mnemonic memory-files.instructions.md

A set of rules for storing information in structured memory files. It defines required details such as an identifier, type, dates, title and tags, plus optional expiry and source information.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when creating files for facts, events or procedures that an agent should remember. It also supports recording when information is valid, how long it should last and where it came from.
Why use it?
It gives stored memories a consistent format, making them easier to identify, classify and update over time.

Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add instructions/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/memory-files
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/modeled-information-format/mnemonic

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 412 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 412 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00412 $0.00412
Opus 5 $0.00206 $0.00206
Sonnet 5 $0.00082 $0.00082
Haiku 4.5 $0.00041 $0.00041

Measured 2d ago against content hash d8526eb08b9b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mnemonic memory-files.instructions.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.github/instructions/memory-files.instructions.md · 56 lines

What it actually says

Memory File Guidelines (MIF Level 3)

Required Frontmatter Fields

---
id: <uuid>                    # Unique identifier (uuidgen format)
type: semantic|episodic|procedural
namespace: {category}/user    # e.g., decisions/user, learnings/user
created: <ISO8601>            # Creation timestamp
modified: <ISO8601>           # Last modification timestamp
title: "Title"                # Human-readable title
tags: [tag1, tag2]            # Categorization tags
---

Optional Temporal Fields

temporal:
  valid_from: <ISO8601>       # When content became valid
  valid_until: <ISO8601>      # When content expires (optional)
  recorded_at: <ISO8601>      # When it was recorded
  decay:
    model: exponential        # Decay model type
    half_life: P7D            # ISO 8601 duration
    strength: 0.85            # Current strength 0.0-1.0

Optional Provenance Fields

provenance:
  source_type: user_explicit|inferred|conversation
  agent: model-identifier     # e.g., claude-opus-4
  confidence: 0.9             # Confidence score 0.0-1.0

Memory Types

  • semantic: Facts, decisions, specifications - things that ARE true
  • episodic: Events, debug sessions, incidents - things that HAPPENED
  • procedural: Workflows, patterns, how-tos - things you DO

Content Structure

After frontmatter, use standard Markdown:

  • H1 heading matching the title
  • Clear sections for context, details, implications
  • Code blocks with language specification
  • Links to related memories or external resources
Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 56 lines · 412 tokens per session scan A d8526eb08b9b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mnemonic memory-files.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository modeled-information-format/mnemonic (22 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 412 tokens to every session, about $0.0021 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other instructions, from other repositories