The Memory Layer: sections and modules
Short-Term Memory & Conversation State
Explain why LLMs forget and add message histories, windows and summaries.
- Lessons
- 8 lessons
- By
- Sourav Banerjee
- Prerequisites
- None
Lessons
Start modulePractise and Check
- Deliverable
- Follow-up test: write 15 three-turn conversations and compare retrieval hit rate on turns two and three with and without history-aware query rewriting.
- Assessment
- Answer the five Interview questions without notes, then run the lab.
- Interview probe
- After a refactor, Larkspur's assistant answers first questions well, but follow-ups like "How long do I have?" now cite billing chunks. Nothing in the retriever changed. How do you find the cause?
- Common mistakes
- Retrieving on the literal follow-up question without a standalone rewrite
- Adding summary memory to chats that rarely pass three turns
- Passing an empty summary on every turn, wiping the running summary
Your Progress
Saved in this browser when you leave the box.