Strategic Memory

Strategic memory is the layer of memory that encodes the directional logic of intelligence - the substrates where plans, goals, states, values, and norms are preserved and updated. Unlike episodic or semantic memory (which focus on content) or working memory (which focuses on process), strategic memory organizes cognition around purpose, orientation, and alignment. It enables agents not only to act but to act with direction, consistency, and coherence over time.

Plans Memory

Plans memory stores multi-step strategies, decomposition logic, and sequencing structures that allow agents to bridge the gap between intention and execution.
- Characteristics: hierarchical, modular, adaptive to contingencies.
- Role: supports complex task orchestration, breaking down long trajectories into manageable components.
- Functions in Agents: enables strategic foresight, contingency planning, and scenario recomposition.
- MAS Implication: provides the substrate for joint planning protocols, where multiple agents contribute to and share responsibility for different parts of a plan.

Goals & Task Memory

Goals and task memory preserves both long-term aspirations (enduring objectives) and short-term commitments (immediate tasks).
- Characteristics: layered (strategic vs. tactical), dynamic (updated with progress and context).
- Role: anchors agent behavior in purpose-driven direction, ensuring continuity across decisions.
- Functions in Agents: manages prioritization, task-switching, and motivational stability.
- MAS Implication: enables alignment of distributed agents around shared goals or task lists, forming the backbone of collective problem-solving.

State Memory

State memory records internal and external conditions, creating a running trace of the system’s status.
- Characteristics: time-sensitive, volatile, blending perception with introspection.
- Role: provides context for reasoning, allowing agents to adapt actions based on changing conditions.
- Functions in Agents: tracks health, resource levels, environmental constraints, and internal readiness.
- MAS Implication: enables situational awareness across distributed systems, ensuring agents can coordinate without redundant sensing or duplicated effort.

Normative Memory

Normative memory encodes rules, institutional norms, commitments, and shared protocols, providing the backbone of governance and alignment.
- Characteristics: prescriptive (what should be done), durable (institutionalized), but revisable (subject to negotiation).
- Role: constrains agent behavior to align with ethical, legal, or systemic rules, preventing harmful or non-cooperative actions.
- Functions in Agents: ensures compliance, rule-following, and accountability to explicit commitments.
- MAS Implication: provides a collective rule substrate, where agents can coordinate fairly and enforce contracts or norms in decentralized environments.

Value Memory

Value memory holds the ethical, cultural, and preference systems that guide decision-making beyond immediate rewards.
- Characteristics: abstract, high-level, relatively stable but capable of evolving through reflection or collective negotiation.
- Role: provides the moral compass of the agent, ensuring coherence between actions and higher-order objectives.
- Functions in Agents: shapes preference hierarchies, trade-offs, and long-term commitments that transcend immediate utility.
- MAS Implication: ensures ecosystems can converge on shared value systems, enabling pluralistic cooperation while maintaining space for diversity and adaptation.