Keep durable context distinct from historical logs and temporary task state. Do not infer personal facts from incidental evidence.
Use an owner-confirmed communication preference to adjust explanation and detail, not authority or permission. A suggested personal mode remains a proposal until reviewed; see personalization and reusable workflows.
Recall
- Identify the task/workspace and the fact or preference needed. Search MEM and applied FDK narrowly with
zen_research_search, then read full matching records so a truncated condition is not lost. - Inspect status, scope, provenance, confidence, supersession and visibility. Proposed/rejected/superseded entries are not active preferences. Personal scope must be explicitly approved; workspace scope does not spread to unrelated projects.
- Verify mutable facts when a cheap check is available. If relying on an older unverified memory, say so and label the possibility of drift. Do not substitute a remembered model/version/price for current capability discovery.
- Return or use only the relevant portion. Show influencing refs in an agent brief. Never copy never-copy content into a summary, task, transcript or cloud record; local-only still permits a local model to read it, so it is a different boundary.
Retain or correct
- Decide why the information should survive this session. Keep activity/results in LOG/SES, research in RDT and exact corrections in FDK. MEM is for a durable fact/preference with a specific future use, not a duplicate transcript.
- Create a MEM proposal with source, evidence date, confidence, applicability, project/personal scope and retention reason using the memory template. Sensitive/uncertain facts and authority changes require review. Do not mark a proposed personal fact applied yourself.
- Supersede a contradicted memory through the approved writer path, preserving both provenance and rollback. Do not delete the old memory or convert an inference into a verified fact. Check returned status before claiming application.
Use the MCP contract or initialized standalone records. The file-only writer retains proposed memories without automatic application. If no writer exists, return a labelled draft and explain that it is not retained.
Example: an approved project preference for concise review reports can influence that workspace's next task. A one-off command failure belongs in a log; a guessed employer or birthday must not become memory. A changed provider configuration should supersede an old note only after actual verification and the appropriate owner decision.