Set up the Forgetful CLI and connect from a terminal — install, local or remote mode, auth, and verification. Use when connecting a human or headless agent via shell, wiring CI with token auth, or operating a local server (serve, database selection, feature flags, re-embedding). Also covers the machine contract: --json output, exit codes, and the discovery ladder.
Gather deep context before planning or implementing — one pass that turns a task description into a cited context pack: relevant decisions, patterns, constraints, code pointers, procedures, and explicit gaps. Runs recall from several angles, explores the graph around the strongest hits, and opens the linked material.
Encode a repository into the Forgetful knowledge base — bootstrap the project, its entities, memories, and documents from the codebase itself. Use when bringing a new repo under Forgetful or refreshing a stale encoding. Re-encoding is an update pass: query-before-create makes it supersession, not duplication.
Model the things knowledge attaches to — people, organisations, devices, products, system components. Use when a new thing surfaces that memories will reference, when relationships between things need recording (owns, depends on, part of), or when another skill routes a pointable thing here. Litmus: an entity is a noun you could point at; knowledge about it stays a memory.
Explore the Forgetful knowledge graph when flat search isn't enough — cross-project investigations, "what do we know about X", entity-centred questions, tracing how decisions connect. Use when recall returns fragments that reference entities or trail across domains. Walks memories, entities, and relationships into one synthesized picture.
Recall past knowledge before working — prior decisions, solved problems, preferences, project history. Use at the start of any task, when the user references earlier work, when re-entering a project after time away, or before proposing an approach that may already have history. Covers query shaping, scoping, session-start catch-up, and when to escalate to graph exploration.
Remember knowledge worth keeping — a decision made, a solution found, a preference stated, a pattern confirmed. Use when work surfaces something future sessions will need, or the user asks to remember something. Routes content to the right store (memory, document, code artifact, entity, procedure, file) and enforces query-before-create.
File binary content into the knowledge base — screenshots, PDFs, diagrams, fonts, assets. Use when a binary artifact is worth keeping alongside knowledge, or when a stored procedure needs a bundled asset. The description is the entire search surface: say what the file shows and when to reach for it.