Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to modeled-information-format/mnemonic. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/main/.github/instructions/memory-files.instructions.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/modeled-information-format/mnemonicWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/memory-files)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/memory-files"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/memory-files/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/memory-files"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/modeled-information-format/mnemonic/memory-files.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00600 | $0.00600 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00240 | $0.00240 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00120 | $0.00120 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00060 | $0.00060 |
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 13d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 81 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Memory File Guidelines (MIF 1.4.2 Level 3)
Concept frontmatter keys are camelCase (MIF 1.4.2 section 3.3). Legacy
snake_case keys (valid_from, source_type, compressed_at) in older
memories are still read; do not introduce them in new or edited files.
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:
validFrom: <ISO8601> # When content became valid
validUntil: <ISO8601> # When content expires (optional)
recordedAt: <ISO8601> # When it was recorded
decay:
model: exponential # Decay model type
halfLife: P7D # ISO 8601 duration
strength: 0.85 # Current strength 0.0-1.0
Optional Provenance Fields
provenance:
sourceType: user_explicit | user_implicit | agent_inferred | external_import | system_generated
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
Relationships
Relationships are authoritative in frontmatter and mirrored as Markdown links
under ## Relationships (MIF 1.4.2 section 5.3):
relationships:
- type: relates-to # kebab-case token, not relates_to
target: urn:mif:<target-uuid>
metadata:
label: "Optional note"
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.
- 13d ago Changed a4359f10d05b
- 14d ago Changed · +25 lines · +188 tokens per session aad3a1dec1be
- 1mo ago First seen · 56 lines · 412 tokens per session scan A d8526eb08b9b
mnemonic memory-files.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository modeled-information-format/mnemonic (23 stars, last pushed 10d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 600 tokens to every session, about $0.0024 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
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