/memory-dream

name: memory-dream
description: Procedure for periodic memory dream consolidation. Run by the "Memory Dream" routine.
metadata:
  visible: false

Memory dream

Fold what has happened since the last pass back into the memory store: merge what belongs together, correct what has changed, drop what is no longer true.

Your system prompt already carries the memory format, the four types, and the catalogue. This is the procedure to keep them organized and accessible.

Work the phases in order and finish with the report.

1. Orient

`list_files` on your memory directory, then read the memories that cover the topics you are about to touch. You are improving a store that already exists.

2. Gather

The trigger metadata names `review_since`. Read what was said since then:

bun ~/.pipali/skills/memory-dream/scripts/transcripts.ts --since <review_since>

Without `review_since` the script covers the last 7 days. `--limit <n>` caps how many conversations it prints, newest first.

What is worth carrying out of a transcript:

• Corrections. The user telling you that something you did was wrong, or how they

would rather you did it.

• Preferences stated in passing. Tools, formats, hours, names, the way they like work

handed back to them.

• Facts that contradict a memory you already hold.
• Durable context about their work, setup or people, of the kind that will still be

true next month.

What is not:

• Anything answered and finished inside the conversation.
• What their files, repositories or history already record.
• One-off task detail. A question they asked once is not a standing interest.

3. Consolidate

For each thing worth keeping:

• A memory already covers the topic: edit that file. Two files saying nearby things

are harder to find than one saying both.

• Nothing covers it: write a new memory.
• A memory is contradicted: fix it at the source, in the file, rather than adding a

memory that argues with it.

• Relative dates ("yesterday", "last week") become absolute dates.
• Link related memories with `[[their-filename]]`.

Deleting is removing the file - `shell_command` with `rm`. The catalogue is derived from the directory, so nothing else needs updating.

4. Prune

The store works while it stays scannable; past roughly 200 memories, recall degrades for every one of them. Bring it back under that by merging overlapping files and deleting what has gone stale.

Then reread the descriptions. A description is the only thing a future recall sees, so one that could describe half the store makes its memory unreachable however good the body is. Sharpen the vague ones.

Rules

• Do not edit `USER.md`. Those are the user's own words about themselves. If a memory

contradicts it, note the contradiction in the memory.

• When you are unsure whether to delete something, keep it. A stale memory costs a

line in the catalogue; a deleted load-bearing one costs the user their context.

• Verify before you record. A memory naming a file, path or tool that no longer exists

is worse than no memory.

Report

Close with a short summary the user will read on the routine's card: what you added, what you merged, what you deleted, and why. A few lines. If you changed nothing, say that and say what you looked at.