Memory Lifecycle¶

kompend tracks every wiki page through a four-tier memory lifecycle inspired by cognitive science models. Pages gain confidence over time, promote through consolidation tiers, and decay if not recompiled.

Tiers¶

graph LR
    W[WORKING<br/>initial] -->|2 reviews| E[EPISODIC<br/>recent]
    E -->|5 reviews| S[SEMANTIC<br/>stable]
    S -->|10 reviews| P[PROCEDURAL<br/>permanent]
    W -.->|stale| D[Decayed]
    E -.->|stale| D

Tier	Meaning	Promotion threshold
`WORKING`	Just created, untested	2 compile reviews
`EPISODIC`	Seen recently, not yet stable	5 compile reviews
`SEMANTIC`	Stable, well-supported	10 compile reviews
`PROCEDURAL`	Permanent, deeply integrated	—

Confidence evolution¶

Each page starts at confidence 0.5 and asymptotically approaches 1.0:

confidence(n+1) = (confidence(n) + 1) / 2

Retention decay¶

If a page is not recompiled, its retention decays exponentially:

retention = confidence * exp(-days_since_review / half_life)

Pages whose retention falls below compile.memory_decay_threshold (default 0.3) are flagged as stale by the stale-page lint rule.

Supersession¶

When a new compile produces a page with the same title but a different node ID (e.g., content was restructured), the old page is marked superseded_by the new one. Superseded pages are excluded from stale checks and can be cleaned up.

Configuration¶

kompend compile *.pdf --memory                  # enable (default)
kompend compile *.pdf --no-memory               # disable
# Tuning (config-only):
kompend config set compile.memory_half_life_days 90     # decay speed
kompend config set compile.memory_decay_threshold 0.3
# ...or override one run:
kompend compile *.pdf --set compile.memory_half_life_days=90

State is persisted in the memory_states table of base_dir/.kompend/kompend.db.