About distill-memory
Distill Memory is a skill for capturing durable decisions, preferences, procedures, and other context from conversations in Nowledge Mem. It guides agents to add new memories or update related existing ones while avoiding routine or transient details.
Key features
- 01Identifies durable conversation context
- 02Adds or updates memories
- 03Supports structured memory types and labels
- 04Avoids duplicate and transient notes
Use cases
- 01Saving decisions for future sessions
- 02Recording repeatable workflows
- 03Preserving durable preferences and constraints
- 04Updating an existing memory with new details
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
npx skills add https:/ / github.com/ nowledge-co/ community --skill distill-memoryAfter installing, type/distill-memoryin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Details
From the project READMEDistill 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 addwhen 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