Vol. VI · Context & Memory · VI.3
Long-Term Memory
Letta/MemGPT: a small core window, an archival store the agent can search and edit, and explicit memory operations as tools. Session logs are not memory.
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Doctrine
- Memory writes are tool calls, visible and reversible.
- Split working memory from archival. Do not retrieve the life story every turn.
- The reducer still applies: memory is state, the call is stateless given that state.
Stateful agents, stateless calls
Letta's contribution is the OS metaphor: paging memory in and out. DeerFlow and Deep Agents store memories as files or records. Agno ships memory in AgentOS. None of this replaces Factor 12 — it is the state blob the reducer reads.
Anti-patterns
- Embedding every utterance and hoping cosine similarity is a personality.
- Memory that the user cannot inspect or delete.