Memory Reflect

Sleep-time memory reflection: review recent conversations and daily notes, extract insights, and consolidate into long-term memory. Use when triggered by cron, heartbeat, or explicit request to reflect on recent activity. Runs as background processing to improve memory quality over time.

Review recent activity and consolidate valuable insights into long-term memory.

Inspired by sleep-time compute — the idea that memory formation happens best between active sessions, not during them.

When to Run

• Cron/heartbeat: Schedule as a periodic background task (recommended: 1-2x daily)
• On demand: User asks to reflect, consolidate, or review recent memory
• Post-compaction: After context window compaction events

Process

1. Gather Recent Material

Find what changed recently, then read the relevant files:

# Find recently modified notes — use json format for the complete list
# (text format truncates to ~5 items in the summary)
recent_activity(timeframe="2d", output_format="json")

# Read specific daily notes
read_note(identifier="memory/2026-02-27")
read_note(identifier="memory/2026-02-26")

# Check active tasks
search_notes(note_types=["task"], status="active")

2. Evaluate What Matters

For each piece of information, ask:

• Is this a decision that affects future work? → Keep
• Is this a lesson learned or mistake to avoid? → Keep
• Is this a preference or working style insight? → Keep
• Is this a relationship detail (who does what, contact info)? → Keep
• Is this transient (weather checked, heartbeat ran, routine task)? → Skip
• Is this already captured in MEMORY.md or another long-term file? → Skip

3. Update Long-Term Memory

Write consolidated insights to MEMORY.md following its existing structure:

• Add new sections or update existing ones
• Use concise, factual language
• Include dates for temporal context
• Remove or update outdated entries that the new information supersedes

4. Log the Reflection

Append a brief entry to today's daily note:

## Reflection (HH:MM)
- Reviewed: [list of files reviewed]
- Added to MEMORY.md: [brief summary of what was consolidated]
- Removed/updated: [anything cleaned up]

Guidelines

• Be selective. The goal is distillation, not duplication. MEMORY.md should be curated wisdom, not a copy of daily notes.
• Preserve voice. If the agent has a personality/soul file, reflections should match that voice.
• Don't delete daily notes. They're the raw record. Reflection extracts from them; it doesn't replace them.
• Merge, don't append. If MEMORY.md already has a section about a topic, update it in place rather than adding a duplicate entry.
• Flag uncertainty. If something seems important but you're not sure, add it with a note like "(needs confirmation)" rather than skipping it entirely.
• Restructure over time. If MEMORY.md is a chronological dump, restructure it into topical sections during reflection. Curated knowledge > raw logs.
• Check for filesystem issues. Look for recursive nesting (memory/memory/memory/...), orphaned files, or bloat while gathering material.