Twilio Conversation Memory

Overview

Conversation Memory gives agents persistent, cross-session context about customers. A Memory Store holds profiles, observations, summaries, and traits. Data enters two ways:

1. Automatic: Link a Conversation Orchestrator config to a store. Profiles are auto-created per caller. At conversation close, observations and summaries are extracted from the transcript and saved. Conflicting data is automatically reconciled.

2. Direct API: POST observations, summaries, or traits yourself for any use case.

Data comes out via Recall — hybrid semantic + lexical search that surfaces the most relevant profile data. For voice agents where latency is critical, use GET /Observations directly instead.

Base URL: https://memory.twilio.com

Authentication: HTTP Basic — Authorization: Basic {base64(accountSid:authToken)}

Rules for agents:

• Always poll statusUrl after any 202 response — all writes are async
• Always create a trait group before writing traits of that group
• Always use E.164 format for phone numbers (+15558675310)
• Always verify store status is ACTIVE before operating on it
• Never use /v1/Services/ paths — correct paths are /v1/ControlPlane/Stores (config) and /v1/Stores/{storeId}/... (data)
• Never exceed 10 observations per batch or 4096 characters per observation
• Never assume writes are immediately readable — indexing is async
• Never send PCI or HIPAA data — not yet compliant

Prerequisites

• Twilio account with Account SID and Auth Token — A credit card must be added to the account — See twilio-account-setup for initial setup — See twilio-iam-auth-setup for credential best practices
• Environment variables:
  • TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID
  • TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN
• SDK: pip install twilio / npm install twilio
• For automatic extraction: a Conversation Orchestrator configuration — see twilio-conversation-orchestrator

Quickstart

Step 1 — Create a Memory Store

Python

import os, requests
from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth

account_sid = os.environ["TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID"]
auth_token = os.environ["TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN"]
base_url = "https://memory.twilio.com"
auth = HTTPBasicAuth(account_sid, auth_token)

store = requests.post(
    f"{base_url}/v1/ControlPlane/Stores",
    auth=auth,
    json={"displayName": "my-store", "description": "Customer memory"}
).json()

print(store["id"])  # mem_store_xxx — save this
# Poll store["statusUrl"] until status is ACTIVE

Node.js

const axios = require("axios");

const accountSid = process.env.TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID;
const authToken = process.env.TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN;
const baseUrl = "https://memory.twilio.com";
const auth = { username: accountSid, password: authToken };

const { data: store } = await axios.post(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/ControlPlane/Stores`,
    { displayName: "my-store", description: "Customer memory" },
    { auth }
);

console.log(store.id);  // mem_store_xxx
// Poll store.statusUrl until status is ACTIVE

Step 2 — Create a profile with identity resolution

Python

profile = requests.post(
    f"{base_url}/v1/Stores/{store['id']}/Profiles",
    auth=auth,
    json={"traits": {"contact": {"phone": "+15558675310", "name": "Alex"}}}
).json()

profile_id = profile["id"]  # mem_profile_xxx

Node.js

const { data: profile } = await axios.post(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/Stores/${store.id}/Profiles`,
    { traits: { contact: { phone: "+15558675310", name: "Alex" } } },
    { auth }
);

const profileId = profile.id;  // mem_profile_xxx

Step 3 — Post observations (quick test)

Post an observation directly to quickly test Recall in step 4. In production, the preferred path is connecting your Memory Store to a Conversation Orchestrator configuration — observations are then automatically extracted from conversations without manual POSTs. See twilio-conversation-orchestrator.

Python

requests.post(
    f"{base_url}/v1/Stores/{store['id']}/Profiles/{profile_id}/Observations",
    auth=auth,
    json={"observations": [{
        "content": "Customer prefers email communication over phone calls",
        "source": "support-agent",
        "occurredAt": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z"
    }]}
)
# 202 — poll statusUrl for completion

Node.js

await axios.post(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/Stores/${store.id}/Profiles/${profileId}/Observations`,
    { observations: [{
        content: "Customer prefers email communication over phone calls",
        source: "support-agent",
        occurredAt: "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    }] },
    { auth }
);
// 202 — poll statusUrl for completion

Step 4 — Recall relevant context

Python

recall = requests.post(
    f"{base_url}/v1/Stores/{store['id']}/Profiles/{profile_id}/Recall",
    auth=auth,
    json={"query": "communication preferences"}
).json()

for obs in recall["observations"]:
    print(f"[{obs['score']:.2f}] {obs['content']}")

Node.js

const { data: recall } = await axios.post(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/Stores/${store.id}/Profiles/${profileId}/Recall`,
    { query: "communication preferences" },
    { auth }
);

for (const obs of recall.observations) {
    console.log(`[${obs.score.toFixed(2)}] ${obs.content}`);
}

Key Patterns

Recall Modes

Additional Recall parameters: observationsLimit (default 20, 0–100), summariesLimit (default 5), communicationsLimit (default 0, requires conversationId), relevanceThreshold (0–1), beginDate/endDate.

Profile Resolution

Check for 308 redirects on profile endpoints — indicates a merged profile.

Trait Groups

Every trait must belong to a trait group. You must create the group (or add the trait to an existing group) before writing trait values to a profile.

Each trait has a dataType (STRING, NUMBER, BOOLEAN, ARRAY). Set idTypePromotion on a trait (e.g., "phone") to make it an identifier for Lookup and identity resolution.

Add a new trait to an existing group:

Use PATCH /v1/ControlPlane/Stores/{storeId}/TraitGroups/{traitGroupName} — pass the new trait definition in the request body. Only the new traits need to be included; existing traits are unchanged.

Python

requests.patch(
    f"{base_url}/v1/ControlPlane/Stores/{store['id']}/TraitGroups/contact",
    auth=auth,
    json={"traits": {
        "preferred_channel": {"dataType": "STRING", "description": "Preferred contact method"}
    }}
)
# 202 — adds "preferred_channel" to the existing "contact" group

Node.js

await axios.patch(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/ControlPlane/Stores/${store.id}/TraitGroups/contact`,
    { traits: {
        preferred_channel: { dataType: "STRING", description: "Preferred contact method" },
    } },
    { auth }
);
// 202 — adds "preferred_channel" to the existing "contact" group

To remove a trait from a group, PATCH with "dataType": "" for that trait name.

Automatic Extraction (Orchestrator Integration)

1. Create a Memory Store
2. Create a Conversation Orchestrator Configuration with capture rules
3. Link the store to the config

Once linked: profiles are auto-created per caller, and extraction is tied to the conversation lifecycle configured in Orchestrator. By default, observations are extracted when a conversation goes inactive or ends. Conversation summaries are generated when a conversation ends. These lifecycle transitions are configurable in your Orchestrator configuration — how you define conversation status timeouts determines when memory extraction runs. Conflicting information is automatically reconciled. See twilio-conversation-orchestrator.

Lookup by Identifier

Python

result = requests.post(
    f"{base_url}/v1/Stores/{store['id']}/Profiles/Lookup",
    auth=auth,
    json={"idType": "phone", "value": "+15558675310"}
).json()

profile_id = result["profiles"][0]["id"]

Node.js

const { data: result } = await axios.post(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/Stores/${store.id}/Profiles/Lookup`,
    { idType: "phone", value: "+15558675310" },
    { auth }
);

const profileId = result.profiles[0].id;

Voice Agent Latency Optimization

For voice agents where latency matters, skip semantic search and fetch observations directly:

Python

observations = requests.get(
    f"{base_url}/v1/Stores/{store['id']}/Profiles/{profile_id}/Observations",
    auth=auth,
    params={"source": "support-agent", "createdAfter": "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z"}
).json()

Node.js

const { data: observations } = await axios.get(
    `${baseUrl}/v1/Stores/${store.id}/Profiles/${profileId}/Observations`,
    { auth, params: { source: "support-agent", createdAfter: "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z" } }
);

Async Polling Pattern

All 202 responses include a statusUrl. Poll until status is COMPLETED or FAILED:

Python

import time

status_url = store["statusUrl"]
while True:
    op = requests.get(status_url, auth=auth).json()
    if op["status"] in ("COMPLETED", "FAILED", "CANCELLED"):
        break
    time.sleep(2)

Node.js

let op;
do {
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 2000));
    op = (await axios.get(store.statusUrl, { auth })).data;
} while (!["COMPLETED", "FAILED", "CANCELLED"].includes(op.status));

CANNOT

• Cannot exceed 15 Memory Stores per account — use sub-accounts beyond this
• Cannot batch more than 10 observations per request
• Cannot exceed 4096 characters per observation
• Cannot write traits to a group that doesn't exist — create the trait group first
• Cannot recover deleted profiles or observations — deletion is irreversible
• Cannot read data immediately after write — indexing is async
• Cannot auto-extract observations without a linked Orchestrator config
• Cannot exceed 1000 profiles per bulk upsert
• Cannot include auth headers when uploading to presigned import URLs — they're pre-signed
• Cannot use spaces or underscores in store displayName — pattern is ^[a-zA-Z0-9-]+$

Next Steps

• Automatic conversation capture: twilio-conversation-orchestrator
• Background transcript intelligence (script adherence, NBR, scoring): twilio-conversation-intelligence
• Enterprise knowledge retrieval (RAG): twilio-enterprise-knowledge
• Voice agent with ConversationRelay: twilio-voice-conversation-relay
• TAC SDK middleware: twilio-agent-connect
• Debug issues: twilio-debugging-observability