---
name: agent-memory
description: "Use when an agent keeps relearning the same correction, CLAUDE.md has grown unreadable, or you need to trace where a remembered rule came from. Promotes facts through four tiers only on recurrence across sessions and days, with memory_promote.py and a human adopt step."
argument-hint: "[optional: status | why \"<claim>\" | a tier name]"
license: MIT
metadata:
version: 1.0.0
build_pattern: "Tencent TencentDB-Agent-Memory's tiering concept rebuilt natively on Claude Code hooks; deterministic recurrence gates, no LLM, no database"
distinct_from: "llm-wiki (a vault you write on purpose; this writes itself from sessions); skillopt-sleep (replays tasks to improve a skill; this extracts facts to remember); memory-engineering (audits and prices any memory system; this IS one, and is a legitimate subject of that audit)"
---
# Agent Memory — promotion is earned, not asserted
> **Portability:** stdlib only. No database, no embeddings, no network, no LLM calls.
## The problem
A project's `CLAUDE.md` is a memory system with one tier and no eviction: every
durable fact and every passing preference land in the same always-loaded file,
until the important lines are diluted by the incidental ones. Facts learned
mid-session vanish at teardown unless someone writes them down.
**The fix is not more storage — it is a promotion ladder.** A claim earns its
way toward always-loaded context by recurring; a human confirms the last step.
## The four tiers
Tiers are distinguished by **injection policy**, not storage format.
| Tier | Holds | Injected | Committed |
|---|---|---|---|
| **L0** | raw session transcripts | never | no (already on disk) |
| **L1** | candidate atoms | on relevance, at prompt time | no (gitignored) |
| **L2** | this project's context | every session start | yes, after adopt |
| **L3** | stable cross-project persona | always | yes, after adopt |
## The gates
Nothing moves up because it sounded important. It moves up because it recurred.
- **L0 → L1** — an explicit marker fires (a directive, a correction, a stated
preference, a named lesson, a reproducible failure). Rule-based, high
precision, deliberately low recall.
- **L1 → L2** — ≥ 3 distinct sessions spanning ≥ 2 distinct calendar days. A
claim stated outright needs 2 sessions; the distinct-day rule still applies. A
verified claim promotes on one observation and is the only day-exempt path.
- **L2 → L3** — held in ≥ 2 distinct projects, aged ≥ 30 days, uncontested.
**Two gates refuse rather than guess.** A claim whose text was altered by
redaction never promotes on evidence alone — the flag firing is evidence the
source was sensitive, and a lexical filter finding one secret is not proof it
found all of them. A claim with an open contradiction is frozen at L1 until a
human resolves it; the incumbent is never silently overwritten.
## Use it
```bash
# what is remembered, and what is blocking the next promotion
python3 scripts/memory_inspect.py --tier L1
# where did this line come from — sessions, days, transcript, quoted source
python3 scripts/memory_inspect.py --why "PR base branch is dev"
# every claim with an open contradiction, both directions of the join
python3 scripts/memory_inspect.py --contested
# dry-run the promotion pass; writes nothing
python3 scripts/memory_promote.py
```
Three hooks run the loop unattended: `SessionStart` injects L2 + L3,
`UserPromptSubmit` recalls relevant L1 atoms, `SessionEnd` captures and stages.
Each is disabled independently with `AGENT_MEMORY_SESSIONSTART=0`,
`AGENT_MEMORY_USERPROMPTSUBMIT=0`, `AGENT_MEMORY_SESSIONEND=0`. Every hook fails
open: a broken memory system costs you memory, never a session.
## Hard rules
1. **Redact before writing.** Every atom passes the filter before it reaches
disk. Anything altered is quarantined from promotion.
2. **Propose, never apply.** Promotions land in `.memory/staged/`. Only an
explicit `/cs-memory adopt` touches a `CLAUDE.md`, and it backs both up first.
3. **Cite, don't invent.** Every atom carries a back-pointer to the transcript
line that produced it. `--why` resolving to *ambiguous* prints nothing rather
than guess: a wrong citation is worse than a missing one.
4. **Never surface a contested claim as fact.** It is still injected — hiding
the conflict is worse — but always tagged.
5. **The committed tiers carry no paths.** Promotion strips the back-pointer
prefix, which embeds an OS username.
## Forcing questions
Walk these one at a time before trusting the store.
1. Which line in your `CLAUDE.md` did you last actually read before acting?
2. Would you rather the agent forget a true thing, or remember a false one?
3. When two remembered rules disagree, who decides — and when?
4. What would make you delete `.memory/` entirely?
Rationale, open decisions, field schema: [`../../DESIGN.md`](../../DESIGN.md).
## More in this skill
Load these only when the task needs them.
- [references/hook_capture_discipline.md](references/hook_capture_discipline.md) — Hook discipline — running on someone else's critical path
- [references/promotion_gate_design.md](references/promotion_gate_design.md) — Designing the gates — why these thresholds, and what they cost
- [references/tiered_memory_canon.md](references/tiered_memory_canon.md) — Tiered agent memory — the canon, and what this skill takes from it
- `python3 scripts/memory_extract.py --help` — L0 -> L1. Rule-based, no LLM
- `python3 scripts/validate_examples.py` — drift gate for DESIGN.md, memory_schema.json and the worked examples