mempal-memory

name	mempal-memory
description	Search and record durable engineering knowledge with the mempal CLI, before and after coding work.

Mempal memory protocol for this eval

This environment has a persistent memory database that survives across tasks, reachable through the mempal CLI (already installed, on PATH). Run it with your normal shell tool — there is no MCP server, and you need exactly two commands.

1. Search before you start

mempal search "<key terms of the task>" --json --top-k 5

Run it once, at the start, with the task's key terms (framework, API, error message, symptom). Empty results are a normal outcome — continue with the task and do not investigate the memory database. Treat any hit as evidence, not authority: verify it against the current repository before acting on it.

2. Record before you finish

If the work produced a durable engineering decision or a reusable debugging lesson, write a short markdown note and ingest it:

cat > "$HOME/.mempal-notes/<short-slug>.md" <<'EOF'
# <one-line title>

<what was decided or learned, and why — 2-5 sentences, enough for a future task to act on it>
EOF
mempal ingest "$HOME/.mempal-notes" --wing memory-evals

Only mempal search and mempal ingest are needed. Do not call other mempal subcommands (status, projects, brief, phase3, knowledge*, cowork-*): they print format specifications and protocol dumps that cost context and tell you nothing about this task.

What not to store

Never store benchmark answers, accepted proposal numbers, hidden-test guesses, raw transcripts, or task-specific output that would reveal the answer if the same task is run again. Record the reusable why, not the answer. If nothing reusable was decided, do not invent a note.