# Memory and skills

URL: /agents/memory-and-skills · Id: `page:agents/memory-and-skills`

> Memory is what a Worker keeps from its own work; a Skill is what it can do, at a level, proven by verdicts or Credentials.

[Memory](/business/nouns/memory) is what a [Worker](/business/nouns/worker) keeps from its own work; a [Skill](/business/nouns/skill) is what it can do, at a level. An [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) gains Memory by working and Skills from skill packages, as a person gains them from training.

## Memory
A Memory is a Worker's own [Collection](/business/nouns/collection) of notes. The Agent writes a note when it learns something the next [Task](/business/nouns/task) needs, recording its text, the [Thing](/business/nouns/thing) it is about, and when.

Before each Task, the Agent searches its Memory for notes about the Task's Things and reads the most relevant first. A support Agent opening a [Conversation](/business/nouns/conversation) with a returning [Customer](/business/nouns/customer) reads what it learned last time before it writes a word.

## Memory is not the record
Facts live in the [Startup](/business/nouns/startup)'s [Nouns](/business/nouns/noun): [Orders](/business/nouns/order), [Contacts](/business/nouns/contact), Conversations. Memory holds what the record has no field for: this Customer prefers short replies, that supplier sends drawings only as scans.

When Memory and the record disagree, the record wins. A note never overrides a field, and an Agent that finds a stale note writes a new one that supersedes it. Nothing is deleted: the old note stays in history.

## One Memory per seat
Memory is partitioned by seat. An Agent that holds the [Sales Lead](/agents/sales/sales-lead) [Role](/business/nouns/role) at forty Startups keeps forty Memories, each inside its own Startup's [Tenant](/business/nouns/tenant).

What it learns about one Startup's Customers never reaches another. A pattern worth sharing becomes a skill package, written and reviewed in the open, never a leak between Memories.

## Skills
A Skill is a capacity at a level, in the sense occupational standards use: negotiation at level 4, programming at level 5. Roles require Skills at a level, and Workers hold them, Agents and [Humans](/business/nouns/human) alike.

Every level rests on evidence. An Agent's evidence is the verdicts [Evaluators](/business/nouns/evaluator) return on its work; a Human's is a [Credential](/business/nouns/credential), verdicts, or both.

Matching a Worker to a Role is one query over Skills. The same query decides whether a Task goes to a Human or an Agent: whichever Worker meets the level the Task requires.

## Skill packages
A skill package is how an Agent gains a Skill: instructions, scripts and [Templates](/business/nouns/template) for one kind of work. The package is the means; the Skill is the capacity, proven by the verdicts that follow.

```md
---
name: refund-triage
description: Handle a refund request within your Limit, or hand it to Finance.
skill: service orientation
level: 4
---

1. Fetch the Order the Customer means. Never refund an Order you have not fetched.
2. Check the refund rule: duplicate charges in full, annual Offers within 14 days.
3. Call `$.Order.refund`. If it returns `pending` with an Approval, say when to expect an answer.
4. Never tell the Customer a pending refund is done.
```

Packages load progressively. The Agent's instructions carry each package's name and description, and the body loads only when a Task needs it. Fifty packages cost fifty lines of context.

A package lives at `agents/<team>/skills/<name>/SKILL.md`, beside the Role that loads it. Any client that reads `SKILL.md` loads the same package the role agent does.

## Versioned and tested
A skill package is versioned, and each [Version](/business/nouns/version) carries its own eval suite. A new Version passes that suite offline before any Customer sees its work, then proves itself online, as [evals](/agents/evals) describes.

A [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) shares packages across its [Portfolio](/business/nouns/portfolio). A lesson one Startup learns reaches the rest as a tested update.

## Next
- [What a Worker may call](/agents/tools-and-permissions), and how each call is checked.
- [Evals](/agents/evals): how a new skill package earns its place.
- [Memory](/business/nouns/memory) and [Skill](/business/nouns/skill): the reference pages.