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Agent memory you can maintain

Keep long-term instructions short, accurate and scoped, and keep session progress out of them.

Principles

  • Every rule needs a scope
  • Every fact must trace back to the repo
  • Temporary progress stays out of long-term memory

How to do it

Inventory

Find every long-term instruction and the directory where it applies.

Sort

Split them into hard constraints, preferences, regular docs and temporary state.

Resolve conflicts

Hand conflicts to the user. Don't quietly pick a winner.

Compress

Merge duplicate rules and link instead of copying whole sections.

Verify

Check that every path, command and example still works.

Before you call it done

  • Every rule has a scope
  • No progress logs
  • No copies of regular docs
  • Conflicts are out in the open

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