Memory System

Bootstrap a memory + self-evolution system for a fresh agent workspace. Three parts: what the system prompt (or AGENTS.md) says, how

memory/

is laid out and searched, and two resident crons — dream diverges (makes connections), janitor converges (consolidates knowledge). Setup is one-shot per workspace — the result references nothing in this skill.

1. The memory block (system prompt / AGENTS.md)

The constitution of the system — copy it verbatim into the system prompt or the workspace

AGENTS.md

markdown

## Memory

Memory persists under ./memory/:

- ./memory/NOW.md: the L0 register — important in-flight work only, one terse line per
  task, tagged with the session/chat id doing it. Small chores and short-lived runs
  (dream/janitor) stay out. Claim a line when starting, update in place, and close out via
  the worklog: a line leaves only after its outcome (completion/abort/handoff) is appended
  to today's worklog.
- ./memory/worklog/YYYY-MM-DD.md: the raw record stream — free-form, append-only, one
  entry per time heading (e.g. ## 14:30). Record anything: events, people, project
  threads, todos. Never rewrite; correct by appending a correction entry. Terse — no
  pasted conversations or code dumps.
- ./memory/contacts.md: ID lookup table (Lark open_id, bot app_id, GitLab id, ...).
  Consult before DMing, @-mentioning, or resolving a sender; record new IDs as they
  surface.
- ./memory/lesson.md: behavioral lessons, one line each — date + lesson + source.
- ./memory/friend/, ./memory/group/: living profiles of people and groups, one file per
  subject, current info only — update in place, add files for new subjects, move
  superseded facts to archive.md. Promotion bar: ≥2 distinct interactions or a clear
  role earns a friend file; thin contacts stay one-liners in contacts.md.
- ./memory/archive.md: append-only archive for superseded entries (source + archive
  date noted). Never pruned; grep it, never read it whole.
- Volatile facts with an authoritative source elsewhere (requirement progress, MR
  status): cite the source, never copy a snapshot.
- Search memory first: memory/recall <keyword>. Recall before asking a human.
- When notes on one theme pile up, split them into a dedicated file — categories emerge on
  demand.

The memory block uses the recall path installed in §2 (default

memory/recall

). If this skill is installed globally rather than into the workspace, substitute

~/.agents/skills/memory-system-setup/

for

.agents/skills/memory-system-setup/

in the setup commands below.

Why it is written this way:

Append-only is the root of trust — history can't be silently revised; errors get corrections, not edits. That stream lives in worklog/; diary/ is the one curated layer above it. Profiles (friend/, group/) are the other exception: they hold current state, not history — what goes stale moves to archive.md.
Raw first, narrative second — the worklog guarantees nothing is lost; the diary guarantees someone can actually read it. The janitor is the bridge: it reads the raw stream every morning anyway, so summarizing costs no extra context.
NOW.md is a register, not a cache — it holds work no slower tier has yet; the close-out-via-worklog rule keeps the append-only root of trust intact.
Sources, not snapshots — volatile facts (statuses, schedules) don't rot into wrong facts.
"Recall before asking" is a command, not an aspiration — it builds the retrieval habit.
Categories emerge on demand — dream/ and janitor/ themselves split off this way.

2. Directory + recall

bash

mkdir -p memory/worklog memory/diary memory/dream memory/janitor memory/friend memory/group memory/knowledge
printf '# Now — important in-flight work only, one terse line each\n<!-- - [sess_or_chat_id] MM-DD — what (where); a line leaves only via a diary entry -->\n' > memory/NOW.md
printf '| name | platform | id | note |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n' > memory/contacts.md
printf '# Lessons\n\n<!-- one line each: YYYY-MM-DD — lesson (source) -->\n' > memory/lesson.md
touch memory/archive.md
install -m 755 .agents/skills/memory-system-setup/scripts/recall memory/recall

Seeded headers keep the first writer from inventing a schema of its own. If the workspace is a git repo, add

memory/

.gitignore

— these are private notes, not project files.

recall ships with this skill at

scripts/recall

; the setup block installs it into the workspace —

memory/recall

is the default (recall searches only

*.md

, so it never greps itself), but any in-workspace path works if the memory block matches. Once copied, the system no longer depends on the skill staying installed. It runs a capped ripgrep over

memory/

, in three tiers:

evergreen (contacts / lesson / friend / group / knowledge / emergent top-level notes) first, capped at 30 lines;
dated files (diary / worklog / dream / janitor) in reverse-date order, capped at 50 lines — recent first;
cold (archive.md) last, capped at 30 lines — it stores superseded info, so it ranks below everything current;
per-file cap of 20 matches, long lines truncated at 200 chars;
root resolution:
```
$RECALL_ROOT
```
, else walk up from cwd to the first
```
memory/
```
.

3. The crons

Two creation paths:

cron tool (preferred) — from a session running in the workspace, have the agent create both jobs from the prompt files. The dedicated session inherits the caller's working dir, so the prompts' relative
```
memory/
```
paths resolve correctly.
CLI — the commands under each heading. The RPC path has no caller session to follow, so the dedicated session lands in the daemon's default workspace (
```
<data_dir>/workspace
```
); use this only when that is the target workspace. (
```
-d/--dir
```
is accepted but ignored by
```
yomi cron
```
.)

Either way: fixed names

dream

and

janitor

(unique + ensure semantics — re-running setup never spawns duplicates),

--session

unset so each job gets its own dedicated session and the main session is never disturbed,

{{date}}

expands to the run date, schedules are 5-field expressions in local time. Later edits to a prompt file don't propagate to an existing job — recreate it (delete + create).

Language: the shipped prompts are Chinese. If the deployment's language isn't Chinese, translate the message at creation time (resolve from the conversation) — a detached cron session has no conversation to inherit its language from, and a prompt in the user's language makes every output — dream log, janitor report, memory edits — come out in that language by default. Translate faithfully: iron rules, caps, and may/must distinctions must survive; translate, don't paraphrase.

dream — daily 03:33 (

33 3 * * *

)

Goal-less free association, producing a dream log. Prompt: prompts/dream.txt.

bash

yomi cron create --name dream --schedule "33 3 * * *" \
  --message "$(cat .agents/skills/memory-system-setup/prompts/dream.txt)"

Design notes: the "no goals, tangents welcome" step is the soul — give a dream a goal and it degenerates into a daily report. Sleep-talk is "may", never "must"; with no broadcast channel, delete that step from the prompt before creating the job.

janitor — daily 05:55 (

55 5 * * *

)

Memory housekeeping + self-evolution (distilling repeated workflows into skills). Prompt: prompts/janitor.txt.

bash

yomi cron create --name janitor --schedule "55 5 * * *" \
  --message "$(cat .agents/skills/memory-system-setup/prompts/janitor.txt)"

Design notes: the iron rules come first — an autonomous cron gets its read/write boundaries hard-coded up front. The "Suggestions" section gives uncertain changes an outlet. The mandatory "nothing today" file makes cron liveness checkable. The NOW.md sweep is the dead-session safety net: an orphaned line gets reconstructed from its transcript tail and closed out via the worklog. The diary step is the other half of its job: the raw stream stays in worklog/, but memory needs a face — one narrative page a day a human would actually read.

Verification

Ask "how did we decide X before?" — the agent runs recall first instead of guessing;
every departed NOW.md line left a same-day worklog entry;
```
yomi cron list
```
shows exactly one
```
dream
```
and one
```
janitor
```
, and
```
yomi cron get <id>
```
shows a non-empty message in the user's language, iron rules and caps intact — a failed
```
cat
```
still creates the job with an empty prompt, and the unique name then blocks re-creation;
worklog files only grow by appends — no rewrites;
after the first scheduled runs,
```
memory/dream/
```
and
```
memory/janitor/
```
hold dated files, and
```
memory/diary/
```
holds a narrative page for the day just ended;
the janitor report contains a "Suggestions" section (even an empty one).

Known pitfalls

Job names are unique daemon-wide: one daemon hosts one memory system as shipped. A second workspace's
```
dream
```
create short-circuits to the first workspace's job — for a second instance, derive the namespace from the workspace root directory name (
```
~/repos/foo
```
→
```
dream:foo
```
,
```
janitor:foo
```
): a fixed derivation, so re-setup computes the same name; same-basename workspaces still collide.
The janitor's
```
yomi session list/cat
```
calls need the yomi CLI on the cron session's PATH.
A cron's manual
```
trigger
```
(run immediately) is suspected broken — verify by waiting for the real schedule, or run the flow by hand once.
The janitor's transcript reading must stay capped or its context explodes — don't drop the cap when editing the prompt.
Deleting a NOW.md line without a worklog entry is silent work loss — the close-out protocol is the integrity rule; without the janitor sweep, a session that dies mid-task leaves NOW.md to rot into a second worklog.

memory-system-setup

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Memory System

1. The memory block (system prompt / AGENTS.md)

2. Directory + recall

3. The crons

dream — daily 03:33 (
`33 3 * * *`
)

janitor — daily 05:55 (
`55 5 * * *`
)

Verification

Known pitfalls

memory-system-setup

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Memory System

1. The memory block (system prompt / AGENTS.md)

2. Directory + recall

3. The crons

dream — daily 03:33 (33 3 * * *)

janitor — daily 05:55 (55 5 * * *)

Verification

Known pitfalls

dream — daily 03:33 (
`33 3 * * *`
)

janitor — daily 05:55 (
`55 5 * * *`
)