How cognition works
How Brain derives patterns, intentions, and links from shared memories.
Cognition is Brain’s background work on shared memories: it connects statements, derives recurring patterns, and records standing intentions. It has two parts, the digest and the sweep. Private memories are not consolidated.
Digest and sweep
Mechanism | What it reads | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
Digest | Statements waiting to be consolidated, grouped by subject | Patterns, intentions, supporting evidence, and links between memories. |
Sweep | Patterns already produced by the digest | Broader patterns describing similar behavior across different subjects. |
The digest records recurring patterns as Schema memories and things worth doing or watching as Intention memories. When a statement supports something already recorded, it attaches evidence instead of adding a near-duplicate. Links between memories also contribute to the knowledge graph.
The sweep looks for patterns that describe the same behavior in unrelated parts of your product. It restates each pattern in terms of behavior, compares pairs, then combines groups of similar pairs into a higher-order pattern. It needs enough existing patterns to compare; finding none on a small memory pool is a valid result.
When it runs
Writes leave consolidation work that Brain picks up automatically. You can also request a digest or sweep after a large ingestion from the web app’s Cognition page.
Both use language-model tokens. Under blocking enforcement, exhausted organization llm-tokens allowances cause scheduled passes to be skipped without a run record. They are not queued for later. The next scheduled pass can pick up accumulated material when allowance is available again. See usage and limits.
What changes in your results
- Browse contains derived memories.
SchemaandIntentionrecords appear alongside submitted material. - Search has more context. The Profile and Proactive groups gain patterns and intentions. Direct results may appear before those groups have content.
- The graph gains connections. Brain links related memories and accumulates entities and relations.
- Repeated statements add evidence. Supporting material can strengthen an existing record without adding another equivalent memory.
Cognition derives these records from what is already stored. To understand a result, open its memory or follow the graph back to its supporting records.
Read the last run
On Cognition, the current state appears above the digest and sweep controls. Each mechanism’s latest outcome appears beneath its control. A request is accepted before processing finishes, and runs are processed one at a time.
Over MCP, brain_cognition_digest and brain_cognition_sweep require write access for the product named in product_id. Each returns accepted and run_id. Use brain_cognition_status with read access to read the last digest and sweep, including run status, counts, timing, and errors. See connecting an agent.
Result | How to interpret it |
|---|---|
Digest counts and duration | How much pending consolidation work it processed and how long it took. |
Sweep counts | Patterns restated, resemblances found, and higher-order patterns written. Zero findings can be expected with little material. |
Last-run status and error | Whether the product’s work is running, finished, or failed, and the reported reason for failure. |
Shared capacity | How busy processing is overall, across products. It is not your product’s memory size or usage. |
A successful request only means the work was accepted. Read the completed outcome before expecting newly derived memories in search.