cass-memory — CASS Memory System (cm)

Core Capability: Transforms scattered agent sessions into persistent, cross-agent procedural memory. A pattern discovered in Cursor automatically helps Claude Code on the next session.

cm is an upstream (Dicklesworthstone) tool and is self-describing — discover its command surface from cm --help (and per-subcommand --help), not from this skill. Full catalog snapshot: COMMANDS.md. This skill carries only the AgentOps operating doctrine: the session protocol, feedback discipline, and boundaries.

Architecture in one line: episodic memory (cass session logs) → working memory (diary summaries) → procedural memory (playbook rules with confidence tracking and decay). Full model: ARCHITECTURE.md.

When to Use

• Starting any non-trivial task: pull prior rules and history first
• After a mistake or rabbit hole: check whether a rule already warned about it
• When a rule helped or hurt: record feedback so confidence tracking works

THE EXACT PROMPT — Session Start

Before starting this task, run:

cm context "<task description>" --json

Read the output carefully:
- relevantBullets: Rules from playbook scored by relevance
- antiPatterns: Things that have caused problems before
- historySnippets: Past sessions (yours and other agents')
- suggestedCassQueries: Deeper investigation if needed

Reference rule IDs when following them (e.g., "Following b-8f3a2c...")

cm context "<task>" --json is THE ONE COMMAND — everything else is optional. Budget flags (--limit, --min-score, --no-history) exist when context is tight; see cm context --help.

Agent Protocol

1. START:    cm context "<task>" --json
2. WORK:     Reference rule IDs when following them
3. FEEDBACK: Leave inline comments when rules help/hurt
4. END:      Just finish. Learning happens automatically.

You do NOT need to:

• Run cm reflect (automation handles this)
• Run cm mark manually (use inline comments)
• Manually add rules to the playbook

Feedback Discipline

# When a rule helped / caused problems
cm mark b-8f3a2c --helpful
cm mark b-xyz789 --harmful --reason "Caused regression"

# Or leave inline comments (parsed during reflection)
// [cass: helpful b-8f3a2c] - this saved me from a rabbit hole
// [cass: harmful b-x7k9p1] - wrong for our use case

Why feedback matters: rules aren't immortal. Confidence halves every 90 days without revalidation, one harmful mark counts 4x a helpful one, and repeatedly-harmful rules are inverted into explicit anti-pattern warnings rather than deleted. Skipping feedback starves the decay model.

Trauma Guard

cm guard --install / --git / --status installs hooks that block known-dangerous commands; cm trauma add / cm trauma scan manage the pattern set. Doctrine, scope, and pattern design: TRAUMA-GUARD.md.

Safety Boundaries

• LAW 0: never configure cm reflection to shell out to claude -p (e.g. provider: cli) — that path is forbidden on this fleet. Use a compliant provider, or rely on deterministic reflection (cm degrades gracefully without an LLM).
• Do not hand-edit the playbook to add rules; the reflect/curate pipeline owns it. Feedback marks are the only manual write you need.
• cm doctor --json first when anything misbehaves; cm doctor --fix for a corrupt playbook. If cass is missing, cm still works playbook-only (no history).

References