---
title: Memory Backend
type: system
status: active
created: 2026-07-22
updated: 2026-08-01
verified_on: 2026-08-01
confidence: high
tags: [memory, mnemosyne, agent]
sources: [raw/configs/hermes-config-sanitized.txt]
---

# Memory Backend

## Purpose
Persist and recall agent memory across sessions.

## Current Configuration
- **Primary backend:** Mnemosyne (local native)
- **Memory enabled:** true
- **User profile enabled:** true
- **Memory char limit:** 5000
- **User char limit:** 3000
- **Flush every:** 6 turns
- **Auto sleep:** true
- **Default scope:** session
- **Vector type:** int8
- **Profile isolation:** true (configured; requires gateway restart for the current messaging runtime)
- **Shared surface:** `data/shared/mnemosyne.db`
- **Shared surface read:** true
- **Sync roles:** user
- **Skip contexts:** cron, flush, subagent, background, skill_loop
- **Reflect max calls per session:** 3

## Storage Location
- Mnemosyne home: `~/.hermes/mnemosyne/`
- DB: `~/.hermes/mnemosyne/data/`
- Backups: `~/.hermes/mnemosyne/backups/`
- Logs: `~/.hermes/mnemosyne/logs/`
- Models: `~/.hermes/mnemosyne/models/`
- Config: `~/.hermes/mnemosyne/config.yaml`

## Known Issues
- Health monitoring currently treats capture as stale only after 24 hours; an activity-aware comparison is preferable to catch dry-intake failures sooner without false alarms during idle periods.
- The 2026-08-01 automatic-capture failure and repair are documented in [[incidents/2026-08-01-mnemosyne-capture-failure]].

**Correction (2026-07-22, per Anthony):** this page previously referenced Hindsight as a possibly-used backend on this box. That was a mix-up with a different Hermes instance — see [[comparisons/memory-backends]].

## Related
- [[memory-backend]]
- [[systems/mnemosyne]]
- [[experiments/index]]