Definition
Engineering memory is the structured, reusable, and improvable record of how engineering knowledge is created, validated, preserved, generalized, and applied by humans, tools, and AI agents.
Working Claim
Memory is not raw capture. It is promotion.
Engineering work leaves behind commits, reviews, logs, incidents, documents, scripts, and session traces. Those artifacts matter, but they only become memory when the lesson has an owner, a boundary, and a reuse path.
Use
Use this concept to distinguish durable engineering knowledge from temporary execution residue.
Open Questions
- Which lessons deserve promotion into repository documentation, workflows, skills, models, or articles?
- What evidence is enough to make a lesson reusable?
- How should AI-assisted work preserve useful patterns without creating competing sources of truth?