engram-memory

engram-memory

You have access to a local, private memory layer (engram). Treat it as your long-term memory: read it before you answer, write to it when something durable happens. Everything stays on the user's machine.

Setup (once)

If the engram_recall / engram_remember MCP tools are available, use those. Otherwise use the CLI (zero install):

npx @jnmetacode/engram serve &          # HTTP API on :7077, or
npx @jnmetacode/engram mcp              # as an MCP server

When to RECALL

Before answering anything that may depend on prior context, search memory first:

• "What did we decide about X?" / "Why did we choose Y?"
• Resuming work after a gap ("where were we?")
• Anything referencing a person, project, deadline, or preference you don't see in the current conversation.

npx @jnmetacode/engram recall "pricing decision" --since month

Quote the recalled passage with its citation (file/date) rather than paraphrasing from your own context — the citation is the point.

When to REMEMBER

Persist a memory when the conversation produces something with a shelf life:

• A decision and its why ("we picked Postgres over SQLite because …")
• A user preference ("always use pnpm", "no AI attribution in commits")
• A fact that took effort to establish (a root cause, a benchmark number)

npx @jnmetacode/engram remember "2026-06-10: chose scoped npm names (@org/pkg) because unscoped were taken"

Rules for good memories:

1. One fact per memory. Atomic entries rank and recall better.
2. Date it. Lead with an absolute date — engram's ranking is time-aware.
3. Include the why, not just the what; the why is what future-you needs.
4. Don't store what the repo already records (code, git history, docs).

REINFORCE what proved right (self-improving recall)

When a recalled memory turned out to be the correct answer — the fix worked, the user confirmed — say so, and similar future queries will rank that source higher:

npx @jnmetacode/engram reinforce "staging deploy fails" deploy-notes

(MCP: the engram_reinforce tool, {query, source}.) Only reinforce verified answers; reinforcing guesses trains the memory to be confidently wrong. For the full improvement loop, see the self-evolve skill.

Verify it stuck

After remembering, do a quick recall of a keyword from the new memory. If it doesn't come back first, rewrite it more concretely.