cowork-mem

Cowork-Mem: Persistent Memory for Cowork

You have access to a persistent memory system that survives across Cowork sessions. It stores observations (decisions, file edits, insights, errors, notes) in a SQLite database with full-text search and semantic (TF-IDF) search, organized into sessions.

How It Works

Memory is automatic — you don't need to manually trigger it every session. Three session hooks run in the background:

• SessionStart: auto-recalls the last session summary before you begin
• PostToolUse: auto-captures meaningful file edits, bash commands, and task completions as they happen
• PreCompact: saves a timestamped marker before context is compacted

This means the memory fills itself. Your job is to add the why — decisions, insights, errors — that the hook can't infer automatically.

The Memory Script

All memory operations go through a single script:

python3 {SKILL_DIR}/scripts/memory_store.py <command> [args]

The database lives at ~/.claude/.cowork-mem/memory.db and persists on the user's machine across sessions. The COWORK_MEM_DB environment variable overrides the default path if set.

Semantic Search

In addition to keyword search, you have vector search using TF-IDF similarity:

COWORK_MEM_DB=~/.claude/.cowork-mem/memory.db \
python3 {SKILL_DIR}/scripts/vector_search.py "authentication middleware pattern" --limit 8

Use semantic search when:

• You want conceptually related observations (not just keyword matches)
• The user asks vague questions like "what do we know about auth?"
• You're exploring what the memory knows about a topic before diving into a task

Core Workflow

1. Session Start — Recall First

The SessionStart hook auto-runs session-start before you begin. If memory was loaded, you'll already have context. If working manually:

python3 {SKILL_DIR}/scripts/memory_store.py session-start --project "project-name"

Briefly tell the user what you remember: "Last time we worked on X, we decided Y and were in the middle of Z." Keep it to 1-2 sentences — don't dump everything.