memory

Memory Skill

Personal Memory Model

Personal memory under ~/.nova/memory/ is split into four distinct roles:

• user.md — stable user identity and collaboration preferences
• memory.md — curated "hot" long-term context that is worth loading first when a task needs memory
• notes/ — atomic durable notes with frontmatter for grep-based retrieval
• snapshot/ — episodic historical sessions, used only for explicit recall or later promotion

The key rule is:

memory.md is a curated hot set, not a second copy of notes/.

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Mode: recall

Use this mode when the current task appears likely to benefit from prior durable memory. Typical triggers include non-trivial or multi-step work, multi-file changes, architecture or convention-sensitive tasks, work that depends on user or project history, recurring or ambiguous bugs, explicit memory requests, or any situation where you are unsure whether hidden past context matters.

Skip recall for simple self-contained tasks that can be completed safely from the user's message and immediate local context alone.

When this mode is used during session start, run it immediately after loading any relevant baseline memory files (user.md, project arch.md, and memory.md). If you initially skipped recall and later discover that more context is needed, run it before continuing. Use the user's request and current task framing as search input.

This mode searches durable memory only:

• personal notes/
• project ADR / DevLog

It intentionally does not search snapshot sessions during this durable path.

Step 1: Search Relevant Memories

Extract keywords from the task context (user request, technologies, file paths, error names, project names).

For the personal notes/ layer, default to a recent window of the last 7 days using note extracted_at and falling back to created_at.

Only widen the personal-note scope to all historical notes when the user explicitly asks for older, long-term, all-time, or historical memory.