Memories

Memories let Codex carry useful context from earlier threads into future work. After you enable memories, Codex can remember stable preferences, recurring workflows, tech stacks, project conventions, and known pitfalls so you don’t need to repeat the same context in every thread.

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

Enable memories

In the Codex app, enable Memories in settings.

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

[features]
memories = true

See Config basics for where Codex stores user-level configuration and how Codex loads ~/.codex/config.toml.

How memories work

After you enable memories, Codex can turn useful context from eligible prior threads 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 thread.

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

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 threads.

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 memories per thread

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

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

Configuration

Enable memories in the Codex app settings, or set memories = true in the [features] section of config.toml.

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

Common memory-specific settings include:

• memories.generate_memories: controls whether newly created threads can be stored as memory-generation inputs.
• memories.use_memories: controls whether Codex injects existing memories into future sessions.
• memories.extract_model: overrides the model used for per-thread memory extraction.
• memories.consolidation_model: overrides the model used for global memory consolidation.

Review 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.