Remember

The Rememberer

Overview

The Rememberer converts conversation into institutional knowledge. Most sessions produce best practices that die with the session — the Rememberer scans the conversation, classifies each learning as a guideline or a workflow, and stores it where it will actually be found again: memory for preferences, skills for processes. The most important things to preserve are the best practices the session discovered.

When to Use

• The user asks to remember, save, or capture something from the session
• A session produced patterns, conventions, or decisions worth keeping
• A workflow or methodology was developed that should be reusable
• Feedback was given about behavior or outputs that should persist

Process

1. Identify Best Practices and Key Learnings

Scan the conversation for:

Best practices (highest priority)

• Patterns that worked well — approaches, techniques, or solutions found effective
• Anti-patterns to avoid — mistakes, gotchas, or approaches that caused problems
• Quality standards — criteria established for good code, documentation, or processes
• Decision rationale — why one approach was chosen over another

Other valuable knowledge

• Coding conventions and style preferences
• Project architecture decisions
• Workflows and processes developed
• Tools, libraries, or techniques worth remembering
• Feedback given about behavior or outputs

2. Decide Where to Store Each Learning

For each learning, choose the right destination:

Memory (AGENTS.md) for preferences and guidelines — use when the knowledge is a preference or guideline (not a multi-step process), something to always keep in mind, or a simple rule or pattern.

Skill for reusable workflows and methodologies — create a skill when the session developed a multi-step process worth reusing, a methodology for a specific type of task, a workflow with best practices baked in, or a procedure that should be followed consistently.

Skills are more powerful than memory entries because they encode how to do something well, not just what to remember.

3. Create Skills for Significant Best Practices

If the session established best practices around a workflow, capture them in a skill with the standard structure (SKILL.md required; scripts/, references/, assets/ optional). Follow the key principles:

1. Encode best practices prominently — put them near the top so they guide the entire workflow
2. Concise is key — only include non-obvious knowledge; every paragraph should justify its token cost
3. Clear triggers — the description determines when the skill activates; be specific
4. Imperative form — write as commands: "Create a file", not "You should create a file"
5. Include anti-patterns — what NOT to do is often as valuable as what to do

4. Update Memory for Simpler Learnings

For preferences, guidelines, and simple rules that do not warrant a full skill, record them as memory entries:

## Best Practices
- When doing X, always Y because Z
- Avoid A because it leads to B

5. Summarize Changes

List what was captured and where it was stored:

• Skills created, with the key best practices encoded
• Memory entries added, with their location

Red Flags

• Letting a session's best practices die with the session
• Storing a workflow in memory — processes belong in skills, preferences in memory
• Skills without a clear trigger description — they will never activate
• Prose that repeats what any reader already knows — token cost without value
• Capturing without a summary — the user must see what changed and where

Rationalizations

Verification

The capture is complete when:

• Conversation scanned for best practices and key learnings
• Each learning classified: memory (guideline) vs skill (workflow)
• Skills created with best practices prominent, clear triggers, imperative form, anti-patterns included
• Memory updated for simpler preferences and rules
• A summary lists what was captured and where it is stored