soul.demarkus.io:6309/plans/memory-knowledge-layering.md/v24 active reader meta

Plan: Memory and knowledge layering

Audience: demarkus maintainers. Gives the code the shape of the two tiers, memory and knowledge, so the application layer can keep growing without breaking what people use today. Drafted 2026-10-16 with Fritz; step 1 merged the same day as PR 604 (7ed84f1d), step 2 on 2026-10-17 as PR 606 (83f8729a), step 3 the same day across PRs 608 to 613 (4d37dca1), step 4 on 2026-10-18 and 2026-10-19 across PRs 615 to 624 (41273924), and step 5 on 2026-10-19 across PRs 625 to 630 (bb24d871). Positioning, the two doors and the transport freeze are settled in The engine, not the wire and are not repeated here.

Premise

Fritz calls the core the memory store: versioned markdown, the catalog, change hints. It is well defined. What sits above it is not. The code is layered by mechanism (protocol, server, client), not by product, so the application layer has no home of its own.

Concept Where it lives on 2026-10-16
Memory store protocol/, server/internal/{filestore,backend,catalog,changefeed,fanout,handler}
Memory model: journal, hubs, write gates, promote, curate, doctor inside client/ (journal, hub, docwrite, metaguard, promote, curate, audit, generation) next to the CLI, TUI and MCP code, plus prompts in plugins/prompt-source/
Knowledge tier split between server/knowledgeserver, server/internal/{knowledgeconfig,worldruntime,snirouter,writepolicy} and knowledge/internal/broker
SDK not started; more than 100 files import client/fetch

The memory model exists in code but has no name and no module. Its rules are also written again in prompts, the plugin binary and the gateway, which is why 1.0 definition item 9 (memory gateway parity) needs a test to hold them together.

Target layers

  1. Memory store. The durable core, kept dumb: protocol, store, catalog, WATCH hints, and the SDK.
  2. Memory model. One library over the store client: document kinds, hub rules, write gates, journal, promote and refresh, doctor with apply. No MCP, no CLI.
  3. Tiers. A soul is the model plus local provisioning. A knowledge system is the same model plus worlds, identity and policy. One model, not two applications.
  4. Surfaces. MCP tools, plugins, the gateway, CLI, TUI and the library stay thin.

Tiers and the durability layers in the vision are two axes: tiers say who owns knowledge, layers say how long it must last.

No protocol change. The wire stays the machine door from engine-not-wire, and agents keep the verb shaped tools. New needs go up into the model, never down into new verbs, and model behavior lands behind the existing tool names, the way mark_append with route: today already works.

Contracts that must not break

Contract Who depends on it Guard
Wire protocol CLI, TUI, MCP server, broker, demarkus-library, Caztor (FETCH only) storetest; wire fixtures planned in SDK phase 1
MCP tool names, parameters, instructions, output every agent session plugin eval; goldens of tools/list and the server instructions for demarkus-mcp (with and without -host) and both gateway profiles, through client/mcpfmt/mcpfmttest; one tool class table in mcpfmt sets the read-only hints
Plugin commands and hooks plugin users plugin eval, pre-commit
Stored format (protocol/storefmt) every local soul, the GCS deploy format and fuzz tests; the upgrade capture under testdata/upgrade served by the current server
Config and token files deploy repo, installs chart-rendered fixtures for the knowledge server and broker configs, checked by scripts/check-chart-fixtures.sh in CI; the upgrade capture for the plugin's state and token files
Go import paths demarkus-library (client/fetch, client/memory/graphstore, protocol/mdoutline since step 3) its go.mod pin

mark-knowledge imports no demarkus Go code. The benchmark worktrees import internal packages and rebase after each move. The binary merge in engine-not-wire keeps its own plugin compatibility gate.

Gaps, ranked

  1. Maintenance before features. Apply shipped in step 2 and this soul went from 731 doctor findings to 508; what is left sits in classes apply does not own (size, document shape, style) or needs judgment. The root hub is at 37 links. /adr/ (44) and /plans/ (151) are over what one generated hub carries.
  2. The memory model as a named layer, with mechanics moved out of prompts into it. Named and placed by step 3; the mechanics moved in step 4.
  3. The same write gates in both tiers. The knowledge system refuses secrets at write; this soul held three connection-string-password findings (fixed by hand on 2026-10-16). Closed by step 5: demarkus-server runs the same content check and policy gate and refuses a secret since server 0.70.0.
  4. Lifecycle as model rules: supersede, stale, archive. Overlaps Embracing staleness.
  5. The protocol freeze after WATCH and ALPN mark/1 (ADR 0025), so the wire stops costing attention.

Sequence

Each step is additive or behavior neutral.

  1. Done, PR 604: guards before code, all on one branch so the release workflow cut one round of releases. Layer import rules in pre-commit, goldens of what the MCP surfaces show an agent (tool lists and server instructions), chart-rendered config fixtures, and the upgrade capture.
  2. Done, PR 606 (83f8729a, 2026-10-17): doctor apply and generated hubs, built where the code lives now (client/audit), and applied to this soul on 2026-10-16 from a branch build (152 writes in two batches, all landed). Projects follow the directory hub rule too. Design, results and the follow-ups left open in Doctor apply and generated hubs.
  3. Done, PRs 608 to 613 (4d37dca1, 2026-10-17): the memory model lives in client/memory/ (ADR 0043) and mdoutline split (ADR 0044). One refactor PR removed the model's upward edges, two PRs of pure moves each matched a transform rerun on main, and the eval held at 8 of 8. The model section of the layer map is one line. Design, results, the library and benchmark follow-ups and what is left in Model carve-out.
  4. Done, PRs 615 to 624 (41273924, 2026-10-18 and 19): the Cowork plugin retired into one memory plugin, the eval mocks rendered from code so a mechanic case can fail, decision numbers and the refresh inventory behind mark_list and mark_promote, the plugin binary's host contracts (verdict=, binary states, SKIPPED rows, provision if-configured), and the prompts and hooks rewritten to read them. Eval at 10 of 10; prompt source 44,727 bytes against the 40 KB aim, the rest in Go follow-ups. Design, results and follow-ups in Prompt mechanics.
  5. Done, PRs 625 to 630 (bb24d871, 2026-10-19): same gates in both tiers, warn then refuse in two rounds the same day (ADR 0045). The soul server wraps its store with the writepolicy gate the knowledge server already runs (secrets, personal data, a published policy); a reserved warning response key carries server-side warns to the writer in both tiers; the hook mirrors the scan pre-write; no new tool, parameter or knob; the step 4 follow-ups rode along. Server 0.70.0 refuses a secret; plugin 0.13.199. Eval 11 of 11. Design, order, skew table, tests and the live check in Same gates in both tiers. Left open from the ride-alongs: the single health probe (tools, then the hook script a release later) and the adr: layout key.
  6. SDK as narrowed in engine-not-wire. Independent of step 3: moved packages switch from client/fetch to the SDK in their new home, never both in one PR. The layer guard learns the external module first: the map names the SDK module path as an sdk layer that imports nothing, storeclient and everything above may import it, store may not, so pre-commit rather than review enforces ADR 0026. Today the checker drops imports from outside the repo. storeclient then means the client helpers that stay in core over the SDK (listwalk, links, merge, generation, joinurl, token, the caches), and the map lines for fetch, listing and lookuptable go once core switches over.
  7. Knowledge tier consolidation, decided together with the binary merge: the file-store opener in knowledgeserver, then demarkus-server as the thin local main over it (ADR 0037 decision 6, amended 2026-10-19). The broker/core -> mcpfmt baseline edge is settled here: the tier parses the gateway's surface config, and the tool profile names are MCP vocabulary no layer below mcpfmt should carry.

How each step ships, the engineering bar and the no-friction gate: Delivery. In short, a pure move or a behavior change, never both, and an upgrade the user does not notice.

Plugins

One memory plugin: done in step 4. demarkus-cowork is retired; every host runs the same commands, host writes stay shell, hooks stay optional and provision only a configured setup. Open: the knowledge plugin in Cowork (user-scope MCP reachability untested, its hook still bootstraps in the sandbox, no host partial on that surface).

What elegant means

Principle Test
One model, two tiers same names, gates and commands in soul and knowledge; promote and refresh are the only edge
Mechanics in software, judgment in the agent prompt source bytes go down; ADR 0042 holds
Memory maintains itself zero doctor findings in the classes apply owns; hubs stay under the cap without manual edits
Few nouns nothing beyond memory, soul, knowledge system, world
Clean boundaries dependencies point down only, enforced in pre-commit
Thin surfaces one plugin per host format; the parity test of 1.0 item 9 passes
Invisible upgrades the upgrade capture passes at every checkpoint
Measured eval pass rate holds; tokens per correct answer go down

Gate for each new feature: does it make memory more linked, findable, durable or current, and does it work the same in both tiers? If not, it is a product feature, not the model.

Open questions

  • Multi-world hosting: core or knowledge tier? Lean: worldruntime, changefeed, fanout and catalog are core; knowledgeserver, knowledgeconfig and snirouter are the knowledge tier; writepolicy is a core mechanism whose policy content belongs to the tier.
  • After the binary merge the knowledge/ module also hosts the soul's local profile, so its name stops matching the tier.
  • Is "memory store" the public word engine-not-wire leaves open?

The module or directory question is settled by ADR 0043: a directory, client/memory/.

soul.demarkus.io:6309/adr/0045-write-gates-run-in-the-store.md draft reader meta

ADR 0045: Write gates run in the store, in both tiers

Status: accepted (2026-10-19). Plan: Same gates in both tiers, step 5 of Memory and knowledge layering. Extends ADR 0040 (mechanics in the server, the hook as the pre-write mirror) to the content and policy gates. Part of the decisions hub.

Context

  • The knowledge server judges every write inside the commit through server/internal/writepolicy: secrets refused, personal data per operator config, the world's policy document, malformed policy and template candidates. The soul server handed its store to the runtime unwrapped: no content check, no policy, on any client. The doctor found three container DSNs in this soul that the knowledge system would have refused.
  • A server-side warn had no channel to the writer: the knowledge server logged it and the response said created. Warn-level policy misses vanished the same way.
  • The plugin hook scans pre-write for coding agents, but a hook is one harness; CLI, TUI, library and MCP writes from other hosts reach the store directly.

Decision

  • Both tiers wrap their store with writepolicy.Enforce. The knowledge server keeps its floor, required policy and operator content config; the soul server runs Require: false (a published policy.md governs, absent is the empty policy at warn), secrets at warn for one release then block, personal data at warn with the existing override key, no work domains, no seeded policy.
  • What a gate lets through with a note reaches the writer as the reserved response key warning on a landed write: rule and line, never the value; policy misses under warn strictness too. The key is server owned, response only, never stored. Clients render it and keep it out of derived state such as the graph observation.
  • The hook mirrors the scan pre-write with the same contentcheck options the soul server runs: a secret blocks with the fix, personal data warns. No strictness knob for secrets, no new tool, parameter, env var or config key. marktools scans nothing; the server is the one home.
  • A new server-side refusal warns for one release before it refuses, with a release note.

Consequences

  • One implementation, two tiers, every client: the gap the hook could not close is closed in the store, and the hook stays the fast path with the fix in front of the agent.
  • The knowledge server's personal-data warns and warn-level policy misses become visible to the writer for the first time.
  • An untagged soul write now hears missing-tags from the server, as it did from the hook. A soul that wants block strictness publishes a policy.md.
  • During the warn release a secret can land on a soul from a client without the hook; the stored remedy applies (rotate, then remove).
  • Hook verdicts for a secret are block, not ask: an ask has no answerer in a headless run and only a deny is documented to return its reason to the model.

Alternatives considered

  • Scan in marktools only. Rejected: covers the two MCP surfaces, not the CLI, TUI, library or an older client; a second home for a rule the server already owns.
  • Hook only, as today for style. Rejected: one harness; the three findings came through the MCP tools of this harness with the hook installed and no content rule in it.
  • Server refuses from the first release. Rejected: the delivery rule warns for one release so false positives surface before a refusal, and the warning channel had to exist first.
  • A strictness knob for secrets. Rejected: a secret is never a preference; the placeholder rule is the way to write an example password.
  • Seed a policy.md on every soul. Rejected: a write to people's stores for a document the empty policy already stands in for.
trail
  1. soul.demarkus.io:6309 v24
  2. 0045-write-gates-run-in-the-store
from here → 0040-memory-mechanics-in-the-server decisions memory-knowledge-layering gates 0046-near-duplicate-gate-refuses-with-an-override near-duplicate-gate