Use a file-based PARA memory system to store, retrieve, and organize durable knowledge across sessions. Trigger on saving facts, daily notes, entity records, weekly synthesis, recall, tacit user patterns, or plan memory.

PARA Memory Files Persistent, file based memory organized by Tiago Forte's PARA method. Three layers: a knowledge graph, daily notes, and tacit knowledge. All paths are relative to $AGENT HOME . Three Memory Layers Layer 1: Knowledge Graph ( $AGENT HOME/life/ PARA) Entity based storage. Each entity gets a folder with two tiers: 1. summary.md quick context, load first. 2. items.yaml atomic facts, load on demand. PARA rules: Projects active work with a goal or deadline. Move to archives when complete. Areas ongoing (people, companies, responsibilities). No end date. Resources reference material, topics of interest. Archives inactive items from any category. Fact rules: Save durable facts immediately to items.yaml . Weekly: rewrite summary.md from active facts. Never delete facts. Supersede instead ( status: superseded , add superseded by ). When an entity goes inactive, move its folder to $AGENT HOME/life/archives/ . When to create an entity: Mentioned 3+ times, OR Direct relationship to the user (family, coworker, partner, client), OR Significant project or company in the user's life. Otherwise, note it in daily notes. For the atomic fact YAML schema and memory decay rules, see [references/schemas.md](references/schemas.md). Layer 2: Daily Notes ( $AGENT HOME/memory/YYYY MM DD.md ) Raw timeline of events the "when" layer. Write continuously during conversations. Extract durable facts to Layer 1 during heartbeats. Layer 3: Tacit Knowledge ( $AGENT HOME/MEMORY.md ) How the user operates patterns, preferences, lessons learned. Not facts about the world; facts about the user. Update whenever you learn new operating patterns. Write It Down No Mental Notes Memory does not survive session restarts. Files do. Want to remember something WRITE IT TO A FILE. "Remember this" update $AGENT HOME/memory/YYYY MM DD.md or the relevant entity file. Learn a lesson update AGENTS.md, TOOLS.md, or the relevant skill file. Make a mistake document it so future you does not repeat it. On disk text files are always better than holding it in temporary context. Memory Recall Use qmd Use qmd rather than grepping files: Index your personal folder: qmd index $AGENT HOME Vectors + BM25 + reranking finds things even when the wording differs. Planning Keep plans in timestamped files in plans/ at the project root (outside personal memory so other agents can access them). Use qmd to search plans. Plans go stale if a newer plan exists, do not confuse yourself with an older version. If you notice staleness, update the file to note what it is supersededBy.

para-memory-files