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Claude Memory

anthropic.com

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Re: Claude Memory

#231

Post by j_bum »

withinboredom wrote: post #146
rwhitman wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and main reason I've stopped using GPT for serious work. LLMs start to break down and inject garbage at the end, and usually my prompt is abandoned before the work is complete, and I fix it up manually after. GPT stores the incomplete chat and treats it as truth in memory. And it's very difficult to get it to un-learn something that's wrong. You have to layer new context on top of the bad information and it…

Reminds me of one time asking ChatGPT (months ago now) to create a team logo with a team name. Now anytime I bring up something it asks me if it has to do with that team name. That team name wasn’t even chosen. It was one prompt. One time. Sigh.

You can manually delete memories in your profile settings, just FYI

Re: Claude Memory

#233

Post by m_mueller »

cainxinth wrote: post #23

I don't use any of these type of LLM tools which basically amount to just a prompt you leave in place. They make it harder to refine my prompts and keep track of what is causing what in the outputs. I write very precise prompts every time. Also, I try not work out a problem over the course of several prompts back and forth. The first response is always the best and I try to one shot it every time. If I don't get what…

I do get a lot of value out of a project wide system prompt that gets automatically addded (Cursor has that built in). For a while I kept refining it when I saw it making incorrect assumptions about the codebase. I try to keep it brief though, about 20 bullet points.

Re: Claude Memory

#234

Post by cruffle_duffle »

ternus wrote: post #200
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. ChatGPT put all kinds of nonsense into its memory. “Cruffle is trying to make bath bombs with baking soda and citric acid” or “Cruffle is deciding between a red colored bedsheet or a green colored bedsheet”. Like great both of those are “time bound” and have no relevance after I made the bath bomb or picked a white bedsheet… All these LLM manufacturers lack ways to edit these memories either. It’s…

Were the bath bombs any good? Did the LLM's advice(?) make a meaningful difference? I didn't know making them was so simple.

They are pretty simple in the abstract but lots of iterations… kiddo loves making them.

Re: Claude Memory

#235

Post by ffsm8 »

dingnuts wrote: post #61
torben-friis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a curious wording. It mentions a process of improvement being attempted but not necessarily a result.

because all the safety stuff is bullshit. it's like asking a mirror company to make mirrors that modify the image to prevent the viewer from seeing anything they don't like good fucking luck. these things are mirrors and they are not controllable. "safety" is bullshit, ESPECIALLY if real superintelligence was invented. Yeah, we're going to have guardrails that outsmart something 100x smarter than us? how's that suppo…

The term "safety" in the llm context is a little overloaded

Personally, I'm not a fan either - but it's not always obvious to the user when they're effectively poisoning their own context, and that's where these features are useful, still.

Re: Claude Memory

#236

Post by Agentlien »

padolsey wrote: post #204
dcre wrote: post #25

"Before this rollout, we ran extensive safety testing across sensitive wellbeing-related topics and edge cases—including whether memory could reinforce harmful patterns in conversations, lead to over-accommodation, and enable attempts to bypass our safeguards. Through this testing, we identified areas where Claude's responses needed refinement and made targeted adjustments to how memory functions. These iterations he…

I wish they'd release some data or evaluation methodology alongside such claims. It just seems like empty words otherwise. If they did 'extensive safety testing' and don't release material, I'm gonna say with 90% certainty that they just 'vibe-red-teamed' the LLM.

I really hope they release something as well, because I loved their research papers on analyzing how Claude thinks[0] and how they analyzed it[1] and I'm eager for more.

[0] https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/bio...

[1] https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/met...

Re: Claude Memory

#237

Post by Uninen »

simonw wrote: post #105

It's not 100% clear to me if I can leave memory OFF for my regular chats but turn it ON for individual projects. I don't want any memories from my general chats leaking through to my projects - in fact I don't want memories recorded from my general chats at all. I don't want project memories leaking to other projects or to my general chats.

I think you can either have the memory on or off but according to the docs the projects have their own separate memory so it wont leak across the projects or from non-project chats:

"Each project has its own separate memory space and dedicated project summary, so the context within each of your projects is focused, relevant, and separate from other projects or non-project chats."

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11817273-using-claude...

Re: Claude Memory

#238

Post by vl »

svachalek wrote: post #163
mstkllah wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share some suggestions or links on how to best craft such very precise prompts?

Wasn't me but I think the principle is straightforward. When you get an answer that wasn't what you want and you might respond, "no, I want the answer to be shorter and in German", instead start a new chat, copy-paste the original prompt, and add "Please respond in German and limit the answer to half a page." (or just edit the prompt if your UI allows it) Depending on how much you know about LLMs, this might seem was…

In most tools there is no need to cut-n-paste, just click small edit icon next to the prompt, edit and resubmit. Boom, old answer is discarded, new answer is generated.

Re: Claude Memory

#239

Post by bongodongobob »

labrador wrote: post #96
bongodongobob wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's talking about memory getting passed into the prompts and maintaining control. When you turn on memory, you have no idea what's getting stuffed into the system prompt. This applies to chats and agents. He's talking about chat.

Parent is not chatting though. Parent is crafting a precise prompt. I agree, in that case you don't want memory to introduce global state. I see the distinction between two workflows: one where you need deterministic control and one where you want emergent, exploratory conversation.

Yes, you still craft an initial prompt with exploratory chats. I feel like I'm talking to a bot right now tbh.

Re: Claude Memory

#240

Post by Zarathruster »

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #116
cainxinth wrote: post #23

I don't use any of these type of LLM tools which basically amount to just a prompt you leave in place. They make it harder to refine my prompts and keep track of what is causing what in the outputs. I write very precise prompts every time. Also, I try not work out a problem over the course of several prompts back and forth. The first response is always the best and I try to one shot it every time. If I don't get what…

I completely agree. ChatGPT put all kinds of nonsense into its memory. “Cruffle is trying to make bath bombs with baking soda and citric acid” or “Cruffle is deciding between a red colored bedsheet or a green colored bedsheet”. Like great both of those are “time bound” and have no relevance after I made the bath bomb or picked a white bedsheet… All these LLM manufacturers lack ways to edit these memories either. It’s…

From the linked post:

> If you use projects, Claude creates a separate memory for each project. This ensures that your product launch planning stays separate from client work, and confidential discussions remain separate from general operations.

If for some reason you want Claude's help making bath bombs, you can make a separate project in which memory is containerized. Alternatively, the bath bomb and bedsheet questions seem like good candidates for the Incognito Chat feature that the post also describes.

> All these LLM manufacturers lack ways to edit these memories either.

I'm not sure if you read through the linked post or not, but also there:

> Memory is fully optional, with granular user controls that help you manage what Claude remembers. (...) Claude uses a memory summary to capture all its memories in one place for you to view and edit. In your settings, you can see exactly what Claude remembers from your conversations, and update the summary at any time by chatting with Claude. Based on what you tell Claude to focus on or to ignore, Claude will adjust the memories it references.

So there you have it, I guess. You have a way to edit memories. Personally, I don't see myself bothering, since it's pretty easy and straightforward to switch to a different LLM service (use ChatGPT for creative stuff, Gemini for general information queries, Claude for programming etc.) but I could see use cases in certain professional contexts.

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