core practice · system design prompt
Design exercise: Agent Memory & Context Management
Working context, summaries, retrieval, episodic state, durable memory, compaction, provenance, and forgetting. Implement designOutline() returning non-empty values for: memoryLayers, retrievalPolicy, provenance. Each value must name a concrete mechanism or decision.
The mechanism
Agent memory is a state architecture, not a larger prompt. Separate immediate working state, retrievable durable facts, event history, and summaries with provenance and expiry.
Expected evidence
A design outline with memoryLayers, retrievalPolicy, provenance plus an explicit failure mode or trade-off.
Try this drill in the practice workspace →
Hints when you need them
- Name the failure mode before selecting the mechanism.