copilot-memory

Copilot Memory Skill

This skill and its memory.md log belong to the GitHub Copilot CLI. Other agents must read-only at most and never edit. The user enforces this.

When to Use

• Every Copilot CLI session start — read skills/copilot-memory/memory.md first, silently
• Every Copilot CLI session end — append a session block, update frontmatter
• When the user asks Copilot to recall what it did in past sessions

Procedure

Session Start

1. Read skills/copilot-memory/memory.md (this repo, Copilot's own log)
2. Parse the YAML frontmatter (last_session, total_sessions, machine facts)
3. Load the latest session block silently; do not narrate unless asked
4. Mark entries older than 7 days as stale; re-verify facts before trusting them
5. The Claude/Hermes log skills/session-memory/memory.md stays the judge-lane log: read-only reference for Copilot, not its write target

Session End

1. Re-read memory.md
2. Append a new session block at the end with: session date (ISO 8601), key decisions, files changed, lessons learned, carry-forward TODOs
3. Update frontmatter: last_session, bump total_sessions
4. Append, then prune: keep the log under ~120 lines by trimming the oldest block's detail (keep its headline decisions). Never overwrite history.

Pitfalls

• Never write secrets, tokens, .env contents, or absolute user paths into the log (repo privacy rule, commit b758d49)
• Do not duplicate the judge-lane log; if a fact already lives in skills/session-memory/memory.md, reference it instead of copying
• Windows paths in this repo use backslashes; keep log entries copy-pasteable
• One block per session; if a session spans multiple turns, consolidate into one block at the end

Verification

• Frontmatter total_sessions equals the number of ## <date> session blocks
• Newest block sits at the bottom of the file (append-only order)
• No secret-shaped strings in the log (grep -iE "key|token|secret" returns only rule text)
• House rules: docs/house/HOUSE-MOTION-RULE.md and docs/standards/AGENT-STANDARD.md. Read before any design, site, dashboard or header job. Pointers only; do not restate rules here.
• Current beats existing: fetch and pull main first; origin main wins over clone, cache, journal and definition file; a clone that cannot fast-forward stops and reports (ops/handoffs/FABLE-HANDOFFS-2026-11-06.md section 0).