Permanent memory for AI agents. A 426-token prompt, a script, plug and play.
Install
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/VictorTaelin/OptMem/main/install.sh | shIt prints a ## Memory block. Paste that at the top of your agent's
AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md), and you are done. Run the same line again to
update.
The tool lands at ~/.optmem/memo; put ~/.optmem on PATH to type memo.
Commands
memo wake |
read the memory — the first command of every session |
memo note "..." |
record one memory: one line, up to 280 bytes |
memo nap |
answer the merges that came due |
memo recall <regex> |
search every memory ever recorded, word for word |
memo zoom <lo>-<hi> |
open a tree node into its two halves |
memo forget <lo>-<hi> |
drop a bad summary; the next nap rebuilds it |
Merges arrive one at a time, in the output of note. Nothing ever runs in the
background.
Files
~/.optmem/
memo the tool: one file of Python 3, no dependencies
memory/
LOG.txt every memory, one per line, append-only, never edited
TREE/ the summaries: a cache, rebuildable from the log alone
config the sizes, written by `memo config`
memo config # show the sizes memo config WAKE_LINES=300 # how many lines wake prints (96 ≈ 8k tokens) memo config WAKE_LINES= # back to the default
WAKE_LINES is the only size worth touching, and it is a reading budget, not
a storage budget: change it whenever, in either direction, and nothing is
recomputed.
Records are fixed width, so position is identity and every lookup is one
seek. At a million memories (608 MB), wake takes 0.03s.
Set $MEMORY_DIR to keep memory/ elsewhere — a synced folder, a git repo.
The prompt
This is what the installer prints, and the whole of the integration.
## Memory Your memory is OptMem: - The tool is `~/.optmem/memo` - Your memories are in `~/.optmem/memory` OptMem outlives every session, compaction, model and vendor change. Without it you do not know who you are, or what was decided and tried. ### At startup: activating OptMem (mandatory) Run `~/.optmem/memo wake` before any other tool call, in every session, and then do exactly what it prints, to the end of its output. ### While working: register memories (mandatory) Call `~/.optmem/memo note "<1 line, max 280 bytes>"` whenever you learn something new, or something worth keeping happens. That covers a task worth real effort, a fact or insight the user teaches you, anything you learn about their life (even indirectly), any event of lasting effect. Do not register redundant memories. If `~/.optmem/memo note` asks a compression: do it before your next action. Never edit or delete anything under `~/.optmem/memory`: the tool manages it. ### When you need an old memory: search, or navigate `~/.optmem/memo recall <regex>` searches every memory, word for word. Your memories also form a binary tree: #0-1, #2-3 ... exist as one-line summaries, pairs of those as #0-3, and so on -- every `#a-b` line wake prints is one node of it. `~/.optmem/memo zoom <a-b>` opens a node into its two halves, down to the raw memories. ### If you're a subagent: skip everything above Parallel sessions on this machine are all you, and may all write memories. A subagent is not: it must never run `memo`, because it cannot judge what is already known, and its notes would arrive duplicated and incorrectly. When you spawn one, write: `You are a subagent. Don't run memo.`