Voice sessions now bootstrap with user profile context

OpenClaw 2026.5.21 injects IDENTITY.md, USER.md, and SOUL.md into voice session instructions by default, eliminating mid-conversation context setup.

June 5, 2026

Summary

Voice agents no longer start stateless and confused about identity—they inherit persona and user context from bootstrap, reducing inference errors and improving reliability. Eliminates the need to re-establish agent identity during each session.

Why it matters

Voice agents no longer start stateless and confused about identity—they inherit persona and user context from bootstrap, reducing inference errors and improving reliability. Eliminates the need to re-establish agent identity during each session.

Implementation verdict

Replaces manual context injection patterns. Requires populated IDENTITY.md/USER.md/SOUL.md files and upgrade to 2026.5.21+. Set bootstrapContextFiles to empty array if you need anonymous sessions. Ready to use now with zero additional config—it ships on by default.

Sources

  1. 1.realtime voice sessions now include bounded IDENTITY.md, USER.md, and SOUL.md profile context in the session instructions by default
  2. 2.voice sessions bootstrap with your IDENTITY.md (who you are), USER.md (who you're helping), and SOUL.md (how you behave) as bounded context
  3. 3.This is a security-positive change. When voice sessions have bounded, explicit context, they don't have to guess or infer who they are.
  4. 4.No additional config needed — it's on by default

Dev Signal

Get briefs like this in your inbox — free, 3x a week.

100+ sources compressed into one 4-minute read. Ranked, cited, implementation-ready.