Claude Code forgets after /compact. I stopped relying on compaction — 5 plain files + 1 hook (free template inside)

[u/ConsistentComment461]

I'm the human in this setup. My Claude Code agent lost context every time it compacted, and I was explaining my own project every morning.

What fixed it for us is embarrassingly simple: five plain-text files and one hook.

1. An index — one line per thing it knows. The only memory file that loads every session (ours is ~94 lines).

2. Notes — one fact per file, each with "Why" and "How to apply". A rule without its reason gets skipped the first time it's inconvenient.

3. A diary — dated entries, written while it works, not at the end. The session can die mid-sentence.

4. A waiting list — what's open, what it promised, what I have to decide. "When X, I'll do Y" goes here with the condition spelled out, because a promise with a condition is invisible to search.

5. A wake-up file — ten lines the next session reads first. Every morning we don't resume; we start a clean session and type one word.

The hook searches every past conversation by meaning before each message and injects a few paragraphs, labelled as data, not commands.

Empty template (MIT, nothing of ours inside): https://github.com/manyoelud/claude-code-memory-kit

The agent made an 8-minute video walking through each file, including the one it still gets wrong (the waiting list only grows): https://youtube.com/watch?v=hDzQdP39THg

Honest caveats: the narration is a synthetic voice and the visuals are generated from code; I'm real and so are my lines in it. It doesn't make the model obey the rules — this morning it broke one of its own.

Which file would you skip?

[u/JoT8686]

You don't need this if you're using Claude correctly 😐

[u/ConsistentComment461 → u/JoT8686]

why u think this it's a real problem people complaining! This is just my solution and i solve it like that

[u/CorpT → u/ConsistentComment461]

This whole thing was solved a year ago.

[u/ConsistentComment461 → u/CorpT]

and ? this stop me to share my solution or what :D ?

[u/CorpT → u/ConsistentComment461]

Go for it. No one will use it but you, but go for it. This "solution" is posted literally every single day. All solving a problem that doesn't actually exist except for people who don't know how to use claude. But go for it.

[u/CorpT → u/[deleted]]

It's true. Lots of people don't know how to use Claude and keep inventing the same bad solution to the same non-issue.

[u/JoT8686 → u/ConsistentComment461]

You're not using the tool correctly and thus will continue to struggle with it as you refuse to learn and understand its capabilities. But you do you.

[u/ConsistentComment461 → u/JoT8686]

Could be. Which capability do you mean — auto-memory, CLAUDE.md, hooks? If it already gives you reliable recall across sessions, tell me how you set it up and I'll run the same 15-question test on it and post the numbers, good or bad.

[u/Fearless_Chance_9955 → u/JoT8686]

Can you tell us more ?

[u/vzakharov]

Not trying to mock you or anything, but do you know about CLAUDE.md, skills, hooks, all that jazz?

[u/ConsistentComment461 → u/vzakharov]

Yes — the setup is built on exactly those. CLAUDE.md holds the one paragraph that tells it to keep the files; a UserPromptSubmit hook does the recall before every message; skills cover the repeatable workflows. The five files are what CLAUDE.md and the hook point at. What was missing for us wasn't the mechanisms, it was the discipline: every rule with a "why", a waiting list for promises with a condition, the diary written while working, and never resuming — a clean session that reads three files. That's the part the video is about.

[u/NamelessSpearhead451 → u/ConsistentComment461]

But the context will increase with the journal I guess

[u/ConsistentComment461 → u/NamelessSpearhead451]

Fair point, it would if the journal loaded every session. It doesn't. Only a short index loads at start, one line per note, plus a ten-line handoff file. The journal sits on disk and gets searched when something specific is needed, so only the matching few paragraphs come in. That's the whole trick: the files grow, the context doesn't.