Herald Memories

Herald Memories turns important email history into local, source-backed context for replies, contacts, companies, threads, chat, and Obsidian-friendly Markdown notes. It is designed for work threads, job search, recruiting, consulting, founder/customer conversations, and other relationships where continuity matters.

Overview

Memories are stored as immutable local records under ~/.herald/memories by default. Herald can refresh them from cached Inbox and Sent mail, then use the results in Compose Radar, Contacts dossiers, email-preview thread dossiers, chat tools, Obsidian sync previews, and daily briefing diffs.

Demo mode includes synthetic memory examples for Sergey, Mina, and Cobalt Works, so screenshots and docs can show the feature without private mailbox data.

Screen Anatomy

Area	What it shows
Compose Radar	Up to three source-backed reply nudges when a reply draft has strong relevant memory.
Contact dossier	Relationship summary, recent interactions, active tracks, open loops, vault links, and compact evidence labels.
Company dossier	Company or domain-backed tracks, job-search vault path, open loop, and evidence.
Thread dossier	Email-preview context for the selected subject, including active track, open loop, canonical note link, and source evidence.
Settings > Memories	Setup fields, allowed memory tasks, vault path, included sources, prompt template inventory, confidence thresholds, update rules, Obsidian profile, and store counts.
Obsidian preview	Generated-section Markdown changes shown before first write or section rewrite.
Daily briefing diff	Changed tracks, newly resolved loops, stale loops, failed syncs, review-needed memories, and vault hygiene items.

Compose Radar with source-backed memory nudges

Controls

Control	Context	Result
`Settings > Memories`	Main settings overlay	Configure enablement, local directory, sources, allowed memory tasks, extraction trigger, vault targets, confidence thresholds, prompt-template inventory, and Obsidian output profile.
Compose Radar actions	Reply Compose when nudges exist	Open source, insert a bounded phrase, dismiss, mark resolved, save for review, or record research intent.
Contact detail	Contacts tab	Shows person and company dossiers when matching memories exist.
Email preview	Timeline preview	Shows a thread dossier when the selected subject has matching memories.
Research actions	Compose Radar or dossier workflows	Plan explicit person/company research using public identifiers only by default.

Workflows

Reply With Compose Radar

Open a memory-backed Timeline email.
Press R to reply.
Review any Compose Radar nudges.
Open a source or insert a bounded phrase only when useful.
Finish and send normally.

Compose Radar does not silently mutate drafts. It stays hidden or quiet when there is no high-confidence source-backed memory.

Review A Contact Or Company

Press 2 for Contacts.
Open a contact with enter.
Read the Herald Memories section for relationship summary, active track, open loop, vault link, and evidence.
Use recent email preview for the underlying message context.

Sync To Obsidian-Friendly Markdown

Open Settings > Memories.
Configure the vault path and, in advanced Obsidian output settings, destinations such as People/, Job search/, Scheduled Task Artifacts/, and Memory Inbox/.
Choose frontmatter, YAML header, link, and tag modes.
Generate a preview.
Apply only after reviewing the generated sections.

Herald preserves user-authored content outside its stable generated-section markers.

Use Research Mode

Choose a research action for a person, company, dossier refresh, or reply.
Review the public-identifier query plan.
Opt in to external research before anything leaves the machine.
Save sourced research notes with URL, retrieval date, confidence, and what changed since last contact.

Private email bodies, private note text, attachments, and full thread summaries are not sent to external research by default.

States

State	What happens
Memory unavailable	Compose and chat keep working; Herald shows a bounded empty or unavailable state.
Low confidence	Memories remain searchable or reviewable but do not become Compose Radar warnings.
Source missing	Deleted, archived, moved, or cleaned-up source mail marks dependent memories stale/source-missing and blocks high-confidence nudges.
Dismissed nudge	The dismissal scope is remembered, and the nudge does not reappear unless new evidence materially changes the situation.
Corrected memory	User correction overrides the generated text in effective views while immutable history and evidence remain inspectable.
Forgotten memory	Retrieval hides the memory without deleting the immutable record from disk.
AI scheduler busy	Memory extraction uses the managed AI scheduler; reply-prep refresh is interactive and search-triggered refresh is background.

Data And Privacy

Memory files are local by default at ~/.herald/memories. Records store compact claims, source evidence pointers, bounded snippets, confidence, freshness, prompt version, and optional Obsidian target metadata. They are not a second raw-mail archive.

Optional calendar, Obsidian, and research-note sources are off by default. When enabled, calendar ingestion reads cached calendar events, Obsidian ingestion reads Markdown only under configured destination folders, and research-note ingestion reads saved Markdown notes that contain explicit source URLs.

Obsidian sync writes only after preview approval and only to configured vault targets. Research Mode is explicit and uses public identifiers by default. MCP and daemon servers do not expose a memory API in the current UI-first release.

Troubleshooting

If no nudges appear, the draft may not have high-confidence matching memories, the source may be missing, or the relevant cache has not refreshed yet.

If Obsidian output is noisy, lower tag generation, choose no visible YAML headers, switch link mode, or raise the Obsidian write threshold in Settings > Memories.

If research is blocked, enable Research Mode and external opt-in, then retry with a public identifier such as a person name, company, domain, role, or URL.