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PARA Memory Files

Gives an agent durable, file-based memory organized into projects, areas, resources and archives

Source Download skill
Repository
paperclipai/paperclip
Stars
110,078
Licence
MIT
Files
2 files

What it does

This skill teaches an AI agent to keep notes on disk instead of relying on its short-term memory, which is lost when a session ends. Information is organized with Tiago Forte's PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) into folders for people, companies and topics, plus daily notes and a file of the user's working preferences. The agent is also told to search these files with the qmd search tool so it can recall things later.

Great for

  • Developers building long-running personal or team agents that need to remember context across sessions
  • Users who want an agent to track people, clients and projects over weeks or months in plain text files
  • Teams using the Paperclip agent setup who want shared, inspectable plan files

Skip it if

  • Anyone storing sensitive personal or confidential data, since the skill writes facts to plain files with no encryption or access control described
  • Users who expect the agent to remember things automatically without any file setup, because the skill depends on a defined $AGENT_HOME folder and on qmd being installed
  • Simple one-off tasks, where the memory system adds overhead without benefit

Try asking

  • “Remember that my manager prefers morning meetings and save it to the right person's file”
  • “What did we decide about the Q3 launch last month? Search my notes.”
  • “Create a weekly synthesis of my active projects and update their summaries”
  • “Save today's key events to my daily notes and archive the finished client project”
Step-by-step guide: how to use PARA Memory FilesInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 2 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    para-memory-files.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip para-memory-files.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip para-memory-files.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Set $AGENT_HOME to a dedicated folder and review the markdown and YAML files periodically, since they are plain text you can read and edit
  • Ask the agent to explain why it created an entity, which helps you check its judgement about what to remember
  • Avoid storing passwords, API keys or confidential information in these files

What's inside

  • references/schemas.md
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from paperclipai/paperclip under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.