Cognitive Memory

Cognitive Memory (Cognify)

The Cognitive Memory system (PR #727, codenamed "Cognify") provides Hermes Agent with semantic recall, auto-encoding, contradiction detection, and exponential forgetting.

Architecture

• cognitive_memory/: Core logic (store, embeddings, recall, encoding, extraction).
• tools/cognitive_memory_tool.py: Agent-facing cognitive_recall tool.
• Database: ~/.hermes/cognitive_memory.db (SQLite).

Setup & Configuration

Enable in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

cognitive_memory:
  enabled: true
  embedding:
    model: "text-embedding-3-small"

Known Issues & Workarounds

Dependency: litellm

Cognify depends on litellm. On macOS systems with Homebrew Python, you may encounter pyexpat errors related to Symbol not found: _XML_SetAllocTrackerActivationThreshold.

Fix:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/homebrew/opt/expat/lib
python3.13 -m pip install litellm --break-system-packages

Manual Installation (from PR branch)

If the system is not yet merged, files must be extracted from the cognitive-memory branch:

1. git fetch origin pull/727/head:cognitive-memory
2. git show cognitive-memory:path/to/file > path/to/file
3. Tools must be registered in tools/registry.py (standard auto-discovery usually handles this if cognitive_memory_tool.py is in the tools/ dir).

Tool usage: cognitive_recall

• action='store', content='...': Saves to semantic memory.
• action='recall', query='...': Retrieves by meaning.
• action='forget', query='...': Deletes matching items.
• action='status': Shows database stats.