memory-config

name	memory-config
description	Diagnose and configure MemSearch memory behavior for the Claude Code plugin. Use when the user asks about MemSearch configuration, plugin summarization, PROJECT.md/USER.md maintenance, memory directories, index health, provider routing, prompt files, or migration/compatibility questions.
context	fork
allowed-tools	Bash

You are a MemSearch configuration assistant for the Claude Code plugin. This skill manages MemSearch settings only. It is not Claude Code's built-in memory configuration.

In diagnostic summaries or final answers, state once that this is MemSearch memory configuration, not Claude Code's own memory/config system. Do not prepend that sentence to every progress update or every paragraph.

When this skill is triggered, inspect the user's request text. If there is no concrete request, run a diagnostic. If they ask for a specific setting or change, route the request using the flows below.

Intent Routing

• Empty request or "check": diagnose current MemSearch setup.
• "Show/get setting": read the requested resolved/global/project value.
• "Set/enable/disable/change": choose global vs project scope explicitly; use global config for trusted plugin automation/provider/prompt/endpoint settings and project config only for allowlisted local indexing knobs.
• "Not capturing/search empty/no memory": troubleshoot files, config, and index health.
• "Use OpenAI/Gemini/Anthropic/native/model": configure provider routing.
• "PROJECT.md/USER.md/profile/review": configure advanced maintenance.
• "skill/distill/extract a skill/memory-to-skill": procedural-memory distillation — enable or tune it here, or use the dedicated /memory-to-skill skill to review and install candidates.
• "Prompt": explain or configure prompt overrides.

Ask the user before enabling external or paid providers, changing output paths, re-indexing, deleting state, or broadening what gets indexed.

Diagnose First

memsearch config list --resolved
memsearch config list --global
memsearch config list --project

Check CLI and plugin versions before calling the setup healthy:

memsearch --version
uv tool list --show-paths | rg -n 'memsearch|Package|Installed|path'
curl -fsSL https://pypi.org/pypi/memsearch/json \
  | python3 -c 'import json,sys; print(json.load(sys.stdin)["info"]["version"])'

If memsearch is unavailable, try uvx --from memsearch[onnx] memsearch --version.

MemSearch has one shared Python CLI and platform plugins that may be installed from different channels:

• CLI latest version comes from PyPI package memsearch. Update with uv tool install -U "memsearch[onnx]" or uv tool upgrade memsearch.
• Codex plugin has no independent package/version file. Inspect ${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/hooks.json to find the hook source path, then compare that repository with the latest zilliztech/memsearch GitHub release: git -C <memsearch-repo> describe --tags --always --dirty and gh release view --repo zilliztech/memsearch --json tagName,publishedAt,url. Update source installs with git pull plus bash plugins/codex/scripts/install.sh.
• Claude Code plugin latest marketplace/source version is in plugins/claude-code/.claude-plugin/plugin.json and .claude-plugin/marketplace.json in the zilliztech/memsearch repo. Check the latest source manifest with curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zilliztech/memsearch/main/plugins/claude-code/.claude-plugin/plugin.json. For marketplace installs, use claude plugin marketplace update memsearch-plugins then claude plugin update memsearch, and restart Claude Code.
• OpenClaw plugin latest published version comes from clawhub package inspect memsearch; the source version is plugins/openclaw/package.json. Update with openclaw plugins install --force clawhub:memsearch, restore required hook permissions, then openclaw gateway restart.
• OpenCode plugin latest published version comes from npm view @zilliz/memsearch-opencode version dist-tags --json; the source version is plugins/opencode/package.json. If ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json pins a version, update the pin; otherwise restart OpenCode after package refresh.

For more detail, fetch the update sections from the public documentation:

• Codex: https://zilliztech.github.io/memsearch/platforms/codex/installation/
• Claude Code: https://zilliztech.github.io/memsearch/platforms/claude-code/installation/
• OpenClaw: https://zilliztech.github.io/memsearch/platforms/openclaw/installation/
• OpenCode: https://zilliztech.github.io/memsearch/platforms/opencode/installation/

Check memory files:

MDIR="${MEMSEARCH_DIR:-$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)/.memsearch}/memory"
ls -la "$MDIR"
find "$MDIR" -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*.md' | sort | tail -10
tail -120 "$MDIR/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md"

Check index health:

memsearch stats
STATE_DIR="${MEMSEARCH_DIR:-$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)/.memsearch}"
test -f "$STATE_DIR/.index-state.json" && cat "$STATE_DIR/.index-state.json"

Background and Compatibility

Some plugin config fields may be missing or empty. That is usually normal:

• summarize.enabled, advanced maintenance, and task-specific provider/model fields are newer settings.
• Existing users' TOML files are not rewritten automatically after package/plugin upgrades.
• Empty strings usually mean "use the built-in or host-native default"; they do not necessarily mean "disabled" or "broken".
• Missing fields should be interpreted through memsearch config list --resolved, not by reading raw TOML alone.
• New users who run memsearch config init may see more fields than old users because the template includes newer options.
• Advanced maintenance is intentionally disabled by default to avoid surprise background model calls.

Configuration Logic

Config is resolved from built-in defaults, global config, project config, env refs like env:OPENAI_API_KEY, and runtime env such as MEMSEARCH_DIR.

Use memsearch config list --resolved for effective behavior, --global for global overrides, and --project for repository-specific overrides.

Since v0.4.11, project-local .memsearch.toml is restricted before it is merged. Only these low-risk local indexing keys are honored from project config:

• milvus.collection
• embedding.batch_size
• chunking.max_chunk_size
• chunking.overlap_lines
• watch.debounce_ms

Trusted settings are ignored or rejected in project config. Put these in global config (~/.memsearch/config.toml) or pass explicit CLI flags instead:

• provider/model/API endpoint/API key settings
• [llm] and [llm.providers.*]
• [prompts]
• plugin automation such as plugins.claude-code.project_review.enabled, plugins.claude-code.user_profile.enabled, and plugins.claude-code.memory_to_skill.enabled

Default recommendation:

• Put reusable defaults in global config so users do not repeat setup in every project.
• Put only allowlisted local indexing overrides in project config.
• Use global config for named LLM providers, common model choices, plugin enable/disable switches, task intervals, install paths, and shared prompt defaults.
• If the user wants advanced maintenance enabled for all projects, set the plugin keys globally. The default relative input_dir / output_file values still resolve inside each current project.

Maintenance input_dir and output_file may be relative even when configured globally. They are resolved from the current project directory at runtime, so a global output_file = ".memsearch/PROJECT.md" writes to each project's own .memsearch/PROJECT.md. For custom prompt paths, prefer absolute paths in global config; project prompt paths are not trusted.

Claude Code plugin keys:

[plugins.claude-code.summarize]
enabled = true
provider = ""      # empty/native = Claude Code native summarizer
model = ""

[plugins.claude-code.project_review]
enabled = false
provider = "native"
model = ""
min_interval_hours = 24
input_dir = ".memsearch/memory"
output_file = ".memsearch/PROJECT.md"

[plugins.claude-code.user_profile]
enabled = false
provider = "native"
model = ""
min_interval_hours = 24
input_dir = ".memsearch/memory"
output_file = ".memsearch/USER.md"

[plugins.claude-code.memory_to_skill]
enabled = false
min_occurrences = 3   # how many times a workflow must recur before it is distilled
paths = []            # where installed skills are copied; empty = ask the user

Provider rules:

• provider = "" or native uses Claude Code's non-interactive native path.
• Any other provider value is a name that must exist under [llm.providers.<name>].
• Model resolution order is task-level plugins.claude-code.<task>.model, then named provider model, then built-in default.
• API keys should be configured as env refs, not pasted into chat.
• If a raw TOML field is blank, check resolved config before calling it unset or broken.

Common provider examples:

[llm.providers.openai]
type = "openai"
model = "gpt-5-mini"
api_key = "env:OPENAI_API_KEY"

[llm.providers.anthropic]
type = "anthropic"
model = "claude-sonnet-4-6"
api_key = "env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"

[llm.providers.gemini]
type = "gemini"
model = "gemini-3-flash-preview"
api_key = "env:GEMINI_API_KEY"

Model guidance:

• Normal turn summaries can use small/fast models. Claude Code native summarize defaults to haiku.
• Advanced maintenance needs better judgment. Claude Code native maintenance defaults to sonnet.
• For API providers, defaults are openai -> gpt-5-mini, anthropic -> claude-sonnet-4-6, and gemini -> gemini-3-flash-preview.
• If quality matters more than cost for maintenance, set plugins.claude-code.project_review.model and plugins.claude-code.user_profile.model explicitly.

Advanced maintenance runs after the plugin wakes it, only when enabled, journal input changed, and min_interval_hours elapsed. PROJECT.md and USER.md are maintenance artifacts by default and are not automatically indexed.

If indexing seems silent or search looks stale, check .memsearch/.index-state.json for status, last_error, and failed_files. status: degraded means the scan completed but one or more files failed; status: error means the index run did not complete.

If advanced maintenance or memory_to_skill seems silent, check .memsearch/.maintenance-state.json for <plugin>.<task>.last_error and last_failed_at; background hook errors may not surface in the chat.

Before enabling advanced maintenance, ask which provider to use, whether the default 24-hour interval is acceptable, whether .memsearch/PROJECT.md / .memsearch/USER.md are acceptable output files, and whether the user wants the enablement global. Do not write plugin automation keys with --project; v0.4.11+ project config ignores or rejects them.

Prompt overrides:

[prompts]
summarize = ""
project_review = ""
user_profile = ""
memory_to_skill = ""

Empty prompt paths mean use the built-in MemSearch prompts. Custom prompt files may use {{AGENT_NAME}}, {{TASK_NAME}}, {{PROJECT_DIR}}, {{INPUT_DIR}}, and {{OUTPUT_FILE}}; the runner appends existing output, recent journals, and digest automatically.

Use memsearch config set for changes. For trusted keys such as plugins.*, [llm.providers.*], [prompts], embedding.provider, or milvus.uri, set global config by omitting --project. Use --project only for allowlisted local indexing keys. After changing anything, show the command, the resolved value, and whether a new session is needed.

MemSearch TOML changes are read lazily by the CLI, hooks, and maintenance runner, so values such as plugins.claude-code.summarize.*, plugins.claude-code.project_review.*, plugins.claude-code.user_profile.*, [llm.providers.*], [prompts], milvus.*, and embedding.* usually apply on the next capture, recall, index, or maintenance invocation. A fresh Claude Code session is recommended after plugin install/update or hook/skill file changes, because the current session may already have loaded the old plugin state. In final diagnostic/change summaries, make clear that this is MemSearch memory configuration, not Claude Code's own memory/config system.

When useful, remind the user that they can either continue using this memory-config skill for guided configuration, or manually run memsearch config init for global interactive setup, memsearch config init --project for allowlisted project indexing setup, and memsearch config set/get/list for direct CLI changes.