Manage Memory

proto's memory system persists facts about you, your projects, and your preferences across sessions so you don't have to repeat context every time.

Memory types

Type	What it stores	Scope
user	Your role, goals, knowledge level, preferences	Global or project
feedback	How you want proto to approach work — corrections and confirmed patterns	Global or project
project	Ongoing work, decisions, deadlines not in the codebase	Project
reference	Pointers to external systems (Linear, Grafana, Slack channels)	Project

Memory scopes

Scope	Location	Used for
Global	~/.proto/memory/	Preferences shared across all projects
Project	.proto/memory/	Project-specific context

Session commands

Command	Description
/memory show	Display all loaded memory content
/memory list	List all memories with metadata
/memory add <fact>	Save a memory
/memory forget <name>	Delete a memory by filename
/memory refresh	Reload memories from disk

Save a memory

Ask proto directly:

Remember that I prefer TypeScript strict mode for all new files.

Or use the command:

/memory add I use pnpm, not npm, for this project.

proto will ask whether to save it globally or to the current project.

Auto-extraction

After each session turn, a background agent reviews the conversation and automatically extracts facts worth remembering. You can review what was saved with /memory list.

Memory files

Each memory is a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter:

---
type: feedback
scope: project
createdAt: 2026-04-07T10:00:00Z
---

Always run `npm run preflight` before marking a task complete.

Files live in .proto/memory/ (project) or ~/.proto/memory/ (global). A MEMORY.md index is auto-generated and loaded into every session.

What NOT to save

Memory is for durable, cross-session facts. Do not save:

• Code patterns or architecture (readable from code)
• Git history or recent changes (use git log)
• Debugging solutions (the fix is in the code)
• In-progress task details

Ignore memory for a session

If you want proto to ignore loaded memories, say so at the start of the session:

Ignore your memory for this session.

Commit project memories to git

Project memories under .proto/memory/ can be committed to share context with teammates:

git add .proto/memory/
git commit -m "chore: add project memory for proto"

Session Notes

In addition to the persistent memory system above, proto maintains a per-session summary in .proto/session-notes.md — a structured, sectioned record that a background agent updates after each turn and compaction reuses as its summary seed. See Session Notes for details.