A salience engine for persistent agent working memory.
EEG reversed — an EEG reads brain activity, gee generates it. Also just a thing you say when something occurs to you.
gee maintains a set of awareness items, each with an activation score that changes continuously based on time, context, and randomness. Items that cross a threshold get surfaced — either injected into an agent's context or pushed as an interrupt.
This is not a task list, not a notification system, not RAG. It's a continuous activation model inspired by cognitive architectures (ACT-R, Park et al.'s Generative Agents) with two key additions: mode-gated retrieval (task-focused vs. default mode network) and stochastic noise for serendipitous recall.
activation = temporal_curve(t, item)
+ α(mode) * immediate_resonance(item, context, mode)
+ β(mode) * recent_resonance(item, history, mode)
+ noise(σ(mode))
Temporal curve — intrinsic urgency over time. A ramp before a meeting, a slow rise for an overdue task, a trapezoid for a daily habit window.
Immediate resonance — "am I thinking about this right now?" Embedding similarity between the item and current context (conversation, events).
Recent resonance — "have I been thinking about this lately?" Engagement history across recent sessions (task mode) or independent idle cycles (DMN mode).
Noise — gaussian perturbation. Tight in task mode, wide in DMN mode. This is what makes forgotten items occasionally surface. The stochastic recall that humans experience as "I wonder how so-and-so is doing."
Task mode — active during sessions. Focused retrieval. High threshold, low noise. Surfaces what's relevant to the current work.
DMN mode — active during idle. Diffuse retrieval. Low threshold, high noise. Mind-wandering. Items that independently surface across multiple idle cycles accumulate a "recurring thought" signal.
- > 0.8 — interrupt. Push a message unprompted.
- 0.5–0.8 — inject into next session as context. Available, not forced.
- < 0.5 — stored, retrievable on demand, not in active awareness.
See Salience Engine Design for the full design document including prior art, convergence control, item lifecycle, and the ADHD connection.