48. Procedural Memory

Mini-Project: Procedural Memory for an Operations Agent

A procedural memory system for an operations agent that stores named workflows (deploy, debug), matches incoming tasks via fast keyword lookup or LLM-based fuzzy matching, and executes the stored step-by-step procedure when a match is found.

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What It Is

Procedural Memory stores how to do things -- learned procedures, workflows, and successful action sequences. When the agent encounters a familiar task type, it retrieves the stored procedure rather than reasoning from scratch. Like human muscle memory for complex tasks.

What It Stores (Examples)

• Successful tool call sequences for specific task types
• Multi-step workflows (e.g., "to deploy: test, build, push, verify")
• Error recovery procedures
• Optimized prompt templates

How It's Implemented

Uses a key-value store or pattern-matching database where task patterns are keys and procedures are values.

Mermaid Diagram

flowchart TD
    A[New Task] --> B[Match to Known Procedures]
    B --> C{Match Found?}
    C -->|Yes| D[Execute Stored Procedure]
    C -->|No| E[Reason from Scratch]
    D --> F[Task Complete]
    E --> F
    F --> G[Store Successful Procedure]
    G --> B

    style A fill:#4CAF50,color:#fff
    style D fill:#9C27B0,color:#fff
    style E fill:#FF9800,color:#fff
    style F fill:#4CAF50,color:#fff

Extended: Hierarchical Procedural Memory

Hierarchical Procedural Memory organizes procedures into a tree hierarchy -- high-level strategies contain sub-procedures, which contain atomic actions. This allows agents to reason at different abstraction levels: select a high-level strategy, then drill down into specifics. Like how "cook a meal" decomposes into "prepare ingredients" -> "chop vegetables" -> individual knife cuts.

flowchart TD
    A[Incident Response] --> B[1. Diagnose]
    A --> C[2. Mitigate]
    A --> D[3. Post-mortem]
    B --> E[Check Logs]
    B --> F[Check Metrics]
    B --> G[Identify Root Cause]
    C --> H[Apply Fix]
    C --> I[Verify Recovery]
    D --> J[Write Report]
    D --> K[Update Runbook]

    style A fill:#F44336,color:#fff
    style B fill:#FF9800,color:#fff
    style C fill:#FF9800,color:#fff
    style D fill:#FF9800,color:#fff
    style E fill:#2196F3,color:#fff
    style H fill:#2196F3,color:#fff
    style J fill:#2196F3,color:#fff