Problem

When a user runs /new or /reset, OpenClaw renames session .jsonl files to .jsonl.deleted.* or .jsonl.reset.*. The word "deleted" in the filename creates the mental model that these files are disposable. They're not — they're the only record of entire conversations.

Downstream tools (backup scripts, migration scripts, LCM backfill tooling) inherit this attitude and treat these as cleanup candidates. This led to irreversible data loss in a real deployment — 92 founding-era session transcripts were staged in /tmp/ during an LCM backfill, and when the machine rebooted, the only copies were gone.

Proposal

1. Rename the convention: .archived.* instead of .deleted.* (and .archived-reset.* instead of .reset.*)
2. Or better: move archived sessions to a dedicated sessions/archive/ subdirectory instead of renaming in place
3. Never rm a session file in any OC codepath — only move/rename
4. Consider a sessions/archive/ directory that's clearly a permanent store, not a trash bin

Why This Matters

• Session .jsonl files are small (text), cheap to store, and irreplaceable
• They're the only way to reprocess/recompact if LCM or any future context system needs to re-ingest
• The naming convention is the root cause — if the files were called .archived.*, nobody downstream would treat them as disposable
• Worst case, users can gzip old sessions — but they should never be deleted

Current Behavior

# /new creates:
session-uuid.jsonl.deleted.2026-03-26T22-05-08.451Z

# /reset creates:  
session-uuid.jsonl.reset.2026-03-26T21-29-41.201Z

Proposed Behavior

# Option A: rename convention
session-uuid.jsonl.archived.2026-03-26T22-05-08.451Z

# Option B: move to archive dir (preferred)
sessions/archive/session-uuid.jsonl

Filed from real-world data loss. The naming created the permission to be careless.