memory-engineeringlisted

# Memory Engineering Give an agent a memory it can trust: rules for **what to write down, where it goes, and when it gets deleted**. The system is three verbs applied to four memory types. Subtraction is the governing philosophy — the default answer to "should this be remembered?" is **no**, and deletion gets equal billing with writing, because bloated memory is how agents get slow, contradictory, and wrong. ## The three verbs | Verb | Question it answers | Rules file | |---|---|---| | **WRITE** | Does this deserve to exist? (admission test: *if this line were gone, would the agent make a mistake?*) One fact per file, with its **why**. | `references/write-rules.md` | | **ROUTE** | Where does it live? Working = session (not persisted) · Episodic = journal · Semantic = fact files + index, one home per fact · Procedural = instruction layers, task-specific bulk demoted to skills. | `references/routing.md` | | **PRUNE** | When does it die? Wrong → now. Done → archive. Unused ~60–90 days → challenge. Index capped (~150 lines). | `references/prune.md` | Read the relevant rules file before acting; do not improvise thresholds. ## Mode selection Infer the mode from the request; announce it in one line only if ambiguous. ### Mode: bootstrap — "set up a memory system for me" 1. **Interview first, create nothing yet.** Ask, in the user's language: what they mostly use the agent for; what they re-explain every session; what the agent has gotten wrong that must never repeat. T