git:20260926.4d848b6 to git:20260926.0e0d27a

---

name: agents-memory

description: >-

Record, recall, or forget notes in the agent's global or project memory,

deciding scope (global vs. project) and tier (short-term candidate vs.

long-term durable) when recording. Use on `/agents-memory`,

`$agents-memory`, "remember this", "what did I note about X", "recall",

or "forget X". Autonomous knowledge capture after solving a problem is

agents-md's Prevent Recurrence, not this skill.

metadata:

capabilities: shell, writes-outside-repo, edits-agent-instructions

replaces: to-memory

---

# agents-memory — Explicit Memory

Records one thing the user explicitly asked to remember, and recalls or

forgets short-term notes on request.

## Scope and tier

Two independent decisions, each resolved from an explicit argument, semantic

inference from the request, or by asking when genuinely ambiguous:

- **Scope** — `global` (`~/.agents/...`, read by every agent and project) or

`project` (this repo only).

- **Tier** — `long-term` (durable, timeless, must be explicitly requested) or

`short-term` (dated candidate; the default when ambiguous).

## When tier is long-term

Write directly into the durable target — no intermediate staging or batch review:

- Global: `~/.agents/AGENTS.md`

- Project: `<repo>/AGENTS.md`, where `<repo>` is the git root of the current

working directory (the directory itself outside git) — never the directory

this skill was loaded from.

Before writing, hold the note to this bar:

- **Verified** — proven to work in this workspace, not a guess.

- **Reusable** — likely useful again, not one-off task progress.

- **Stable** — a lasting convention, not a temporary hack.

- Strip time-of-day stamps (e.g. `[HH:MM]`) — durable files are timeless.

Placement — a root line or a topic doc behind a pointer — and the size budget

follow the `agents-md` skill.

Always show the exact addition and get explicit confirmation before writing to a

durable file.

## When tier is short-term

Land the note as its own file — one file per note, not appended to a shared log:

```text

~/.agents/memories/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md # global

~/.agents/memories/projects/<proj-slug>/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md # project

```

- `YYYY-MM-DD` is today's date.

- `<slug>` is a short, agent-chosen topic slug, so the filename alone identifies

the content without opening the file.

- Resolve `<proj-slug>` and the project memory directory with

`scripts/proj-memory-path.sh` (pure resolution by default; pass `--ensure`

to also create the directory).

- No retention policy and no resolution markers: when a note is no longer needed,

delete the file directly — a destructive action, so get explicit confirmation

first, same as any other destructive operation.

- To search past short-term notes, `grep`/`ls` the directories above directly — no

dedicated recall skill is needed once you know where they live.

## Never write

Passwords, tokens, credentials, PII, or unverified speculation — see

[references/security.md](references/security.md) for the full list and how to

redact instead of dropping a note entirely.

## Cross-agent global memory setup

Wiring a newly installed coding agent's own native global memory file to

`~/.agents/AGENTS.md` is a one-time setup task, not a memory-capture action — see

[references/cross-agent-locations.md](references/cross-agent-locations.md) for the

per-agent path table. There is no dedicated script for this; wire the file by

hand, in whatever way fits its format, and back up any existing real file

first.