Ritual

Ritual Memory 🔄

Status: 📋 Agent Guideline | Module: ritual | Part of: Agent Brain

Pattern detection and habit tracking. The agent should watch for repeated behaviors and store them as pattern entries.

What It Does

Guides the agent to notice repeated actions and store them as pattern entries. Ritual does NOT run automatically — the agent must manually check for patterns using the similar command.

Detection

The agent uses the similar command to find related entries:

After Storing a Procedure or Preference

# After storing, check for similar entries
./scripts/memory.sh similar "<content>" 0.10

# If 3+ SIMILAR_ENTRIES of same type → create a pattern
./scripts/memory.sh add pattern "User always asks for examples when learning" \
  inferred "learning,style,examples"

This is a manual step the agent should perform — it is not automatic.

What the similar Command Does

• Uses TF-IDF with cosine similarity (no external libraries)
• Filters stopwords for meaningful comparison
• Returns scored results above threshold (default 0.10)
• Works across sessions — the engine handles persistence

What Counts as "Similar"

• TF-IDF similarity score >= 0.10 (configurable threshold)
• Same or overlapping tags
• Same type of action (procedure/preference)

Anti-Pattern Detection (Automatic)

The ONE automatic detection that exists: when the correct command is called and 3+ corrections share the same tag, the system suggests creating an anti-pattern entry. This IS implemented in code.

# After 3 corrections with tag "code.database":
# System prints: ANTI_PATTERN_DETECTED: tag 'code.database' has 3 corrections
# Suggests: add anti-pattern "Avoid inferring code.database - ask explicitly" inferred "code.database,caution"

Pattern Storage

# When the agent detects a pattern (manual):
./scripts/memory.sh add pattern "User always asks for examples when learning new concepts" \
  inferred "learning,style,examples"

Pattern entries have:

• source: "inferred" (not user-stated)
• confidence: "uncertain" (until confirmed)
• Tags linking to the topic area

Pattern Lifecycle

Behavior observed once     → stored as fact/preference/procedure
Agent runs similar, finds 3+ matches → agent creates pattern entry (uncertain)
User confirms pattern      → ./scripts/memory.sh update <id> confidence sure
User denies pattern        → ./scripts/memory.sh supersede <id> <new_id>
Pattern unused 60+ days    → decayed via standard decay

What Ritual Does NOT Do

• Auto-detect patterns (agent must manually run similar)
• Execute automated workflows
• Call external APIs or services
• Run scheduled tasks

Integration

• Archive: Agent reads similar results to detect patterns manually
• Gauge: Patterns start as UNCERTAIN, upgrade on confirmation