How do I install the Vestige Restore skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add conorluddy/vestige-restore in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Vestige Restore safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Vestige Restore?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Vestige Restore free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Vestige Restore?

conorluddy (@conorluddy) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Vestige Restore by conorluddy — Agent Skill

Name: Vestige Restore
Author: conorluddy

Vestige Restore

Restore a previously soft-deleted Vestige memory by its handle (`mem_<ULID>`). Use when a memory was forgotten in error, when the situation has reverted (a decision that was reversed gets re-affirmed), or the user says "bring back <id>", "restore <id>", "undo that forget", "that memory should still be there". Re-flips status from `deleted` to `active` and re-indexes the memory's representations into FTS. Note — embeddings are left stale by restore (they'll re-embed on the next `vestige embed` run).

conorluddy Updated Sep 17, 2026

File contents

Restore a soft-deleted memory

Undo a vestige-forget by flipping the memory's status back to active.

When to fire

A memory was forgotten in error.
A decision that was reversed has been re-affirmed (the new "decision" is "we changed our mind back").
The user says "restore " / "bring back " / "undo that forget".

If the memory was never recorded in the first place, capture it via vestige-record-* instead — restore only works on previously soft-deleted rows.

How to invoke

vestige restore <mem_id> --json

<mem_id> (positional, required): the handle of a previously soft-deleted memory.
--json (optional): structured envelope.

Exit code 0 means restored. Non-zero means the id wasn't found (or wasn't in deleted state — restore only acts on soft-deleted rows).

After invocation

Surface: "Restored mem_…. It's back in search results." The memory is immediately searchable via vestige-recall again.

Note on embeddings: restore re-indexes FTS triggers automatically, but does not regenerate embeddings — the old embeddings stay marked stale. If semantic recall matters for the restored memory, suggest the user run vestige embed --all to re-embed.

Idempotence & dedup

Restore is idempotent: calling it on an already-active memory is a no-op (non-zero exit). Safe to retry.

Frequently asked questions