session-palace-builder

Table of Contents

• What It Is
• Quick Start
• Mental Model
• When to Use
• Session Palace Templates
• Information Categories
• Core Workflow
• Session Lifecycle
• Clarity Checkpoints
• Detailed Resources
• Integration
• Exit Criteria

Session Palace Builder

Construct temporary, session-specific memory palaces for extended conversations and complex projects. Preserves context across interruptions and enables structured information accumulation.

What It Is

Session palaces are lightweight, temporary memory structures that:

• Preserve context for extended conversations
• Track decisions and their rationale
• Organize project artifacts spatially
• Enable context recovery after interruptions
• Support collaborative information gathering

Quick Start

Build Commands

```bash

Run build

make build

Clean and rebuild

make clean && make build ```

Testing

```bash

Run tests

make test

Run with verbose output

make test VERBOSE=1 ```

Verification: Run make build && make test to confirm build works.

When To Use

• Extended conversations requiring context preservation
• Complex, multi-step projects with interrelated components
• Workflows requiring state management across interactions
• Collaborative sessions accumulating information over time
• Code review or debugging sessions with many findings

When NOT To Use

• Permanent knowledge structures needed - use memory-palace-architect
• Searching existing knowledge
  • use knowledge-locator
• Permanent knowledge structures needed - use memory-palace-architect
• Searching existing knowledge
  • use knowledge-locator

Session Palace Templates

Template	Purpose	Key Areas
Workshop	Active development	Workbench, tools, materials
Library	Research and analysis	Stacks, reading room, archives
Council Chamber	Decision-making	Round table, evidence wall, vote board
Observatory	Exploration and discovery	Telescope, star charts, log book
Forge	Implementation tasks	Anvil, cooling rack, finished goods

Information Categories

Organize session content into these standard areas:

• Conversations - Dialogue threads and key exchanges
• Decisions - Choices made with rationale
• Code - Snippets and technical artifacts
• Research - Findings and references
• Requirements - Specifications and constraints
• Progress - Completed milestones
• Issues - Blockers and challenges
• Next Steps - Pending action items

Core Workflow

1. Analyze Context - Assess session scope and complexity
2. Design Palace - Select template and layout
3. Structure State - Organize information spatially
4. Build Navigation - Create access shortcuts
5. Test Integration - Verify context preservation

Session Lifecycle

Create → Populate → Navigate → Export/Archive
   ↑         ↓          ↓
   └─── Checkpoint ←────┘

Verification: Run the command with --help flag to verify availability.

Clarity Checkpoints

A session palace decays silently: each Populate step can add ambiguity that only surfaces at Export, when it is too late to recover the lost state. MMPO (arXiv:2605.30159, Section 3) frames this as a case for sub-trajectory dense rewards: check intermediate quality at each transition, not just the final outcome.

At every Checkpoint arrow in the lifecycle above (and before any Export/Archive), run the dual-probe gate against the current palace state:

Skill(memory-palace:memory-clarity-probe)

The probe returns a Clarity Assessment with progress/gap verdicts and a Recommendation:

Recommendation	Action at the checkpoint
Proceed	Palace state is clear; continue the session
Expand memory	Add the gap probe's open items to the palace before continuing
Regenerate	Flag the session as ambiguous: the progress probe hedges, so reconstruct the current-state room before more work lands on it

Flagging at the checkpoint, not at export, is the point: an ambiguous palace caught early costs one room rebuild; caught at export it costs the session.

When memory-clarity-probe is not installed, ask the two anchor questions inline (progress: what is done and what state is the task in; gap: what concrete items remain) and apply the same table.

Detailed Resources

• Template Details: See modules/templates.md
• State Management: See modules/templates.md
• Export Patterns: See modules/templates.md

Integration

• memory-palace-architect - Export important concepts to permanent palaces
• knowledge-locator - Search session content
• digital-garden-cultivator - Seed garden with session insights
• memory-clarity-probe - Dual-probe clarity gate at session checkpoints

Exit Criteria

• A session palace is created with a template and spatial layout before any state is populated
• The dual-probe clarity gate runs at each Checkpoint transition and before Export/Archive, not only at the end
• A checkpoint returning Expand memory or Regenerate is acted on (gap items added or current-state room rebuilt) before more work lands, and the ambiguous session is flagged
• Exported concepts round-trip into a permanent palace via memory-palace-architect