucket
• Collision-free: scoped to agent, not person or team
• Discoverable: openclaw-* prefix groups all agent buckets in Telnyx Storage UI

Quick Start

cd ~/skills/telnyx-rag

# Set YOUR Telnyx API key (each user/agent uses their own)
echo 'TELNYX_API_KEY=KEY...' > .env

# Run setup with validation
./setup.sh --check    # Validate requirements first
./setup.sh           # Full setup (uses bucket from config.json)

# Search your memory
./search.py "What are my preferences?"

# Ask questions (full RAG pipeline)
./ask.py "What is the porting process?"

What It Does

• Indexes your workspace files (MEMORY.md, memory/*.md, knowledge/, skills/)
• Chunks large files intelligently (markdown by headers, JSON/Slack by threads)
• Embeds content automatically using Telnyx AI
• Searches using natural language queries with retry logic
• Answers questions using a full RAG pipeline (retrieve → rerank → generate)
• Prioritizes results from memory/ (your primary context)
• Incremental sync — only uploads changed files
• Orphan cleanup — removes deleted files from bucket

Setup Options

Option 1: Environment Variable

export TELNYX_API_KEY="KEY..."
./setup.sh

Option 2: .env File

echo 'TELNYX_API_KEY=KEY...' > .env
./setup.sh

Validation Mode

./setup.sh --check    # Validate requirements without making changes

Custom Bucket Name

./setup.sh my-custom-bucket

Usage

Ask Questions (RAG Pipeline)

# Basic question answering
./ask.py "What is Telnyx's porting process?"

# Show retrieved context alongside answer
./ask.py "How do I deploy?" --context

# Use a different model
./ask.py "Explain voice setup" --model meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

# More/fewer context chunks
./ask.py "meeting decisions" --num 12

# JSON output for scripting
./ask.py "API usage limits" --json

# Search a different bucket
./ask.py "project timeline" --bucket work-memory

Search Memory

# Basic search with improved error handling
./search.py "What are David's communication preferences?"

# Search specific bucket
./search.py "meeting notes" --bucket my-other-bucket

# More results with timeout control
./search.py "procedures" --num 10 --timeout 45

# JSON output (for scripts)
./search.py "procedures" --json

Sync Files (with Chunking)

# Incremental sync with auto-chunking
./sync.py

# Override chunk size (tokens)
./sync.py --chunk-size 600

# Quiet mode for cron jobs
./sync.py --quiet

# Remove orphaned files (including stale chunks)
./sync.py --prune

# Sync + trigger embedding
./sync.py --embed

# Check status
./sync.py --status

# List indexed files (shows chunks too)
./sync.py --list

Watch Mode

# Watch for changes and auto-sync with chunking
./sync.py --watch

Trigger Embedding

# Trigger embedding for current bucket
./embed.sh
# OR
./sync.py --embed

# Check embedding status
./sync.py --embed-status <task_id>

Why is this needed? Uploading files to Telnyx Storage doesn't automatically generate embeddings. The embedding process converts your files into searchable vectors. Without this step, search.py and ask.py won't return results.

Configuration

Edit config.json to customize behavior:

{
  "bucket": "openclaw-memory",
  "region": "us-central-1",
  "workspace": ".",
  "patterns": [
    "MEMORY.md",
    "memory/*.md",
    "knowledge/*.json",
    "skills/*/SKILL.md"
  ],
  "priority_prefixes": ["memory/", "MEMORY.md"],
  "default_num_docs": 5,
  "chunk_size": 800,
  "ask_model": "meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct",
  "ask_num_docs": 8,
  "retrieve_num_docs": 20
}

Config Fields

How It Works

┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│  Your Workspace │     │     Telnyx Cloud                 │
│  ├── memory/    │     │                                  │
│  ├── knowledge/ │──┐  │  Storage: your-bucket/           │
│  └── skills/    │  │  │     └── file__chunk-001.md       │
└─────────────────┘  │  │     └── file__chunk-002.md       │
                     │  │              │                    │
   Smart Chunking ◀──┘  │              ▼ embed             │
   ├── Markdown: split   │     Telnyx AI Embeddings        │
   │   on ## headers     │              │                  │
   ├── JSON/Slack: split │              ▼                  │
   │   by thread/time    │     Similarity Search           │
   └── Metadata tags     │              │                  │
                         └──────────────┼──────────────────┘
                                        │
   ask.py Pipeline:                     │
   ┌─────────────────────────────────┐  │
   │ 1. Retrieve top-20 chunks ◀────┘  │
   │ 2. Rerank (TF-IDF + priority)     │
   │ 3. Deduplicate adjacent chunks    │
   │ 4. Build prompt with top-8        │
   │ 5. Call Telnyx Inference LLM      │
   │ 6. Return answer + sources        │
   └─────────────────────────────────┘

Smart Chunking

Large files are automatically split into semantic chunks before upload:

Markdown Files

• Split on ## and ### headers first
• If a section is still too large, split by paragraph boundaries
• Each chunk gets a metadata header with source, chunk index, and title

JSON / Slack Exports

• Messages grouped by token budget per chunk
• Extracts: channel name, date range, authors
• Metadata includes Slack-specific fields

Chunk Naming

Chunks use deterministic filenames:

knowledge/meetings.md  →  knowledge/meetings__chunk-001.md
                          knowledge/meetings__chunk-002.md
                          knowledge/meetings__chunk-003.md

Chunk Metadata

Each chunk includes a YAML-style header:

---
source: knowledge/meetings.md
chunk: 2/5
title: Q4 Planning Discussion
---

(chunk content here)

For Slack exports, additional fields:

---
source: slack/general.json
chunk: 3/12
title: general
channel: general
date_range: 2024-01-15 to 2024-01-16
authors: alice, bob, charlie
---

Chunk Lifecycle

• When a source file changes, old chunks are deleted and new ones uploaded
• Chunk mappings tracked in .sync-state.json
• --prune cleans up orphaned chunks from deleted files

Reranking (ask.py)

The RAG pipeline uses a multi-signal reranking strategy:

1. Semantic similarity — Telnyx embedding distance (certainty score)
2. Keyword overlap — TF-IDF weighted term matching with the query
3. Priority boost — Chunks from priority_prefixes sources ranked higher
4. Deduplication — Adjacent chunks from the same source with >80% token overlap are merged

Initial retrieval fetches retrieve_num_docs (default 20), reranking selects the best ask_num_docs (default 8) for the LLM prompt.

New Features (v2)

Smart Chunking

• Semantic splitting: Headers for markdown, threads for Slack JSON
• Metadata headers: Source, chunk index, title in every chunk
• Configurable size: --chunk-size flag or chunk_size in config
• Deterministic names: Reproducible chunk filenames

RAG Q&A Pipeline (ask.py)

• End-to-end: Query → retrieve → rerank → generate → answer
• Telnyx Inference: Uses Telnyx LLM API for generation
• Source references: Every answer includes source file citations
• Context mode: --context shows retrieved chunks
• JSON output: --json for structured responses

Reranking

• Multi-signal scoring: Combines embedding similarity + keyword overlap + priority
• Deduplication: Removes near-identical adjacent chunks
• Configurable: Retrieve 20, use best 8 (tunable)

Incremental Sync (v1)

• File hashing: Tracks SHA-256 hashes in .sync-state.json
• Skip unchanged: Only uploads modified files
• Progress tracking: Shows progress bars for large syncs

Smart Cleanup

• --prune: Removes files from bucket that were deleted locally
• Chunk-aware: Cleans up orphaned chunks too
• State tracking: Maintains sync history and chunk mappings

Improved Reliability

• Retry logic: 3 attempts with exponential backoff
• Better errors: Parses Telnyx API error responses
• Timeout control: Configurable request timeouts
• Quiet mode: --quiet flag for cron jobs

OpenClaw Integration

Add to your TOOLS.md:

## Semantic Memory & Q&A

Ask questions about your workspace:
\`\`\`bash
cd ~/skills/telnyx-rag && ./ask.py "your question"
\`\`\`

Search memory semantically:
\`\`\`bash
cd ~/skills/telnyx-rag && ./search.py "your query"
\`\`\`

Automated Sync

Add to your heartbeat or cron:

# Quiet sync with orphan cleanup
cd ~/skills/telnyx-rag && ./sync.py --quiet --prune

# Sync with embedding
cd ~/skills/telnyx-rag && ./sync.py --quiet --embed

Troubleshooting

Setup Issues

"Python version too old"

• Requires Python 3.8+
• Check: python3 --version

"API key test failed"

• Verify key: echo $TELNYX_API_KEY
• Get new key at portal.telnyx.com

Sync Issues

"Bucket not found"

./sync.py --create-bucket

"No results found"

• Wait 1-2 minutes after sync (embeddings take time)
• Check files uploaded: ./sync.py --list
• Trigger embedding: ./sync.py --embed

"Files not syncing"

• Check .sync-state.json for corruption
• Force re-sync: rm .sync-state.json && ./sync.py

Ask Issues

"LLM generation failed"

• Check API key has inference permissions
• Try a different model: ./ask.py "query" --model meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

"No relevant documents found"

• Ensure files are synced and embedded
• Try broader query terms

API Reference

From Python

from ask import ask
from search import search_memory

# Ask a question (full RAG pipeline)
answer = ask("What is the deployment process?")
print(answer)

# With options
answer = ask(
    "project timeline",
    num_final=5,
    model="meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
    show_context=True,
    output_json=True,
)
print(answer)

# Basic search
results = search_memory("What do I know about X?", num_docs=5)
print(results)

From Bash

# Ask and capture answer
answer=$(./ask.py "What are the API limits?" --json)

# Search and capture JSON
results=$(./search.py "query" --json)

Performance Tips

1. Tune chunk_size — Smaller chunks (400-600) for precise retrieval, larger (800-1200) for more context
2. Use --quiet for cron jobs to reduce output
3. Enable --prune periodically to clean up deleted files
4. Watch mode is great for development: ./sync.py --watch
5. Batch embedding by syncing first, then embedding: ./sync.py && ./sync.py --embed

Credits

Built for OpenClaw using Telnyx Storage and AI APIs.