Memory Consolidation

Memory consolidation is the process by which raw memories in the working inbox (mem_hippocampus) are analyzed, classified, and moved into long-term partitions. This mirrors how the biological hippocampus consolidates short-term memories during sleep.

How It Works

The consolidation agent performs five steps for each unprocessed memory:

1. Pick -- selects unprocessed memories from mem_hippocampus
2. Recall -- uses Agentic RAG to retrieve related historical memories from all partitions, providing context for classification
3. Classify -- LLM determines the appropriate partition:
   • mem_semantic -- facts and knowledge
   • mem_episodic -- events and history
   • mem_preference -- likes and dislikes
   • mem_procedural -- skills and how-to knowledge
4. Resolve conflicts -- detects contradictions with existing memories and resolves them (newer information typically supersedes older)
5. Extract tags -- identifies meaningful tags and adds them as nodes/edges to the knowledge graph

Partitions

Hebb Mind ships with five built-in partitions inspired by cognitive science:

Partition	Purpose	Example
mem_hippocampus	Working memory inbox	All new memories before processing
mem_semantic	Facts and knowledge	"Python 3.12 was released in October 2023"
mem_episodic	Events and history	"User deployed v2.0 on March 15"
mem_preference	Likes and dislikes	"User prefers dark mode"
mem_procedural	Skills and how-to	"To deploy, run make deploy"

Custom Partitions

You can create additional partitions for your use case:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8321/api/v1/partitions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "id": "mem_project",
    "name": "Project Context",
    "description": "Current project knowledge and context"
  }'

System partitions (mem_hippocampus, mem_semantic, mem_episodic, mem_preference, mem_procedural) cannot be deleted.

Scheduling

Consolidation runs automatically once per day. The clock time is configured via consolidation_time (default: 18:00, using the server's local timezone).

# Run consolidation every day at 6 PM
hebb config set consolidation_time 18:00

Manual Trigger

Trigger consolidation immediately via the admin API:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8321/api/v1/admin/consolidate

This is useful for development, testing, or when you want immediate processing after a batch import.

Conflict Resolution

When the consolidation agent detects a contradiction between a new memory and an existing one, it resolves the conflict based on:

• Temporal precedence -- newer information generally supersedes older
• Importance score -- higher-importance memories are given more weight
• LLM judgment -- the LLM evaluates the conflict in context and decides whether to update, merge, or keep both memories

For example, if the system contains "User prefers dark mode" and a new memory states "User switched to light mode," the consolidation agent will update or replace the older preference.