docs: give Data a memory it lands itself, in its own checkout

[EthanThatOneKid]

Data does not persist between sessions, and it keeps nothing of a conversation unless it lands somewhere durable. This makes that memory real and makes Data proactive about it.

Rewritten 2026-09-25 for the self-hosted cutover. The first version of this branch described an inbox plus a scheduled landing sweep, because the pre-cutover Data was a Zo persona with no shell and no write tools. That premise is gone: Data now runs as a self-hosted Letta agent (wazootech/data #10) whose memory is a git-backed tree of markdown it reads and commits to itself. The inbox, the sweep automation, and the .gitignore entry are dropped; the surviving idea — Data lands what it learned, itself, as a source-cited record — is now aimed at that memory.

What changed

• agent/instructions.md — narrows the read-only rule to the codebase (Data's own memory is the one place it writes) and adds a Memory section: Data lands a durable record in its own memory in the same turn it learned it; a valid record is verified against source with the repository, path, and line numbers it used, is reusable next quarter, and is safe to publish; corrections land next to the thing they correct; paths and lines are read, not recalled; Data never claims to have landed something it has not committed; engineering findings still hand off to Computer.
• AGENTS.md — describes Data's memory as the agent's own checkout (~/.letta/lc-local-backend/memfs/<agent-id>/memory, seeded from agent/instructions.md as system/persona.md), adds a Memory records section, and restates the write boundary: Data writes only to its own memory.
• README.md — adds a Memory bullet under How Data runs and widens the toolset bullet to name the memory write.

Verification: docs only; no code path touched, CI's typecheck and test are unaffected.

After merge: run npm run sync-persona in wazootech/data to seed agent/instructions.md into the live agent's memory as system/persona.md — until that runs, the live persona is the pre-cutover text. The paused Data Memory Landing Sweep automation (b59efac2-ea45-4353-b7a3-3472c1ca55c6) is obsolete under this design and can be deleted.

Merge gate: merging to main is Ethan's call per the workspace boundary.

[wazoocomputer]

This pull request, titled "docs: give Data a memory it lands itself," introduces a new memory model for Data. Previously, Data's conversations and memory were ephemeral, residing only in the runtime. This change establishes a durable memory within the wazootech/data repository under knowledge/, enabling Data to proactively record lessons, reproductions, gotchas, and corrections.

File	Change	Summary
.gitignore	modified	Adds memory/inbox/ to the ignore list.
AGENTS.md	modified	Updates the description of Data's memory model and capabilities.
README.md	modified	Revises the explanation of Data's memory model and removes a duplicated Discord entry.
agent/instructions.md	modified	Narrows the read-only rule to the codebase and adds a section on Data's new memory model.
automations/README.md	modified	Adds an entry for the Data Memory Landing Sweep.
automations/data-memory-landing.md	added	Defines the new automation for landing Data's memory records.
memory/README.md	added	Describes the purpose and structure of the memory inbox.

Reviewers should begin by examining agent/instructions.md to understand Data's updated operational guidelines regarding its memory.

[wazoocomputer]

This pull request, titled "docs: give Data a memory it lands itself," introduces a new memory model for Data. Previously, Data's conversations and memory were ephemeral, residing only in the runtime. This change establishes a durable memory within the wazootech/data repository under knowledge/, enabling Data to proactively record lessons, reproductions, gotchas, and corrections.

File	Change	Summary
.gitignore	modified	Adds memory/inbox/ to the ignore list.
AGENTS.md	modified	Updates the description of Data's memory model and capabilities.
README.md	modified	Revises the explanation of Data's memory model and removes a duplicated Discord entry.
agent/instructions.md	modified	Narrows the read-only rule to the codebase and adds a section on Data's new memory model.
automations/README.md	modified	Adds an entry for the Data Memory Landing Sweep.
automations/data-memory-landing.md	added	Defines the new automation for landing Data's memory records.
memory/README.md	added	Describes the purpose and structure of the memory inbox.

Reviewers should begin by examining agent/instructions.md to understand Data's updated operational guidelines regarding its memory.

[EthanThatOneKid]

Review follow-ups landed in c97112a — two gaps the prompt left open:

• Where a record goes, and how the tree stays navigable. The Memory section said records live in a tree the runtime loads with Data and stopped there, which allowed two silent failures: a record parked under system/ (loaded in full on every turn, paid for forever) and a record without description frontmatter (invisible to the tree walk that is the only way to find it). The prompt now names records/<topic>.md, requires the frontmatter, and says what system/ is for. AGENTS.md and README.md carry the same statement.
• "Outlives the session" is not "outlives the host." git remote -v in the memory checkout is empty, so a commit survives a restart but not the host; durability is the weekly local backup's job. Verified rather than assumed: the checkout has no remote and holds exactly one bundle, memory-backup-20260925-043440. Both the prompt and the guides now say it that way.

Green: npm run typecheck clean, npm test 24/24.

[EthanThatOneKid]

Merged as eb59a21. Two follow-ups from the review landed with it, plus the prompt fixes:

• agent/instructions.md now names where a record goes (records/<topic>.md, outside system/) and why the description frontmatter is required, and adds a durability clause: the memory checkout has no git remote, so a commit outlives the session but not the host — durability rests on the weekly local memory backup. AGENTS.md and README.md carry the same two points.
• Re-seeded the live agent: npm run sync-persona committed 0a2928a in the agent's memory, so system/persona.md now carries the mandate. Before the run, --dry-run reported system/persona.md differs from agent/instructions.md (5174 bytes rendered).
• Deleted the obsolete paused Data Memory Landing Sweep automation (b59efac2), and removed the empty memory/inbox/ directory and its local .git/info/exclude line left over from the dropped inbox-and-sweep design. Nothing references either.

Note for this thread: the inbox-and-sweep design described in the earlier discussion is dropped — Data lands records in its own memory checkout, and there is no inbox or sweep. Automating the re-seed is tracked separately in #16.