v3.4.23 — Memory as Environment (V4 Sprints 0-2)

This release ships the V4 thesis: stop making memory something the agent uses — make it something the agent lives inside. Grounded in a corpus-measured performance check (PERF-CHECK-2026-06-12) and its core finding, the Automaticity Law: agents only use memory that arrives unasked — pull tools showed zero organic usage; push channels changed behavior for weeks.

Highlights

⚡ Recall latency: 10.5s → 2.5s → ms. The embedding fetch had no timeout; every recall paid a ~10.5s network round trip. Now: 2s abort + parallel local fallback + honest degraded field + per-process circuit breaker.

🎯 The learning loop is measurable. Outcome events (retrieved / heeded / recurred) are recorded fully automatically — no agent action required. session_start now opens with the north-star line: 🎯 Alignment: 86% corrections heeded (12/14). Absent until real data exists — no fake claims.

🔁 Insights compound. Near-duplicate insights now CONFIRM existing entries (containment ≥0.6) instead of piling up as new count-1 entries. Cap eviction protects confirmed insights. The funnel that was 99% dead now flows.

🧹 Correction hygiene. Write-time quality gate rejects acknowledgment fragments ("No, that's wrong") while preserving preference statements ("User wants beige/warm palette"). retractCorrection() + triage script; 64 legacy noise corrections retracted (reversible).

🧰 Default surface: 5 tools — session_start, session_end, remember, recall, check. Everything else behind --full. Two-verb model: inhale and exhale; the rest fires at moments via hooks (ar hook-pretool warns on publish/push/destructive commands; hook-ambient gains a precision floor — silence over noise).

📦 Portable memory. Every session_end auto-writes projects/<slug>/handoff.md — a ≤500-token cross-agent briefing (binding rules, blockers, top insights, trajectory) you can paste into any agent, MCP or not.

Install

claude mcp add --scope user agent-recall -- npx -y agent-recall-mcp

Existing users: the default tool surface shrinks to 5; add --full to the args for the complete surface.

Traceback

UPDATE-LOG.md → Release v3.4.23 · V4-PLAN.md · Suites: consistency 10/10, funnel 18/18.