Published

Memory Consolidation

vr.wm-mem-008 · wm-mem-008-memory-consolidation

Describe a bounded attempt to merge duplicate memory records, produce a summary or request retirement, with traceable inputs, decisions and observed outcomes.

World Models Information and virtual systems INF.MEM.CNS

Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Classifiers What it is Why it exists Distinguishing features What robots and AI may and may not do Moral aspects Owners Links to other meta-models Identity and identifiers Direct properties Recognition Capabilities and actions Hazards and failure modes Standards and interfaces Context of use Sources

Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled

6 bundles · 12 layers · 12 findings · 48 questions

Intent and inputs Bind an attempt to its purpose and exact candidate revisions.

Run identity and intent context

Local research context for run identity and intent; external masters retain delegated operations.

Run identity and intent

A stable activity identifier groups one attempt, its declared purpose and observed execution. A planned attempt may have no start or output; a retry has its own attempt identity under the same request key.

Which master identifier distinguishes this attempt from its request and any retry? identity
Which operation is proposed: duplicate merge, summary, retirement, or an explicit combination? classification
Which role owns the consolidation record and its allowed namespace? ownership
What are the recorded start, end and observation times, including unknown values? temporal

Input membership and revision snapshot context

Local research context for input membership and revision snapshot; external masters retain delegated operations.

Input membership and revision snapshot

Snapshot references identify exact input revisions, selection rules and exclusions. Empty eligible input is a valid no-op; missing revisions cannot be silently replaced with current content.

Which item revisions are included and which candidates were excluded? composition
How was the candidate set selected and at which source snapshot? provenance
What must happen if an input revision changes or becomes unavailable before application? constraint
Which representation and digest support each snapshot without equating content with identity? evidence

Merge decisions Make duplicate and contradiction decisions inspectable.

Duplicate equivalence assessment context

Local research context for duplicate equivalence assessment; external masters retain delegated operations.

Duplicate equivalence assessment

Distinguish byte equality, normalized equality, semantic similarity and a reviewed equivalence decision. Context, subject, validity interval and permission differences may forbid a merge. Similarity and canonical hashes alone do not authorize equivalence.

What equivalence criterion is used for this candidate duplicate set? definition
How were similarity or equality results measured and qualified? measurement
Which contextual differences prevent these records from being merged? exception
Who accepted, rejected or deferred the equivalence proposal and why? decision

Contradiction and precedence binding context

Local research context for contradiction and precedence binding; external masters retain delegated operations.

Contradiction and precedence binding

Contradictory assertions remain distinguishable, including their time and scope. This model captures a reference to an external precedence decision or holds the affected proposal; frequency and newer timestamps do not settle a conflict.

Which input assertions conflict and which external rule owns their resolution? relationship
What external decision permits a preferred assertion in this specific scope? authority
Which disputed values remain unresolved in the proposed result? state
How is dissent preserved when a proposal proceeds on uncontested inputs? constraint

Derived content and lineage Describe a proposed summary and its derivation.

Summary content and information loss context

Local research context for summary content and information loss; external masters retain delegated operations.

Summary content and information loss

A summary is a proposed derived item with a declared purpose and loss budget. Negation, qualifications, attribution and uncertainty require review. Unsupported output claims are rejected or explicitly marked unverified; compression does not create knowledge.

Which method, instruction revision and parameters produced the summary proposal? process
Which input spans support each retained summary assertion? evidence
What information was omitted or distorted relative to the stated purpose? quality
What evidence permits approval or requires rejection of the summary? validation

Derivation and identity continuity context

Local research context for derivation and identity continuity; external masters retain delegated operations.

Derivation and identity continuity

Outputs retain their own item identifiers and revisions, linked to all contributing inputs and the activity. Duplicate aliases are governed mappings, not fabricated identity equality. Lineage metadata remains access controlled and subject to retention.

Which input-to-output edges explain the transformation and responsible agent? provenance
Which output identity is new, retained or an authorized alias of an existing item? identity
Does the mapped lineage satisfy the applicable usage, generation and invalidation ordering? temporal
What mapping and loss report accompany a PROV-O projection? interoperability

Controlled application Capture authority and externally evidenced change outcomes.

Authorization and output audience context

Local research context for authorization and output audience; external masters retain delegated operations.

Authorization and output audience

Per-input processing authority and output purpose are checked separately. The output audience is no broader than what all contributing restrictions permit unless an explicit authorized transformation and release decision applies. Unknown authorization blocks release.

Which principals may read each input and the derived output for this purpose? access
Which role may approve the proposal and what separation of duties applies? authority
What sensitive information or inference requires redaction or a narrower output scope? privacy
How are embedded instructions and quarantined inputs treated during consolidation review? security

Conditional application and partial outcomes context

Local research context for conditional application and partial outcomes; external masters retain delegated operations.

Conditional application and partial outcomes

Record store-issued receipts and expected revisions, not inferred success from a prepared proposal. The local event may reconcile partial results; a profile must define atomicity or compensation. HTTP conditional semantics alone do not make a multi-item transaction atomic.

Which external store operation is bound to the approved proposal revision? process
What conditional-write and atomicity contract applies to this change set? constraint
Which authoritative receipts identify applied, refused or unknown item outcomes? event
How are retries and partial application reconciled without duplicate outputs? exception

Disposition and downstream impact Track retirement requests and dependent visibility.

Retirement and deletion distinction context

Local research context for retirement and deletion distinction; external masters retain delegated operations.

Retirement and deletion distinction

A successful consolidation may propose retirement of redundant items. It neither proves payload erasure nor overrides retention or legal hold. External policy and store owners execute disposition; this record carries minimal authorized evidence.

Which source items are proposed for retirement and what replacement references remain? lifecycle
Which policy revision and applicable hold govern each proposed disposition? retention
What external receipt distinguishes retirement, redaction and completed deletion? evidence
What local lineage metadata may be retained after payload erasure? privacy

Dependent copies and visibility context

Local research context for dependent copies and visibility; external masters retain delegated operations.

Dependent copies and visibility

A dependency ledger references summaries, aliases, caches and indexes affected by a change. Local completion requires the profile-defined acknowledgments; missing acknowledgments leave a visible reconciliation state. The ledger is not an index or an erasure engine.

Which dependent records and retrieval surfaces reference affected item revisions? relationship
Which refresh or restriction acknowledgments are required before declaring the run reconciled? requirement
Which downstream surfaces remain stale or have unknown disposition? state
How are inaccessible or offline dependencies reported without claiming global completion? exception

Recovery and assurance Record correction proposals and acceptance evidence.

Correction and compensating activity context

Local research context for correction and compensating activity; external masters retain delegated operations.

Correction and compensating activity

Corrections preserve the original event record subject to retention, and link a new authorized activity. A false merge can require item separation and dependent invalidation. Recovery cannot restore erased payloads or bypass current restrictions.

What defect or later evidence triggered correction of a completed consolidation? event
Which compensating proposal addresses the defect under current authority? process
Which effects are reversible and which cannot be restored? constraint
What external evidence confirms corrected lineage and downstream reconciliation? validation

Quality evaluation and acceptance record context

Local research context for quality evaluation and acceptance record; external masters retain delegated operations.

Quality evaluation and acceptance record

Evaluate a proposal against explicit use-specific criteria and record the assessor, fixture set and uncertainty. Proposed metrics include false merges, unsupported claims and loss of qualifications. No universal numeric acceptance threshold or executed benchmark is claimed.

Which metrics and denominators measure consolidation quality for this profile? measurement
Which edge cases were assessed and what limitations remain? quality
What profile thresholds and reviewer evidence justify accepting this run? decision
Which schema and reference checks must an adopting implementation demonstrate? interoperability

Classifiers Filled

Family: World Models
Category: Information and virtual systems
Entry kind: event
Navigation path: NAV.INF.MEM.CNS
Domain: INF.MEM.CNS
Industry: Cross-industry
Tags: memoryconsolidationinf.mem.cns

What it is Filled

One consolidation activity occurrence and its local evidence record, from authorized input selection through proposal, review and reconciliation of external receipts. This is an authored, format-neutral profile grounded in open provenance and governance specifications; no cited source defines a canonical agent-memory consolidation standard.

In scope

Run identity, purpose, scope, method pin and source-revision snapshot.
Candidate duplicate assessment, loss-aware summary proposals and source-to-output lineage.
Recorded approval, refusal, partial outcome, retirement request and correction dependencies.

Out of scope

Biological memory consolidation, clinical claims, training or model-weight modification.
Memory-store execution, source item lifecycle, recall ranking, index implementation and context assembly.
Generic conflict precedence, trust scoring, grants, retention policy authoring, physical erasure and incident response.
Universal merge thresholds, automated truth certification or executable conformance claims.

Why it exists Filled

Describe a bounded attempt to merge duplicate memory records, produce a summary or request retirement, with traceable inputs, decisions and observed outcomes.

Distinguishing features Derived, awaiting review

Unlike WM-MEM-002 Memory Item: The registry parent is a candidate navigation relationship, not inheritance: an activity uses and generates item revisions but is not itself an item. Item identity and lifecycle remain external.
Unlike WM-MEM-001 Memory Store: The store owns transactional mutation and authoritative receipts. This record tracks proposals and outcomes without claiming to execute store operations.
Unlike WM-MEM-006 Memory Formation Event: Formation explains an individual item origin; consolidation explains the bounded multi-input or single-input transformation attempt. Link any formation events rather than duplicating them.
Unlike WM-MEM-009 Memory Conflict and Precedence Rule: Record unresolved conflict and a pinned external ruling; do not invent precedence or use recency alone to resolve truth.
Unlike WM-MEM-010 Memory Retention and Forgetting Policy: Bind policy and receipt references. Retirement from active use, deletion of payload and expiry of local evidence are separate decisions.
Unlike WM-MEM-011 Memory Scope and Sharing Grant: Reference permission decisions for each input and derived output. Reading two inputs does not authorize sharing their combination.
Unlike WM-MEM-014 Retrieval Index: Record required refresh and invalidation receipt references only; the external index owns update, caching and recall visibility.
Unlike WM-MEM-018 Memory Trust Assessment and WM-MEM-020 Memory Quarantine and Redaction: Treat risk assessments and quarantine/redaction decisions as external bindings. Consolidation cannot upgrade trust by repeating or compressing a claim.

Note: Derived from boundary notes against neighbouring models.

What robots and AI may and may not do Derived, awaiting review

Must not

Never treat compression, repetition, confidence scores or provenance presence as proof of a claim.
Referenced item retirement or deletion is executed by the external store under WM-MEM-010 policy, never by deletion of this event record.
Deny by default.

May

Register consolidation attempt: Create a local declaration and input manifest without executing any store mutation. Proposed local operation only; no implementation is supplied.
Record duplicate assessment: Store a reviewer-supported equivalence proposal; this operation is not an equivalence or trust engine. Proposed local operation only; no implementation is supplied.
Record summary proposal: Attach a derived-content proposal and its support/loss report; generation and factual evaluation remain separately evidenced. Proposed local operation only; no implementation is supplied.
Record release decision: Record approval or rejection for an exact proposal and output audience. Proposed local operation only; no implementation is supplied.
Reconcile external outcomes: Record authenticated external receipts and classify the local activity outcome. Proposed local operation only; no implementation is supplied.
Record correction proposal: Link a new proposed compensating activity and later evidence to a defective run. Proposed local operation only; no implementation is supplied.

Note: Derived from functions, policies, CRUD and access rules; prohibitions were not authored for agents as such.

Moral aspects Derived, awaiting review

Dangerous content remains at policy level; this model records controls and decisions, not operational harmful instructions.

Note: Sentences mentioning harm, privacy, consent or similar, collected from the specification.

Owners Filled

Steward

An accountable memory operator role owns the namespace and declares processing purposes.

Roles

Memory operator: Own run namespace and bind approved profiles.
Proposal author: Record methods, candidate outputs and limitations without approving their own restricted release unless policy permits.
Reviewer: Assess equivalence, summary fidelity and unresolved disputes against explicit criteria.
Authorized approver: Approve exact revisions and output scope under documented delegation.
Evidence custodian: Reconcile external receipts and enforce evidence retention and access.

Links to other meta-models Filled

references

WM-MEM-001 - Bind a store and its external mutation receipts; do not own store lifecycle. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-002 - Inputs and outputs reference exact item revisions; registry parent is not subject inheritance. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-006 - Link output formation events where separately recorded. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-009 - Bind a scope-specific conflict ruling without authoring precedence. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-010 - Bind retention policy and disposition authority, including local evidence retention. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-011 - Bind processing and output sharing decisions without minting grants. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-014 - Reference index refresh and invalidation receipts without implementing retrieval. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-018 - Reference source trust assessment without upgrading trust through consolidation. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
WM-MEM-020 - Reference quarantine and redaction decisions; processing remains policy limited. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.

aligned

https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/ - Conceptual mapping of activity, entity revisions, agents and derivation; implementation and conformance remain unproven. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.
https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dqv/ - Conceptual quality measurement mapping with locally defined metrics and uncertainty. Candidate binding requiring an adoption profile and version pin; no mandatory co-instantiation is asserted.

neighbor

WM-MEM-002 Memory Item - The registry parent is a candidate navigation relationship, not inheritance: an activity uses and generates item revisions but is not itself an item. Item identity and lifecycle remain external.
WM-MEM-001 Memory Store - The store owns transactional mutation and authoritative receipts. This record tracks proposals and outcomes without claiming to execute store operations.
WM-MEM-006 Memory Formation Event - Formation explains an individual item origin; consolidation explains the bounded multi-input or single-input transformation attempt. Link any formation events rather than duplicating them.
WM-MEM-009 Memory Conflict and Precedence Rule - Record unresolved conflict and a pinned external ruling; do not invent precedence or use recency alone to resolve truth.
WM-MEM-010 Memory Retention and Forgetting Policy - Bind policy and receipt references. Retirement from active use, deletion of payload and expiry of local evidence are separate decisions.
WM-MEM-011 Memory Scope and Sharing Grant - Reference permission decisions for each input and derived output. Reading two inputs does not authorize sharing their combination.
WM-MEM-014 Retrieval Index - Record required refresh and invalidation receipt references only; the external index owns update, caching and recall visibility.
WM-MEM-018 Memory Trust Assessment and WM-MEM-020 Memory Quarantine and Redaction - Treat risk assessments and quarantine/redaction decisions as external bindings. Consolidation cannot upgrade trust by repeating or compressing a claim.

parent

WM-MEM-002

What else AI and robots need to interact with it Incomplete

Sources Filled

PROV-O: The PROV Ontology - W3C
Constraints of the PROV Data Model - W3C
Data on the Web Best Practices: Data Quality Vocabulary - W3C
JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS) - RFC Editor
HTTP Semantics - RFC Editor
Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile - NIST
NIST Privacy Framework: A Tool for Improving Privacy through Enterprise Risk Management, Version 1.0 - NIST
Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps - RFC Editor

Open questions

Run the prepared source checker outside the sandbox and verify cited editions, dated DQV pin, errata, applicability and reuse terms independently.
Build nested schemas and pinned bindings with acceptance cases for context-sensitive duplicates, contradictory evidence, missing qualifications, permission conflicts, stale revisions, partial receipts and erased inputs.
Evaluate false merges, unsupported summary claims, information loss and dependency reconciliation against purpose-specific datasets before operational use.
Restore independent external review before considering any canonical or publishable-draft promotion.
Nested required instance fields, enumerations and cross-field schemas are not yet implemented.
No empirical evaluation establishes merge thresholds, summary fidelity or performance across languages and memory modalities.
No atomic store adapter, erasure engine, index connector or rollback implementation is supplied.
Source versions, current errata, licensing and claim-level independent verification remain open.

Machine files

Card as JSON Specification AGENTS.md Source Card backlog vercy.card/1

Provenance

world-models research · reviewable-draft

Built from: models/wm-mem-008-memory-consolidation/spec.yaml