memory-informed-longitudinal-work

Memory-Informed Longitudinal Work

Multi-session engineering work (research, eval loops, iterative benchmarks) where lessons must accumulate across runs. The motivating case: improving a core algorithm over dozens of eval iterations without starting from scratch each session.

Instructions

Step 1: Resume context (session start)

Rely on the SessionStart hook's thread-continuity check for the primer. If this session is a continuation, you'll see a concise "Last session lessons" surface. Treat those as working knowledge — do not re-ask the user about things the primer already stated.

Step 2: Proactively recall per topic shift

When the session pivots to a new sub-topic (new phase, new eval subset, new failure mode), call pensyve_recall:

• query: short description of the new sub-topic
• entity: project + sub-topic entity (per skills/shared/entity-detection.md canonicalization rules)
• limit: 5

No types filter — longitudinal work benefits from all three memory types; omit to query all. (Passing all three explicitly is equivalent to no filter; omitting is cleaner.)

Surface: Recalled N prior findings on <sub-topic>.

Step 3: Capture three types of memory per run

During the session, classify emerging knowledge into the three memory types and capture accordingly:

What you learned	Type	Example
Per-run outcome (what this run showed)	episodic	"Run N+1: V7r accuracy improved +3.5% with new threshold"
Stable truth about the system	semantic	"Haiku classifier plateaus above temp 0.3"
Reusable experiment procedure	procedural	"To calibrate V7r: freeze Haiku config, run suite, diff baseline"

Apply the memory reflex the moment a finding is confirmed. Do not batch — capture at landing.

For procedural captures: pensyve_observe with episode_id: <session episode_id>, source_entity: "claude-code", about_entity: <relevant entity>, content: "[procedural] [proactive/in-flight/tier-1] trigger=..., action=..., outcome=...", content_type: "text".

Step 4: Capture open questions

When a run ends with an unresolved question ("X improved but we don't know why"), capture it as an episodic observation with open-question provenance:

pensyve_observe(
  episode_id: <session episode_id>,
  source_entity: "claude-code",
  about_entity: <entity>,
  content: "[proactive/in-flight/open-question] <question>",
  content_type: "text"
)

This populates the "open questions" surface in the next session's primer.

Step 5: End-of-session summary

Before Stop fires, briefly summarize (inline, 3-5 lines): what this run taught us vs. prior runs, what's still open. This creates a natural handoff for the next session.

Constraints

• Recall on every topic shift — not just at session start.
• Capture at landing, not batch.
• Respect max_auto_memories_per_session — in longitudinal work this can be raised; suggest the user consider 20-30 for heavy eval sessions.
• Never store run artifacts or large data blobs — summarize.