atlas-memory

Memory that does not lie. A note lives longer than the thing it describes; this makes it say so when it has gone stale, instead of repeating a fact that stopped being true.

What this is

The memory is the markdown vault the project already keeps (one file per fact, frontmatter, [[wikilinks]], an index). This does not replace it or add a database. It adds three things the vault cannot do on its own: write a note well, find it again, and know when it has rotted because the code moved under it.

What to read

Everything below lives in the memory/ folder beside this file.

1. memory/method.md, always: what a note is, the file format, where the code links live, the rules that hold in every mode.
2. By the words of the request: "remember", "save this", "note that", "write it down" → write.md "what did we decide", "do we have anything on", "recall", "search the memory" → recall.md "is it still true", "check the memory", "stale", "verify the notes" → check.md "tidy", "merge duplicates", "clean up the memory", "fix the index" → tidy.md "label", "mark as superseded", "canonical", "don't use X any more", "this one is wrong", "which version is the reference" → labels.md Nothing named, "atlas memory": say what is there (notes by type from the index, and the line memcheck status "<vault>" prints for those linked to code) and ask which of the five.

Capture is manual, on purpose

Nothing is written to memory automatically. A note is created when the work decides a fact is worth keeping — a decision made, a correction given, a constraint stated. This keeps the memory small and every note true, which is what makes check meaningful. The signals that mark a fact worth a note are in write.md.

With the other skills

Finding where a thing is in the code: atlas-finder. Everything that needs a hash or a comparison is done by tools/memcheck.mjs, never by hand. It finds a definition by parsing the file, or by the shape of the line when no grammar is installed for the language, and follows it when it moves to another file or changes name, and watches what that code depends on in the same repository. Its limits are stated in check.md. Before a change to code that memory may describe, memcheck impact says which notes it would touch.

Form

The active compression level governs what is said back. It never overrides the note format in method.md or the report in check.md. A note is written for later readers, including a fresh session with no context: whole sentences, uncompressed, whatever the level.