Memory: what Moe knows about you

Moe carries what it has learned about you into every conversation, so you do not have to explain yourself twice. It is a short list of plain facts, who you are, who matters to you, how you like things done, and you can read the whole of it, correct any line of it, or throw a line out. All of it stays on this Mac unless you set up Away, and even then it travels sealed. It is deliberately small, because every word of it is read before Moe answers anything at all, so what is in there has to earn its place.

The Memory page#

Memory is a row in the sidebar of the main window, under Library. It is not in Settings, and that is deliberate: what Moe believes about you is not a preference you tune once, it is something worth looking at.

The page has a short list of its own down the left: Memory, then You, People, Right now (what is going on at the moment) and To check, each with how many lines it holds. To check shows its number in a small blue pill, and only when Moe has something to ask. When Moe has kept notes of its own from your conversations (the invoice day, never send without reading it back), a fifth row, From your chats, holds them, so they are never mixed in with what Moe believes about you. At the foot of the list, quietly, are Past, Open folder and Your notes. Click a row and the right side shows that section: its name, one line saying what it is, and its lines, one under another with a thin rule between them. Nothing is boxed or tagged. The page remembers which section you were on while Moe is running, and a section with nothing in it says so in one quiet line.

Hover over a line and, faintly under it, you see where it came from and when, WhatsApp · Sep 21 or Your words, and at its end Discuss and an ×. Hovering never moves anything: every line keeps its width and its wrapping whether the pointer is on it or not. In People each line starts with the person's name in bold, then who they are to you, in a few words (Shaindy — sister). Lines speak to you: anything Moe wrote as the user is shown as you.

Talking it through with Moe. Every section has Go through with Moe at the top right. It opens Chat with a message already typed — for You: Let's go through what you know about me — the You lines in my memory (identity.md, preferences.md, voice.md and USER.md). Ask me about anything that looks off, one at a time, and fix it as we go. Nothing is sent until you send it. Discuss, on a line, does the same for that one line, and Review everything with Moe, at the foot of the list, starts a walk through all of your memory, one file and one question at a time. Moe changes what you tell it as you go — confirms what is right, corrects what is wrong in your words, forgets what you want gone, adds what is missing — and each change is kept as your own word.

Every line is corrected where it stands. Click a line and it becomes a text field right there, in the same place and the same type, outlined in blue. Change the words and press Return to save, or just click somewhere else; Esc puts it back as it was. Clear the line and save, or click its ×, and Moe forgets it; a small Forgotten · Undo appears at the bottom for a few seconds in case that was a slip (⌘Z works too). From the keyboard, ↑ and ↓ move between lines, Return edits the one you are on and Delete forgets it.

Adding something yourself. Under the lines of You, People and Right now is + Add something Moe should know. Click it, type the line and press Return (or click away); Esc leaves it. What you add is kept as your own words, just like a correction: nothing Moe reads later competes with it, and the nightly tidy never moves it or asks about it. In People, type Dana — co-founder (or Dana - co-founder) and the name is set in bold like the others.

Every change is written at once, with no waiting on Moe, and it is yours from then on. For something Moe learned by reading, a later look at the same mail or chats will not bring the old wording back, and the nightly tidy never merges it away, moves it to Past or asks about it again. For a line from Moe's own memory of your conversations, the change is recorded in the same place Moe's own notes are, so it reaches your machine in the cloud too, and the two files Moe reads before every conversation (USER.md and MEMORY.md) are rewritten before the page reloads; the old line does not come back.

Moe writes what it notes about you as plain facts, Prefers action over explanation, not in its own voice. A note from before it did, one that says I or me where it means Moe, is shown under From your chats rather than You, so it never reads as your own words; reword it and it moves up.

To check is where Moe asks for your help, never more than five things at a time, disagreements first, and it asks one thing at a time. A card shows the question — Is Shaindy your sister?, or Is this right? above a line Moe is unsure of — with three choices: Yes, No and Something else…, which opens a field in the card for the right answer (Return saves, Esc goes back). Skip moves on and asks again another time, and 1 of 5 says how far you are. When two lines disagree, the card asks Which of these is right? and each line is a choice; the one you pick stays and the other moves to Past. Not every question is a yes or no — Who is "he" in that line? can't be answered with Yes — so a card that asks who, what, when, which, offers two answers (your sister or your cousin?) or just notes something unclear shows a box for your answer instead, with Save, Doesn't matter (Moe stops asking) and Skip. After each answer the next card slides in; at the end the page says All caught up. From the keyboard: Y, N, E (something else), 1/2 on a disagreement, → skips and ← goes back to one you skipped. Yes keeps the line as your own word, No forgets it, and what you type is kept as something you told Moe. Questions are always put to you as you, never the user.

A fact you deleted that Moe picks up again is never quietly brought back: it waits in To check as Remember this again?, with Yes and No.

Moe tidies its memory overnight. Once a day, while you are away from the Mac, Moe reads everything it keeps in mind before a conversation and tidies it on its own: two lines saying the same thing become one, next Tuesday becomes the date it meant, a plan whose day has passed is set aside, two lines that disagree are settled, and changes Moe's own review had set aside are decided. It never adds a name or a number that was not there, never drops one, and never changes a line in your own words. Nothing is deleted: every line it tidied away is under Past with what happened to it (Merged into …, Reworded as …, Over, so set aside), and Restore puts that change back. It uses the cheapest model your provider offers, and does nothing while background thinking is off.

Past, at the foot of the list, shows the lines Moe keeps but no longer treats as how things are now: events that are over, older wordings, lines that did not fit, and what the overnight tidy set aside. Hover over one for Restore, which puts it back.

Open folder, under it, opens one Finder window, What Moe knows, with every memory file side by side: USER.md and MEMORY.md, the two files Moe reads before every conversation, and the files it learned from reading, summary, identity, people, threads, voice, preferences, questions and check. The bookkeeping files around them are left out. The files themselves stay where Moe keeps them; the folder holds a link to each, so opening one and saving it in any editor changes the real file. The folder is rebuilt every time Moe starts and every time you open it, so it always shows what is there.

Your notes opens the plain notes Moe was set up from. A fresh Moe has four, About me, People, Projects and Preferences, and you edit them here as plain text, with a list on the left and the page on the right. An unsaved mark and a Save button appear the moment you change something; Done closes the sheet. What these say is carried into what Moe knows once, when Moe is first set up on this Mac; the sure way to give Moe a fact after that first day is to tell it.

With Away on, one more quiet line at the foot says your machine in the cloud keeps a sealed copy in step.

When there is nothing to show, the page says so in one sentence, why if Moe knows why (the daily look has never been switched on, or ran but read nothing), and under it Choose what Moe may read opens the same question the welcome asks: one switch per thing Moe could read, the daily pass under them, Save or Not now.

Where what Moe knows about you comes from#

Four things feed what Moe knows, and they are not the same kind of knowing. Three of them are Moe working something out; one of them is you saying it. The difference is kept, and shown.

Talking to Moe is the ordinary way, and it needs no switch. After every exchange, Moe quietly reads back what you just said and keeps anything worth remembering for weeks: a name and who they are to you, a company or project, a date, how you like a thing done. Only what you said yourself counts, never Moe's own suggestions, the result of a job it ran for you, a web page, or the text of something you pasted or quoted. A name or a number you did not say is never kept, and before anything is kept a second quick check reads it against your words and drops it if it adds anything you did not say, or turns a remark about one thing into a general rule ("I didn't like that restaurant's pasta" is not "dislikes pasta"). It happens in the background, on the cheapest model your own plan or key offers (the model you chose, on a custom or local endpoint), so your answer never waits for it, and Background thinking off turns it off. Nothing asks you first, because you said it out loud to your assistant. A moment after the answer, a quiet line under that answer says what was kept, Noted: Dana is your business partner, in the island and in Chat, with Undo beside it: one click and Moe forgets it, here and on your cloud computer. It stays under the answer it came from even if you have already asked the next thing. A fact you deleted is not picked up again from later conversations. Lines that arrived this way are marked From your conversations, and the way to change one is to tell Moe. Every ten turns Moe also reads back over the conversation for anything it should have written down and did not (see The read-back below). When a conversation ends, Moe reads what you said once more for things left open, a promise, a booking still to confirm, and comes back to them later; that pass looks for follow-ups, not for things to remember about you.

Everything Moe reads by itself is opt-in, once, per source. The welcome asks on one screen. You are asked again the first time you connect a source: a small sheet, Let Moe learn from Notes and watch it for things you'd want help with?, with Yes and Not now. Yes switches that source on, and the daily pass too if you had never answered it. Not now records nothing and asks once more a week later. The switches under Settings › Running in the background › Keeping up › Learn and watch are the same answers, so you can say yes to your calendar and no to your mail. Everything that pass works out is stamped with where it came from and when, and how sure Moe is; a fact you cannot trace is a fact you cannot argue with, so none are kept that way.

What the daily pass keeps is short, current and checked. Reading a year of your messages turns up thousands of things, and almost none of them are worth carrying into every conversation. So each one has to pass one test first: would this be useful to recall in six months? Greetings, who is picking up whom, splitting a bill, and anything already said are let go. Nothing about you is taken from what someone else wrote about you, only from what you wrote or did. Where you live is kept as a city, never a street, and phone numbers, email addresses, payment details, amounts of money, and anything about health are never kept at all, whatever the message said; this is checked by Moe itself, not only asked of the model.

Facts and events are kept differently. A fact is something that will still be true in six months: what you do, who someone is to you, how you write. An event happens at a time: a trip, a deadline, a job for a friend. Events go under Right now with their dates, and about a month after one is over Moe moves it to Past. It is not deleted: it is still there under Past at the foot of the Memory page, Moe can still find it when you ask, and Restore puts it back. Something that keeps happening, the sukkah you build every autumn, is kept as a fact only once Moe has seen it happen at least twice.

One line per thing. The same person under three spellings, or in Hebrew and in English, is one person; the same trip mentioned a dozen times is one line, and Moe counts how often it saw it. When something changes, the line is rewritten to how things are now, and the old wording goes to Past. When two things Moe learned disagree and it cannot tell which is true, it keeps both, marks them, and asks you under Check these; it never quietly picks one. It asks at most about five things at a time.

Each night, Moe tidies what it knows. After the daily pass, and on days when there was nothing new to read, Moe merges what repeats, moves what is over to Past, keeps only the most important few of each kind (up to fifteen things about you, twenty-five people, fifteen things going on), and rewrites its short picture of you, the one at the top of the Memory page and the first thing Moe reads before every conversation. That picture is made of what stays true about you, plus at most three things happening now or coming up; something that already happened, was testing a bot, just wrapped up the season, is never in it. The same goes for the lines about you and your people: friend; recently back from abroad keeps friend, and the news goes with what is going on.

A meeting can become something Moe knows. When a meeting ends and the notes are written, Moe hands them to its own thinking part as a quiet note, and what to keep is that part's decision.

Your own notes outrank anything Moe worked out. The plain files behind Your notes are in your own words, and they are what Moe's memory is first filled from when it is set up. When there is more to remember than there is room for, your own words about yourself take about three quarters of the space and Moe's own portrait of you fills what is left. A line you correct becomes yours: it does not expire the way a worked-out fact does, and no later pass can bring the old wording back.

A line you have not filled in is not a fact. About me starts as a short form, Name:, What I do:, Where I am / timezone: and so on, and only the lines you have written something after are carried into what Moe knows. A blank line stays a blank line on the page; it is never read as "this person has no name". If an earlier Moe took the empty labels in, they are dropped the next time Moe starts, on this Mac and on your cloud computer alike, and nothing you actually wrote is touched.

The honest state of a first week. Moe learns your work and your people from what you tell it, and from the daily pass once you have allowed it something to read. Until one of those has happened, About you is short: that is the truth, not a fault. Say it once, "I run the shop", and it is kept.

Your name it knows from day one. The name on your Mac account (the one on the login screen) is written into About you the first time Moe starts, marked as coming from the Mac account so you can see where it came from. Correct it or remove it on the Memory page like any other line: a name you set yourself is kept over it, and one you removed is never put back.

The read-back after a conversation runs on the brain you chose. Every ten turns Moe re-reads the conversation and may quietly save something it learned. For a few days that read-back ran on the cheapest model your provider offers, to save on the plan; it saved less than it should have and once got a fact wrong, so it runs on your conversation's own model again — whichever brain that is, a Claude or ChatGPT plan, your own key, or a hosted service. If you had set a model for it yourself, that stays.

Moe is told, in its own instructions, to keep memory the one way it is read back. Everything Moe knows about you is shown to it at the start of every conversation from one place, its memory, and the instruction it carries says to save there, in the same turn, without announcing it. An earlier Moe's instructions pointed it at the note files under Your notes instead, which nothing reads after setup, and for a week it saved almost nothing anywhere. That paragraph is replaced on your Mac the next time Moe opens; anything you wrote yourself in that file stays.

Bringing in what another assistant knows#

Memory › Import from ChatGPT or Claude takes what another assistant has remembered about you:

1. Pick ChatGPT or Claude.
2. Copy the question the sheet shows into a new chat there. It asks that assistant to list everything it remembers about you.
3. Paste its whole answer back and press Import.

Moe reads it and keeps each fact marked as from ChatGPT or Claude. If one disagrees with something Moe already knows, it becomes a question under To check; nothing is overwritten. Nothing you told Moe yourself is changed. The sheet then says how many things were new, how many Moe already knew, and how many are waiting under To check. The pasted text itself is not kept.

What I learned this week#

On Sunday morning, from 9 your time, Moe sends one short note, but only if it learned something new that week. The note says how many things it learned about you, lists up to five of the newest with where each came from ("from our chats", "from WhatsApp", "from ChatGPT"), and says how many more are on the Memory page. It comes to the island, and to your chat apps too if reminders go there; quiet hours hold it for the morning. If one is wrong, say so ("forget the second one"): a fact from a conversation is forgotten then and there, and anything else is on the Memory page with its own Delete. Anything you told Moe yourself is never listed, since it isn't news to you.

What Moe remembers, and what it does not#

A memory is something that would otherwise make you repeat yourself. A preference you state. A correction, which is the same thing arriving the hard way: you told Moe it had your job title wrong, or that the person called Sam is your accountant and not your brother. A fact about you or your setup, where your work lives on this Mac, which calendar is the real one. And a convention you keep, the sort of thing a new colleague would learn in the first week and then never need told again.

Most of what you say is not that, and Moe is meant to let it go. The back and forth of getting something done is not memory. Neither is where a task got to; that is what the conversation itself is for. Neither is anything Moe can look up again in a second, or a to-do. If everything became a memory, memory would be a transcript, and a transcript is exactly what it must not be.

Memory is small on purpose, and it stays small. There is a hard budget, about a page of what Moe knows about you and about a page and a half of Moe's own notes. A save never fails because memory is full: what Moe was told is kept, and other entries step out of the part that is read before every answer to make room for it. Your name, and anything you told Moe or wrote under Memory yourself, never step out for age; after those, the newest entries are kept, and one long entry that does not fit no longer pushes out every shorter, older one behind it. The entries that step out are not deleted; they stay under Memory, and Moe brings one back when the subject comes up. Moe tidies as it goes, merging two overlapping entries into one, dropping something that has stopped being true, so that what is read every time stays sharp. The reason for the tightness is that all of it is read before every single answer: ten good lines beat a hundred mediocre ones.

A memory is written as a plain statement of fact, never as an order. "You prefer concise answers", not "always answer concisely". Because memory is re-read at the top of every conversation, anything phrased as a command would be read as a command, forever, and could quietly override what you are actually asking for right now.

Moe will also refuse to write a memory that reads like an attempt to plant instructions for later. Text arrives from all over, a web page, a mail, a shared document, and memory is the most valuable place in the system to hide something in. So anything shaped like "ignore your previous instructions", or "do not tell the user", is turned away at the door rather than saved. You will almost certainly never see this happen.

The honest limit: Moe remembers when it judges something worth remembering. It is not recording you. There is no guarantee that a thing you mentioned once, in passing, made it into memory. That is not the same as gone: your conversations are kept, and searching them under Settings › Chats finds plenty that memory never held. Memory is the shortlist. The conversations are the record.

Where what Moe knows is kept, and what deleting really does#

All of it is on this Mac. Two plain files are the part you can read yourself: before every conversation Moe reads the things it knows and the things it knows about you. Open folder on the Memory page opens one folder with both of those files beside what it learned from the things you let it read. Open them in any editor; type a line in and Moe takes it as something it now knows.

Underneath, every single thing Moe knows is kept separately, as its own entry with its own identity, the time it was learned, and where it came from. That is why a fact can be corrected or removed exactly, on its own, and why two of your devices can both be learning things at once without either overwriting the other: the same fact learned twice on two devices is one entry, not two.

Deleting is real. When you tell Moe to forget something, it writes down, permanently, that the fact is gone, and that goes everywhere the fact itself went. A deleted fact does not quietly reappear from your phone or your cloud computer a week later. If Moe meets the same fact again after you deleted it, it does not decide on your behalf that you have changed your mind: it sets the fact aside as a question rather than restoring it.

What Moe knows is locked. With Away, the words of every entry are sealed with a key only your own devices hold. Someone holding the file, including the service that carries entries between your devices, has the entries and cannot read a word of them. If Moe cannot seal something, it does not send it. What travels between devices is the entries, facts learned, facts deleted, corrections; the two plain files do not travel. Each device builds its own copy of them from the shared entries after every sync, which is exactly why they cannot drift apart into two different stories.