Published sample from the Setup Audit library, exactly as it ships in a pack apart from this note. Placeholders like {{CLIENT_NAME}} are filled from your interview answers at assembly time.

Implement three-tier memory

Goal: All three memory tiers exist concretely for every project: a confirmed global manual, working memory/ folders with a stated promotion rule, and a chosen, working long-term archive with its location declared in each project's CLAUDE.md. Effort: M (under 2 hours) Prereqs: foundation-03, memory-context-01

Why this matters

(claude.ai also has a built-in cross-chat memory; that is a separate, complementary decision covered in memory-context-05 where the pack includes it. This runbook builds the file-based system your workspace owns.)

The memory-context-01 audit named where context gets lost. This task closes those gaps with a specific, working structure rather than a vague promise to "keep better notes". Three tiers, each doing one job: identity, in-flight work, and history. Skipping straight to a database front-loads infrastructure {{CLIENT_NAME}} does not need yet; skipping the archive entirely repeats the context-loss problem this kit exists to fix.

Instructions for Claude

1. Confirm tier 1 is in place: read ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md and confirm it exists and is the stable identity layer written in foundation-02 (short, rarely edited, covers identity, workstreams, working style). Do not rewrite it here; this task only confirms it. Verify: ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md exists and its content matches the one-line summary from foundation-02's findings, spot checked.
2. Confirm tier 2 is in place: for each project folder created in foundation-03 under ~/claude-workspace/, confirm CLAUDE.md and memory/ both exist. Verify: ls -d ~/claude-workspace/*/CLAUDE.md ~/claude-workspace/*/memory shows both present for every project folder.
3. Define what belongs in memory/ by adding a short section to each project CLAUDE.md if not already present: working docs, interview checkpoints, draft analyses, anything still mid-flight. State the promotion rule explicitly: when a draft in memory/ produces a durable decision or fact, promote it into the project CLAUDE.md with a dated line, for example - 2026-07-11: decided to X because Y. Verify: each project CLAUDE.md contains a "memory/" section naming what belongs there and the promotion rule in those terms.
4. Ask the client: present the tier 3 choice plainly, then record their answer.
   • Option A (default, start here): plain dated markdown files memory/archive/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md per project. Searchable with grep or by Claude reading the folder. Zero infrastructure, works offline, works across {{CLIENT_NAME}}'s accounts because it is just files on the machine.
   • Option B (at scale): a vector database such as Pinecone, index {{CLIENT_SLUG}}-memory, one namespace per project, semantic search across hundreds of wrap-ups. Worth it once the archive outgrows what Claude can read in a session in one pass, not before.
   • Decision heuristic: start with files; revisit only if the archive exceeds roughly 50-100 records, or grep starts failing to find what the client needs.
   Verify: their choice is recorded in the CLAUDE.md footer from step 7, not assumed by Claude.
5. Create the archive folder for each project: mkdir -p ~/claude-workspace/*/memory/archive. Verify: ls -d ~/claude-workspace/*/memory/archive shows the folder exists for every project.
6. Write a first archive record by hand, as a template, in each project: memory/archive/<today's date>-kit-setup.md, containing the Topic, Date, Status, Decisions, Next actions and Source IDs structure (the same structure the wrap-up ritual in memory-context-03 uses). Verify: file exists, is non-empty, and contains all six fields.
7. Add a "Memory" footer to each project's CLAUDE.md declaring all three tier locations: the global manual path, this project's memory/ folder, this project's memory/archive/ folder, and, if Option B was chosen, the Pinecone index and namespace name. Example (substitute the actual project folder name for <project>):

   ## Memory
   - Tier 1, global manual: ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
   - Tier 2, in-flight drafts: ~/claude-workspace/<project>/memory/
   - Tier 3, long-term archive: ~/claude-workspace/<project>/memory/archive/

   Verify: grep -A4 "## Memory" ~/claude-workspace/*/CLAUDE.md returns the footer in every project file.
8. Final verify: from a fresh Claude Code session opened inside any one of {{CLIENT_NAME}}'s project folders under ~/claude-workspace/, ask Claude "where does long-term memory live for this project?". It should answer using the Memory footer, not by guessing. Verify: Claude's answer names the exact archive path stated in the footer.

Verify

• Every project folder has memory/archive/ present and a first archive record inside it.
• Every project CLAUDE.md contains a Memory footer naming all three tiers and the chosen tier-3 option.
• The promotion rule (draft to dated CLAUDE.md line) is stated in each project CLAUDE.md.
• The fresh-session test in step 8 is answered correctly from the CLAUDE.md footer, not invented.

Done when

• [ ] Tier 1 confirmed in place, unchanged
• [ ] Tier 2 memory/ folders confirmed and the promotion rule documented in each project CLAUDE.md
• [ ] Tier 3 choice made and recorded, archive folders created, first archive record written
• [ ] Memory footer present in every project CLAUDE.md and passes the fresh-session test