Reference

What's in the Conch folder

Everything Conch writes is a plain file in ~/.conch. This is every one of them, and what a backup does with it.

Paths are inside the Conch folder. * stands for one name, ** for any depth.

Backed up

Yours. In every backup, and restored with it.

tasks.json: Goals and operation receipts prevent duplicate effects. Restored tasks require explicit resumption and provider reconciliation.
settings.json: Personality, about you, preferences.
avatar: Your photo, as About you and the sidebar show it.
address.json: The address of your own Conch answers at. Restored on another computer, it opens nothing until you turn it on there.
browser.json: The browser’s settings and the sites you always allow.
terminal.json: The terminal’s settings.
backups.json: Whether Conch backs itself up every day.
usage.json: Your budget, and what you spent (chats you deleted included, so it can’t be rebuilt). Merged on restore: money already spent stays counted.
routine-spend.json: What your routines spent each month, and the monthly limit you chose (ADR 0057). Merged on restore: money already spent stays counted.
memory/*.md: Your memories, one file each.
memory/superseded/*.md: Memories that stopped being true, each with when, kept for questions about before and for Undo (ADR 0088).
learning/*.json: What Conch learned from your chats and where (for Why? and Undo), what you told it never to learn again, and how far it read each chat (ADR 0088).
learning-spend.json: What learning from your chats spent each month, and the limit you chose (ADR 0088). Merged on restore: money already spent stays counted.
artifacts/access.json: The sites each page made for you may read live data from, as you allowed (ADR 0046). A restore lists them first.
artifacts/**: What the assistant made for you in your chats (pages, documents, charts) and the apps you pinned, with their versions.
commands/*.md: Your slash commands.
routines/*.json: Your routines.
routines/when/*.json: What starts each routine that starts when something happens: an email, a meeting, a page, a folder (ADR 0056).
routines/*.runs.jsonl: Each routine’s run history.
skills/**: Your skills, with their files.
skills-market/**: Skills you added from Discover, exactly as they were when you read them (ADR 0074).
skills-market.json: Where each skill you added from Discover came from: who published it and the version it’s pinned to.
skill-suggestions.json: Skill suggestions you turned down, and a line of what each was about, so they stay down.
skill-learned.json: Skills Conch offered from work that went well in your chats, which chats it already looked at, and the offers you turned down.
skill-usage.json: When each skill was last used, and which ones Conch suggested or brought in, so the tidy shelf only ever offers those.
skills.trust.json: Whose signed skills you trust (by their key). A restore names them before bringing them back.
skills.json: On, off or when-asked for skills in other agents’ folders.
integrations.json: What’s connected and how, with your per-tool choices (not its tokens).
conch-apps.json: The apps you made or added (ADR 0061): where each came from, who signed it, its versions and your choices. Not its keys.
conch-apps-published.json: The GitHub repositories your apps were published to, so publishing again only ever updates those.
conch-apps/**: Each app’s files, and the earlier versions kept for Go back.
conch-app-data/**: What each app keeps for you: notes, counts, lists, page preferences and saved lookup results.
app-workshop/**: Apps being made in a chat: their files and scratch data, kept with the chat they belong to.
channels.json: Your channels (bots on Telegram, Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Matrix and WeChat; your linked WhatsApp and Signal; iMessage; your email account) and who may talk to them, not their keys.
channels/teams-*.json: Where each Teams chat with your bot lives, so routine results reach you there. No keys.
door.json: Whether Teams and WeChat reach Conch through Tailscale Funnel or an address of your own. Restored on another computer, it opens nothing by itself.
conversations/index.json: The chat list.
conversations/folders.json: The folders you sort your chats into.
conversations/*.jsonl: Each chat, every message and step.
attachments/**: Files, pictures and long pastes sent in chats.
api-sessions/*.json: What a model API needs to carry on a chat: the provider’s own messages, verbatim. Signed thinking can’t be rebuilt from the chat, so this isn’t derived.
browser/shots/**: Pictures of what the agent saw while browsing, shown in the chat.
browser/tabs.json: The tabs each chat had open in the browser, so they open again where you left them.
vault/sources.json: Which password managers Passwords shows, and where your KeePassXC database is. No secrets.

Keys and sign-ins

Only in a backup you lock with a passphrase.

codex.secrets.json: Conch’s isolated ChatGPT sign-in; only in encrypted backups.
skills.signing.json: Your own key for signing skills: only in a passphrase-locked backup, so skills you signed keep your name.
secrets.json: Provider keys (or 1Password references to them).
google.secrets.json: Google app credentials and account sign-ins.
browser.secrets.json: The keys and addresses of a browser in the cloud, or elsewhere, that Conch uses (ADR 0080).
slack.secrets.json: Your Slack sign-in, for Slack with every model.
integrations.secrets.json: Integration tokens and keys.
channels.secrets.json: Your bots’ keys, and your email’s app password.
conch-apps.secrets.json: The keys your apps use (ADR 0061), like an API key you typed into one.
routines.secrets.json: The secrets other apps sign their messages to your routines with (ADR 0056).
whatsapp.secrets.json: Your WhatsApp link: this computer’s keys as a linked device. Whoever has them can read and send your messages.
signal/**: Your Signal link: signal-cli’s keys as a linked device and its database. Whoever has them can read and send your messages.
channels/matrix-*.json: A Matrix session’s encryption keys and where its sync left off. They open only with that channel’s key.
vault/vault.json: Your passwords, encrypted. In a backup only with a passphrase, with the key that opens them (`vault/key.json`).
vault/key.json: The key to your passwords, only inside a passphrase-locked backup; a restore moves it into this computer’s keychain and deletes the file.
access.json: Who may sign in: the password hash and access keys. Signed-in devices, approved devices and pairing codes are never backed up.

Rebuilt by itself

Never backed up: Conch makes it again, or it’s only about this computer.

codex-sessions/**: Provider-native sessions; Conch’s conversation transcript is the durable record.
conch-apps/.incoming/**: An app on its way in, or one Conch was only looking at: tidied away on start.
**/*.tmp: Half of an atomic write that a crash interrupted; the real file is backed up.
search.db*: The search index: rebuilt from your chats when it’s missing.
address/**: Your own address’s certificate, its key and the ACME account: a new computer gets its own, and keys never leave this one.
healed.json: What Conch fixed on this computer: reassurance about this machine, not something to move.
import.json: What the last import from OpenClaw or Hermes added, for its Undo: about this computer’s copy of things.
models/**: Conch’s own model for memory search by meaning: a download pinned by hash, fetched again when missing.
memory-index.db*: Memory search by meaning: vectors made from your memories, made again when missing.
memory/.forgotten/*.md: Conch’s own copies of memories the assistant forgot, for Undo on “Forgot” in a chat (ADR 0087). Sealed, used once, never backed up.
memory.seal: The key that seals your memory files (ADR 0087). Never backed up: memories from a backup, or changed by hand, are checked again when Conch reads them.
memory-tidy.json: What the memory tidy-up changed lately, for Undo: about this computer’s memories, as they were.
gateway.json: Where this run of Conch listens; written again on every start.
background/**: How this computer starts Conch at login (Always on): written for this computer’s paths. Turn Always on on again on a new one; a restore never does it for you.
push.secrets.json: Where notifications go: this Conch’s own key and each browser’s subscription, both tied to this computer. After a restore, each device turns its notifications on again by itself.
voice/**: Voice models: the speech model for listening and the natural voices for reading aloud (downloaded again when they’re missing), and recordings being read, which are deleted at once.
tools/**: Programs Conch fetched for you from their own releases (whisper.cpp on Windows): fetched again on a new computer, made for this one.
shortcut/**: The Conch app’s files for this computer (the Start menu, the app menu): written again from where Conch is.
undo/**: What the assistant changed, kept so it can be undone: copies of files on this computer, about this computer’s folders.
mcp/**: The apps paired with Conch on this computer (ADR 0073), their keys and the launcher they start: a restore pairs nothing, so another computer’s apps never come with it. Pair them again from Settings → Other apps.
here/**: The key that proves a browser or a launcher is on this computer (ADR 0063), and the one-time files that open Conch: this computer’s own, made again on the next start.
tray/**: Conch’s menu bar helper, built on this computer, and its token: made again on the next start.
logs/**: What Conch said while running in the background: about this computer and these runs.
versions/**: Conch’s own versions, made ready beside the one running, and which one runs (ADR 0051): installed again from its releases.
updates.json: What’s installed on this computer and what’s newest: looked up again. Automatic updates are switched on again by you (it asks that it’s you), never by a restore.
browser/profile/**: The browser’s own cookies and sign-ins: too sensitive to copy around and too big. Sign in to those sites again.
routines/when/*.seen.json: What a routine that starts when something happens has already seen. A restore starts watching from then, rather than replaying everything since (ADR 0056).
skills-market/.staging/**: Skills downloaded from Discover for a look before they’re added (ADR 0074). Nothing here is used, and it’s cleared after half an hour.
skills-market-cache.json: What Discover found last, shown when a place can’t be reached. Fetched again when needed.
signal/attachments/**: Files people sent you on Signal, as signal-cli keeps them; the ones your assistant read are in the chat’s attachments.
channels/googlechat-*.json: Which Google Chat events were already read, so none is taken twice. Rebuilt as messages come.
vault/remembered.json: Passwords of the managers you keep unlocked, sealed with this computer’s own key. They never leave this computer; unlock them again on another.
vault/device.*: This computer’s own key to your passwords. It never leaves this computer; a backup carries the vault’s key instead.

Not Conch’s to back up

Back these up with your other files.

codex-runtime/**: Transient active Codex credential copies: never backed up.
backups/**: The backups themselves (and a restore being readied): a backup of backups would only grow.
workspace/**: Your work folder: your own files, like any folder you point Conch at. Back it up with your other files.
worktrees/**: Helpers’ own copies of your work folder (git worktrees). What they changed is on a branch in your repository; back it up with your code.