Memories

Keep required team guidance in AGENTS.md or checked-in documentation. Treat memories as a helpful recall layer, not as the only source for rules that must always apply.

In the ChatGPT desktop app, use /memories to choose whether a task can use local memories or contribute to future memories. Manage the feature from Settings > Personalization when you need to turn it on or off.

Manage ChatGPT memory from Settings > Personalization. ChatGPT Work uses the memory settings available to your account and workspace; it doesn’t use a local Codex memory store or local memory controls.

In Codex CLI, use /memories in an interactive session to control whether the current task can use existing local memories or become an input for future memories. See Configure local memories if the command isn’t available.

The IDE extension uses the connected Codex host’s local memory store. When memories are enabled for that host, use the same task-level controls as Codex CLI.

Chronicle is a desktop-only feature that helps Codex recover recent working context from your screen to build up memory.

How local Codex memories work

After you enable memories, Codex can turn useful context from eligible prior tasks into local memory files. Codex skips active or short-lived sessions, redacts secrets from generated memory fields, and updates memories in the background instead of immediately at the end of every task.

Memories may not update right away when a task ends. Codex waits until a task has been idle long enough to avoid summarizing work that’s still in progress.

Memory generation can also skip a background pass when your Codex rate-limit remaining percentage is below the configured threshold, so Codex doesn’t spend quota when you’re near a limit.

Local memory storage

Codex stores memories under your Codex home directory. By default, that’s ~/.codex. See Config and state locations for how Codex uses CODEX_HOME.

The main memory files live under ~/.codex/memories/ and include summaries, durable entries, recent inputs, and supporting evidence from prior tasks.

Treat these files as generated state. You can inspect them when troubleshooting or before sharing your Codex home directory, but don’t rely on editing them by hand as your primary control surface.

Control local memories per task

In the ChatGPT desktop app and Codex TUI, use /memories to control memory behavior for the current task. Task-level choices let you decide whether the current task can use existing memories and whether Codex can use the task to generate future memories.

Task-level choices don’t change your global memory settings.

Review local memories

Don’t store secrets in memories. Codex redacts secrets from generated memory fields, but you should still review memory files before sharing your Codex home directory or generated memory artifacts.

Configure local memories

Local Codex memories are off by default. In the ChatGPT desktop app, open Settings > Personalization and turn on Enable memories.

For config-based setup, add the feature flag to config.toml:

[features]
memories = true

For config file locations and the full list of memory-related settings, see Config basics and the configuration reference.

Common memory-specific settings include:

• memories.generate_memories: controls whether newly created tasks can be stored as memory-generation inputs.
• memories.use_memories: controls whether Codex injects existing memories into future sessions.
• memories.disable_on_external_context: when true, keeps tasks that used external context such as MCP tool calls, web search, or tool search out of memory generation. The older memories.no_memories_if_mcp_or_web_search key is still accepted as an alias.
• memories.min_rate_limit_remaining_percent: controls the minimum remaining Codex rate-limit percentage required before memory generation starts.
• memories.extract_model: overrides the model used for per-task memory extraction.
• memories.consolidation_model: overrides the model used for global memory consolidation.