What is worth a page, and what is only worth remembering

Most systems that give a model long-term state pick one substrate. This one runs two, with different write disciplines, different retrieval mechanics and different tolerances for noise. A fact about a person belongs in a page that a human will read and correct. A note that a service was restarted on Tuesday belongs in a store that nobody curates.

The rule is stated three times in the source — once in the tool description, once in the instruction block sent to every client, and once more in a patch script that inserted it there. Its repetition is the enforcement mechanism.

Do NOT save transient/one-off details (readings, countdowns, runtime status) — those go to memory_retain only.

src/server.ts:96 · src/tools/wiki_append.ts:98

Three verbs, one service

The memory tools are a thin, opinionated client over an HTTP API. The base address is configurable and defaults to a loopback service, so the memory store is a process the gateway talks to rather than a database it owns. Every operation is preceded by a bank check.

The recall / reflect distinction is stated plainly in the source: “recall returns raw matched facts, reflect returns a synthesized narrative” (src/tools/memory.ts:145). The first is evidence; the second is an opinion about the evidence, and it costs a reasoning budget to produce.

Token discipline, applied twice

A recall request is a negotiation about size. The client computes a token ceiling from the requested result count, asks the service to omit three expensive sections, and then — because the service may include them anyway — deletes them from the response before handing it to the model.

Version pins written as comments

Three comments in memory.ts record exactly which API shape the client was written against. They read as scar tissue from a migration, and they are the only version documentation in the repository:

// Hindsight 0.4.x: banks are created/updated via PUT /banks/{bank_id}, not POST /banks
// Hindsight 0.4.x RetainRequest: { items: [{ content, tags? }], async? }
// Hindsight 0.4.x ReflectRequest: { query, budget?, max_tokens?, include? }

Bank creation is a best-effort side effect

ensureBank runs before every recall, retain and reflect. It lists banks, returns early if the target is present, and otherwise issues a PUT to create it. The entire function is wrapped in a try whose catch block contains only the comment /* best-effort */. If the memory service is down, the failure surfaces from the real operation that follows, with a message the model can act on — not from a setup step it did not ask for.

The boundary is advisory — and that is the interesting part

Nothing stops an agent from calling memory_retain with a durable biographical fact, or wiki_append with a runtime status line. The schemas are nearly identical: both take a string and optional tags or links. What separates them is a rule written in English, in three places, aimed at a reader capable of following it.

This is a real architectural position, and it has a cost. The wiki's guard rails are executable — similarity routing, de-duplication, a lock — because the wiki is the store where a bad write is expensive to undo. Memory has no guard rails because a bad write there is merely noise, and noise is what reranking is for. The system spends its correctness budget where mistakes are permanent.

Avoid storing one-off transactional details. Focus on durable facts, preferences, decisions.

src/tools/memory.ts:106 — memory_retain description

Note that this instruction sits inside memory_retain itself, the store with no curation. Even the loose side of the split asks the model to exercise judgement — the difference is that here, nothing checks.