How It Works
Explain how claude-mem captures observations, when memory injection kicks in, and where data lives. Use when the user asks "how does claude-mem work?" or "what is this thing doing?".
- Skill ID
- thedotmack/claude-mem/how-it-works
- Publisher
- thedotmack
- Repository
- claude-mem
- Installs
- 0
- Files
- 2
- Synced
- Sep 23, 2026
Open any RiverX project, open the Skills panel in the chat, and search for this identifier. The files are fetched from the source repository at install time.
thedotmack/claude-mem/how-it-worksInstalls these files- SKILL.md
- onboarding-explainer.md
What this skill tells the agent
How claude-mem works
What it does
Every Read, Edit, and Bash that Claude makes turns into a compressed observation. Observations get summarized at session end. Relevant ones get auto-injected into future prompts so the next session starts with context from the last one — no re-explaining the codebase, no re-discovering decisions.
When it kicks in
Memory injection starts on your second session in a project.
The first session in a fresh project seeds memory; subsequent sessions receive auto-injected context for relevant past work. Run /learn-codebase if you want to front-load the entire repo into memory in a single pass (~5 minutes, optional).
Where data lives
Everything stays in ~/.claude-mem on this machine.
Nothing leaves your machine except calls to whichever AI provider you configured for compression (Claude / OpenRouter / Gemini). The SQLite database, vector index, logs, and settings all live under that directory and are removed cleanly on npx claude-mem uninstall.
More from thedotmack
Use this skill in a project
Open any RiverX project, search the Skills panel for thedotmack/claude-mem/how-it-works, and install it in one click.