Memory Architecture

You cannot trust your context window across sessions. Your files are your real memory. Write everything down.

Heartbeat

1. Daily log exists? If no memory/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md for today → create it
2. Stale index? If MEMORY.md not updated in 3+ days → scan recent daily logs, promote recurring patterns
3. Weekly compaction due? Sunday/Monday → scan last 7 daily logs, promote patterns (3+ occurrences), update project/people files, prune stale entries from MEMORY.md, archive old decisions
4. Orphaned memories? Projects not referenced in 14+ days → flag for archive
5. Storage health? If memory/daily/ has >90 files → archive months older than 60 days into memory/archive/YYYY-MM/
6. If nothing needs attention → HEARTBEAT_OK

Structure

Create and maintain these directories:

• memory/daily/ — one file per day (YYYY-MM-DD.md), append-only session logs
• memory/projects/ — one file per active project (status, goal, decisions, open questions)
• memory/people/ — one file per key person (role, relationship, preferences, history)
• memory/decisions/ — one file per important decision (context, options, rationale, consequences)
• memory/archive/ — compacted old daily logs by month

MEMORY.md — The Index

MEMORY.md in the workspace root is your index. Not a dump. Maximum 200 lines. Every entry links to its detail file.

Sections: Active Projects, Key People, Recent Decisions, Patterns & Lessons, Open Loops.

Promotion rule: Only add to MEMORY.md when something appeared 3+ times in daily logs. Pruning rule: Remove anything not referenced in 30 days.

Session Discipline

Session start: Read MEMORY.md → read today's daily log → read relevant project/people files.

Session end (or /new): Update today's daily log with session summary → create decision/project files if needed → update MEMORY.md if warranted.

Daily Logs

Each memory/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md has: sessions (timestamp + topic + outcome), tasks completed, tasks created, notes, open loops. Append-only — never edit previous entries. Keep each session entry to 2-4 lines.

Weekly Compaction

Run Sunday/Monday during quiet hours. Scan last 7 daily logs. Extract patterns that appeared 3+ times. Promote to MEMORY.md. Roll up daily notes into project/people files. Prune MEMORY.md entries older than 30 days without reference. Log what was promoted, archived, or pruned.

Rules

• Write everything down. If it matters enough to say, it matters enough to log.
• Index, don't dump. MEMORY.md points to details. It is not the details.
• Daily logs are cheap. Write freely. Compaction handles the noise.
• Project files are authoritative. When daily logs and project files disagree, trust the project file.
• Prune aggressively. Dead entries waste context tokens every session.
• Link everything. Use relative paths so files are navigable.
• Never delete daily logs. Archive them. They're your audit trail.