Sleep Consolidation (Memory Transfer)

Specialist workflow for the Cognitive Sleep Cycle. Transfers high-value episodic memory (thinking sessions) into durable semantic storage (memory:// notes). Mirrors biological consolidation: hippocampal replay identifies candidates, slow-wave phase distills insights, REM phase discovers novel connections.

Triggers

Steps

1. 1.

   Memory Replay (Hippocampal Phase)

   Identify consolidation candidates from recent episodic memory.

   1. Run recent_activity to retrieve thinking sessions and significant events since last consolidation
   2. Score significance: decisions made, lessons learned, insights gained, bugs fixed, patterns recognized
   3. Identify high-significance events (3+ concept connections, decision points, novel insights)
   4. Filter out low-value noise: routine operations, trivial queries, incomplete sessions
   5. Create ranked candidate list with significance scores and rationale

   Significance scoring criteria:

   • Decision points: +3 (choices that affected outcomes)
   • Lessons learned: +3 (explicit learning from experience)
   • Novel insights: +2 (new understanding or connections)
   • Bug fixes: +2 (problem-solution pairs worth preserving)
   • Pattern recognition: +2 (recurring themes across sessions)
   • Concept density: +1 per 3 [[WikiLinks]] in source

   Output: List of consolidation candidates with significance scores (threshold: score >= 4)

   🧠Enhanced Thinking
   Tools:recent_activity*sequential_thinking*

   Effort:medium

   Guardrails

   • recency_window: Process thinking sessions from last 24-48 hours
   • significance_threshold: Only promote candidates with score >= 4
   • concept_density_check: Flag sessions with 3+ [[WikiLinks]] for review
2. 2.

   Consolidation (Slow-Wave Phase)

   Distill high-value episodic content into durable semantic memory.

   1. For each consolidation candidate, extract core insights and distill into wiki-style knowledge
   2. ALWAYS search existing memory:// first for related notes to update rather than duplicate
   3. If related note exists: edit_memory to append or integrate new insights
   4. If no related note: write_memory to create new semantic note
   5. Ensure every consolidated note has minimum 5 [[WikiLinks]] for graph integration
   6. Cross-link to existing knowledge structure

   Consolidation transforms:

   • Episodic: "I debugged the auth issue by checking token expiry"
   • Semantic: "[[JWT]] [[token-validation]] requires checking [[expiry]] before [[signature-verification]] to avoid timing attacks"

   Note: read_memory IS allowed in this workflow (NFR-7.11.1). Reading content for consolidation is intentional access that SHOULD boost the decay clock.

   🧠Enhanced Thinking
   Tools:search_memories*read_memorywrite_memory*edit_memory

   Effort:high

   Guardrails

   • search_before_write: ALWAYS search for existing notes before creating new ones
   • wikilink_density: Minimum 5 [[concepts]] per consolidated note
   • update_preference: Prefer editing existing notes over creating new ones
   • no_duplicates: Never create a note if a related one already exists
   • no_custodian_folder: NEVER write to custodian/ - write to appropriate knowledge folders (research/, tech/, etc.)
3. 3.

   Dream Synthesis (REM Phase)

   Discover novel connections between recently consolidated concepts.

   1. Select 3-5 high-value [[concepts]] from the consolidation phase
   2. Run find_similar_concepts on each to discover unexpected semantic neighbors
   3. Use build_context to explore relationship neighborhoods (depth 2)
   4. Identify surprising connections not already explicit in the graph
   5. Generate testable hypotheses about relationships worth investigating

   Dream outputs:

   • Novel connection: "[[JWT]] is semantically close to [[session-management]] but they're not linked in the graph"
   • Hypothesis: "Consolidating JWT and session docs might reduce context-building overhead"
   • Investigation candidate: "The [[decay]] concept appears near [[garbage-collection]] - explore memory management parallels"

   Focus on connections that could improve future retrieval or reveal hidden knowledge structure.

   🧠Enhanced Thinking
   Tools:find_similar_concepts*build_contextsequential_thinking*

   Effort:high

   Guardrails

   • novelty_focus: Prioritize connections NOT already explicit in the graph
   • hypothesis_quality: Hypotheses must be testable or actionable
   • concept_limit: Process maximum 5 concepts per dream cycle
   • output_format: Return connections and hypotheses as workflow output - do NOT write to memory://