| name | memory-curation |
| description | Runtime memory-writing discipline for ginnie-agents. Three tiers — rules (always loaded), playbook (always loaded), episodes (lazy-loaded via grep). The nightly consolidation procedure lives in a separate file and is only loaded by the consolidation cron, not by every session. |
Memory Curation — Runtime Discipline
Your rules and playbook are already in your system prompt (injected by the entrypoint). You do not cat them. Episodes live on disk; grep them on demand.
The three tiers
| File | Loaded | Contents | Writer |
|---|
./memory/rules.md (≤200 lines, hard cap) | Always | User-stated rules | Agent edits in place, immediately, on first hearing |
./memory/playbook.md (≤300 lines, hard cap) | Always | Settled patterns | Nightly consolidation cron only |
./memory/episodes/YYYY-Qn.md | Lazy — grep on demand | Raw journal | Agent appends during sessions |
Writing discipline
When the user states a requirement, correction, or preference:
Edit ./memory/rules.md immediately. One line. Edit-in-place — if a similar rule exists, amend it; do not append a duplicate. Include a compact why so future-you can judge edge cases. No dates. No narrative.
Good: - All reports in English only. (operator, permanent.)
Bad: - 2026-04-19 11:00: operator said English today ...
When something happens during a session (scan result, action, observation, follow-up):
Append to the current quarter's episode file.
Q="$(date '+%Y')-Q$(( ( $(date '+%-m') - 1 ) / 3 + 1 ))"
NOW=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M %Z')
cat >> ./memory/episodes/$Q.md << EP
---
## $NOW — <short topic>
<what happened in 3–10 lines>
EP
Tag observations you think might be patterns with #pattern-candidate — the nightly consolidation routine promotes them.
Never write to playbook.md during a live session — that's the cron's job.
Never edit past episode entries — episodes are append-only. Add a correction as a new entry.
Never recreate memory.md, decisions.md, or lessons_learned.md.
Reading discipline
- Rules and playbook are in your system context. Don't cat them.
- For history,
grep the current quarter's episode file:
grep -n -B1 -A4 'daniel-goldberg' ./memory/episodes/2026-Q2.md | head -60
Hard limits
rules.md > 200 lines → git commit-msg hook rejects.playbook.md > 300 lines → rejected.episodes/*.md shrinking → rejected unless commit message starts with memory-consolidate:.
Consolidation (nightly cron only)
If you ARE the nightly memory-consolidate cron session, the full consolidation procedure lives at /workspace/.shared/skills/memory-curation/consolidation-routine.md. cat that file and follow it. Live sessions do not need it.
