Agricultural residues can serve as organic amendments to enhance soil fertility and soil biodiversity. However, the relative efficacy of fresh versus dried straw clippings in modulating soil microhabitats and microarthropod communities in semi-arid regions remains inadequately quantified. Here, a field experiment (2021-2024) was conducted in a semi-arid region to investigate the effects of fresh and dried plant clippings amendments on soil microhabitats and microarthropod diversity, structure, morphology, and function, with assessments carried out during the third and fourth years after initial application. Results showed that both plant clippings amendments significantly increased soil organic matter (fresh: +22.6%; dried: +16.3%), porosity, and water storage, while reducing temperature. Fresh clippings amendment also raised soil moisture (+17.9%) and lowered pH value. Correspondingly, fresh clippings amendment increased microarthropod abundance, richness, and body size more strongly than dried clippings amendment, and increased the Abundance-based Fauna Index (FAI) by 151.7% (over four times the effect of dried amendment). Microarthropod community structure shifted toward saprophagous dominance, and exhibited lower interspecies heterogeneity under fresh clippings amendment. Redundancy and random forest analyses showed soil organic matter and microarthropod richness as the foremost predictors of FAI. Structural equation modeling further indicated that plant clippings amendments enhance FAI primarily indirectly by increasing soil organic matter and microarthropod richness. These findings demonstrate that fresh plant clipping amendment is more effective than dried amendment in improving soil microhabitats and enhancing microarthropod diversity, morphology, and function. This contributes to stabilizing the soil food web and improving fauna quality, thereby providing a scientific basis for sustainable organic management in semi-arid agricultural ecosystems.