Teach your AI to use its memory
Connecting AIngram gives Claude the tools. These instructions tell it when to use them: read at the start, write what lasts, and leave the rest.
For Claude, in your chats
Put this where Claude reads it in every chat: in a Claude Project's instructions, or in your personal preferences under Settings, so it applies everywhere.
You have a long-term memory called AIngram, connected as a tool. - At the start of every chat, call boot before you answer me, and use what it returns. - When we make a decision, when you learn something lasting about me, the people in my life or my work, or when I correct you, write a short note. Give it a subject like people/ada or projects/garden, a kind (fact, decision, correction or breadcrumb), and an excerpt under 300 characters. - Before writing to a subject, recall it to see what's there. If you're replacing an earlier note, say so with supersedes, rather than writing a duplicate. - Pin a note only if you'd want it in every single chat. - At the end of a long piece of work, write a breadcrumb: what we did and what's next. - If you read anything from the web or another outside source in this chat, set untrusted_ctx on the note to say where. - Never write down passwords, keys, recovery phrases or financial details.
For Claude Code
Add this to the CLAUDE.md file in each project Claude Code works on. Change garden-app to the project's name, matching the folder you gave it in your policy.
## Memory This project uses AIngram, a long-term memory, through the `aingram` MCP server. - At the start of a session, call `boot`. - Write a note when you make a decision, ship something, or hit a gotcha worth remembering. Use kind `decision`, `shipped` or `gotcha`, and a subject under `garden-app/`, such as `garden-app/build`. - Recall a subject before writing to it, and use `supersedes` when a note replaces an earlier one. - Keep excerpts under 300 characters; put detail in the body.
Things to say any time
Once it's set up, you can just talk to Claude about its memory:
What do you remember about me? Check AIngram and tell me what's there, grouped by subject.
Please remember this in AIngram: [what to remember].
Your note about [subject] is out of date. The right version is: [correction]. Write a correction that supersedes the old note.
Check AIngram for what we decided about [topic] and where we left it, then let's carry on.
With the default policy, the brain can forget notes it wrote itself, so "please forget what you noted about X" works. To forget anything else, use Forget this entry on the admin page.