Distill Memory

nowledge-co/community/nowledge-mem-devin-plugin/skills/distill-memory

by nowledge-co1f4d7eb61466dbfc93ce8d7a0a806c4d4a196dd0No licenseListed Oct 9, 2026Updated Oct 9, 2026

Capture breakthrough moments and valuable insights as searchable memories in your knowledge base.

Instructions onlyAI & Agents
AI-generated overview

Guides an agent to save durable insights, decisions and procedures as searchable memories in a knowledge base.

What it does
This skill provides instructions for deciding when and how to persist durable knowledge from a conversation into a memory store. It lists good candidates such as decisions with rationale, repeatable procedures, debugging lessons, preferences, plans and important context, and tells the agent to skip routine fixes, transient work and generic information. It also explains choosing between adding a new memory and updating an existing one, and recommends structured fields for unit type, labels and importance.
When to use it
Use it when a session produces a fact, preference, decision, plan, procedure, learning, event or context worth keeping beyond the current conversation. It is also meant for the end of a substantial task, when the agent should check whether one durable memory needs to be added or updated.
Requirements
The agent needs access to a memory tool, either the nmem CLI or a native Nowledge Mem connector, with commands such as add and update. No scripts ship with the skill; it is instructions only.

Distill Memory

Save proactively when the conversation produces a durable fact, preference, decision, plan, procedure, learning, event, or important context. Do not wait to be asked.

When to Save

Good candidates include:

  • decisions with rationale ("we chose PostgreSQL because ACID is required")
  • repeatable procedures or workflows
  • lessons from debugging, incidents, or root cause analysis
  • durable preferences or constraints
  • plans that future sessions will need to resume cleanly
  • important context that would be lost when the session ends

Skip routine fixes with no generalizable lesson, work in progress that will change, simple Q&A answerable from documentation, and generic information already widely known.

Add vs Update

  • Use nmem --json m add when the insight is genuinely new.
  • If an existing memory already captures the same decision, workflow, or preference and the new information refines it, use nmem m update <id> ... instead of creating a duplicate.
  • At the end of a substantial task, explicitly check whether one durable memory should be added or updated.

Prefer atomic, standalone memories with strong titles and clear meaning. Focus on what was learned or decided, not routine chatter.

Use structured saves when possible: --unit-type (fact, preference, decision, plan, procedure, learning, context, event), -l labels, -i importance (0.8–1.0 major decisions, 0.5–0.7 useful patterns, 0.3–0.4 minor notes). For MCP/native tools, pass the same value as unit_type when you know it.

Native Connector

These skills work in any agent via CLI. For auto-recall, auto-capture, and graph tools, check if your agent has a native Nowledge Mem connector — run the check-integration skill or see https://mem.nowledge.co/docs/integrations

Source and attribution

Source:nowledge-co/communityinnowledge-mem-devin-plugin/skills/distill-memoryat commit1f4d7eb

License: No license

Content belongs to its original authors. SourceWeft indexes it from a public repository.

Report or request removal