Write Memory

Write MemoBox Memory

Write a Memory Mail only for a durable, verified outcome. Store decisions and reusable evidence, not a transcript dump. An existing .memobox directory is the opt-in signal; do not create one automatically.

Worthiness Gate

Write only when at least one of these is true:

• A durable decision, constraint, or project convention was established.
• A non-obvious cause was found and the fix was verified.
• Exact files, commands, URLs, or other artifacts will save meaningful investigation later.
• An unresolved risk or next action must survive the current session.
• The result is a useful cross-session or cross-agent handoff.

Write nothing when the task was a simple lookup, formatting or mechanical edit, contains sensitive material that cannot be safely excluded, produced only speculation, duplicates an existing memory, or has no likely persistent value. Do not create a record merely because the task ended or merely to log that another memory was opened.

Steps

1. Keep one coherent durable outcome per record; most tasks should write zero or one record.
2. Create a concise subject and a one-sentence summary useful from the index alone.
3. Include verified context in --body; put decisions, artifacts, risks, and next actions in their structured flags. When recency matters, set --last-verified-at; set --valid-until only when there is a real review horizon.
4. If this result replaces an older project memory, add one --supersedes <id> per replaced record. MemoBox will link the new record and mark those exact sources stale; review the old bodies before doing this.
5. Add one --source-ref "memobox:<id>" for each previously stored project memory that materially influenced this result, or --source-ref "memobox-global:<id>" for global memory. Do not cite ids that were merely opened.
6. Confirm command -v memobox. In a MemoBox source checkout only, use PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m memobox.cli as the fallback.
7. Run, omitting empty flags:

   memobox --store .memobox write \
     --subject "<short title>" \
     --summary "<index-level summary>" \
     --project "<project>" \
     --team "<team>" \
     --role "<role>" \
     --tags "<comma,separated,tags>" \
     --body "<verified context and result>" \
     --decision "<decision worth preserving>" \
     --last-verified-at "<ISO-8601 date or timezone-aware datetime>" \
     --valid-until "<ISO-8601 review horizon>" \
     --supersedes "<replaced-memory-id>" \
     --artifact "file:<exact path or evidence URI>" \
     --risk "<remaining caveat>" \
     --next-action "<follow-up if any>" \
     --source-ref "memobox:<reused-memory-id>" \
     --json
   

8. Confirm the returned id exists in .memobox/mails/<id>.json; if --supersedes was used, confirm the exact old records are now stale in the index.

Never store secrets, credentials, private tokens, personal data, confidential raw content, or unredacted logs. Use --raw-trace-file only when the user explicitly wants the evidence retained and it has been checked for sensitive data.

PreCompact(auto) is a safety net, not the primary write path. Its needs_review checkpoints may be partial and should not replace a deliberate, structured end-of-task Memory Mail.