cm

CM - CASS Memory System

Procedural memory for AI coding agents. Transforms scattered sessions into persistent, cross-agent memory. Uses a three-layer cognitive architecture that mirrors human expertise development.

Why This Exists

AI coding agents accumulate valuable knowledge but it's:

• Trapped in sessions - Context lost when session ends
• Agent-specific - Claude doesn't know what Cursor learned
• Unstructured - Raw logs aren't actionable guidance
• Subject to collapse - Naive summarization loses critical details

You've solved auth bugs three times this month across different agents. Each time you started from scratch.

CM solves this with cross-agent learning: a pattern discovered in Cursor is immediately available to Claude Code.

Three-Layer Cognitive Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    EPISODIC MEMORY (cass)                           │
│   Raw session logs from all agents — the "ground truth"             │
│   Claude Code │ Codex │ Cursor │ Aider │ PI │ Gemini │ ChatGPT │ ...│
└───────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┘
                            │ cass search
                            ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    WORKING MEMORY (Diary)                           │
│   Structured session summaries: accomplishments, decisions, etc.    │
└───────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┘
                            │ reflect + curate (automated)
                            ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    PROCEDURAL MEMORY (Playbook)                     │
│   Distilled rules with confidence tracking and decay                │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Every agent's sessions feed the shared memory. A pattern discovered in Cursor automatically helps Claude Code on the next session.

The One Command You Need

cm context "<your task>" --json

Run this before starting any non-trivial task. Returns:

• relevantBullets - Rules from playbook scored by task relevance
• antiPatterns - Things that have caused problems
• historySnippets - Past sessions (yours and other agents')
• suggestedCassQueries - Deeper investigation searches

Filtering History by Source

historySnippets[].origin.kind is "local" or "remote". Remote hits include origin.host:

{
  "historySnippets": [
    {
      "source_path": "~/.claude/sessions/session-001.jsonl",
      "origin": { "kind": "local" }
    },
    {
      "source_path": "/home/user/.codex/sessions/session.jsonl",
      "origin": { "kind": "remote", "host": "workstation" }
    }
  ]
}

Confidence Decay System

Rules aren't immortal. Confidence decays without revalidation:

| Mechanism | Effect | |-----------|--------| | 90-day half-life | Confidence halves every 90 days without feedback | | 4x harmful multiplier | One mistake counts 4× as much as one success | | Maturity progression | candidate → established → proven |

Score Decay Visualization

Initial score: 10.0 (10 helpful marks today)

After 90 days (half-life):   5.0
After 180 days:              2.5
After 270 days:              1.25
After 365 days:              0.78

Effective Score Formula

effectiveScore = decayedHelpful - (4 × decayedHarmful)

// Where decay factor = 0.5 ^ (daysSinceFeedback / 90)

Maturity State Machine

  ┌──────────┐       ┌─────────────┐    ┌────────┐
  │ candidate│──────▶│ established │───▶│ proven │
  └──────────┘       └─────────────┘    └────────┘
       │                   │                  │
       │                   │ (harmful >25%)   │
       │                   ▼                  │
       │             ┌─────────────┐          │
       └────────────▶│ deprecated  │◀─────────┘
                     └─────────────┘

Transition Rules:

| Transition | Criteria | |------------|----------| | candidate → established | 3+ helpful, harmful ratio <25% | | established → proven | 10+ helpful, harmful ratio <10% | | any → deprecated | Harmful ratio >25% OR explicit deprecation |

Anti-Pattern Learning

Bad rules don't just get deleted. They become warnings:

"Cache auth tokens for performance"
    ↓ (3 harmful marks)
"PITFALL: Don't cache auth tokens without expiry validation"

When a rule is marked harmful multiple times (>50% harmful ratio with 3+ marks), it's automatically inverted into an anti-pattern.

ACE Pipeline (How Rules Are Created)

Generator → Reflector → Validator → Curator

| Stage | Role | LLM? | |-------|------|------| | Generator | Pre-task context hydration (cm context) | No | | Reflector | Extract patterns from sessions (cm reflect) | Yes | | Validator | Evidence gate against cass history | Yes | | Curator | Deterministic delta merge | No |

Critical: Curator has NO LLM to prevent context collapse from iterative drift. LLMs propose patterns; deterministic logic manages them.

Scientific Validation

Before a rule joins your playbook, it's validated against cass history:

Proposed rule: "Always check token expiry before auth debugging"
    ↓
Evidence gate: Search cass for sessions where this applied
    ↓
Result: 5 sessions found, 4 successful outcomes → ACCEPT

Rules without historical evidence are flagged as candidates until proven.

Commands Reference

Context Retrieval (Primary Workflow)

# THE MAIN COMMAND - run before non-trivial tasks
cm context "implement user authentication" --json

# Limit results for token budget
cm context "fix bug" --json --limit 5 --no-history

# With workspace filter
cm context "refactor" --json --workspace /path/to/project

# Self-documenting explanation
cm quickstart --json

# System health
cm doctor --json
cm doctor --fix  # Auto-fix issues

# Find similar rules
cm similar "error handling best practices"

Playbook Management

cm playbook list                              # All rules
cm playbook get b-8f3a2c                      # Rule details
cm playbook add "Always run tests first"      # Add rule
cm playbook add --file rules.json             # Batch add from file
cm playbook add --file rules.json --session /path/session.jsonl  # Track source
cm playbook remove b-xyz --reason "Outdated"  # Remove
cm playbook export > backup.yaml              # Export
cm playbook import shared.yaml                # Import
cm playbook bootstrap react                   # Apply starter to existing

cm top 10                                     # Top effective rules
cm stale --days 60                            # Rules without recent feedback
cm why b-8f3a2c                               # Rule provenance
cm stats --json                               # Playbook health metrics

Learning & Feedback

# Manual feedback
cm mark b-8f3a2c --helpful
cm mark b-xyz789 --harmful --reason "Caused regression"
cm undo b-xyz789                              # Revert feedback

# Session outcomes (positional: status, rules)
cm outcome success b-8f3a2c,b-def456
cm outcome failure b-x7k9p1 --summary "Auth approach failed"
cm outcome-apply                              # Apply to playbook

# Reflection (usually automated)
cm reflect --days 7 --json
cm reflect --session /path/to/session.jsonl   # Single session
cm reflect --workspace /path/to/project       # Project-specific

# Validation
cm validate "Always check null before dereferencing"

# Audit sessions against rules
cm audit --days 30

# Deprecate permanently
cm forget b-xyz789 --reason "Superseded by better pattern"

Onboarding (Agent-Native)

Zero-cost playbook building using your existing agent:

cm onboard status                             # Check prog