nc://past

Past.dev memory: recalls what past remembers before each turn, and keeps each session there. A Nodecode rewrite of pastdotdev/hermes-plugin by pastdotdev.

The model gets past_recall (search past for what was said or decided before), the operator gets /past (the connection, or a query), and each turn carries, by itself, what the person's own words recall from earlier sessions. Every finished turn is kept and filed in past as part of a sitting; nothing is sent while a sitting is still going.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the past cell", or run nodecode add nc://past.

Set it up

Make a project key in the past.dev console, then fill the past section of config.jsonc (or /settings):

{
  "past": {
    "api_key": "past_sk_…",      // or api_key_env, or just PAST_API_KEY in the environment
    "identity": "you@example.com" // who you are in past: recall is off until it is set
  }
}

A self-hosted past is "api_url": "https://past.example.com"; plain http:// is accepted only for a loopback address. A start without a key is refused, naming the member.

Use it

• Recall before a turn. At a turn's first round the person's own words are the query, and what past answers rides the request as one block: === past · recalled from memory ===, how many memories it carries, and one dated line each. It is labelled background, not instruction.
• past_recall {query, limit?} answers JSON — the query and the memories it found, each with its date — so the model can ask again with other words, or ask for more.
• /past prints the address, the key's last eight, the identity, whether recall and ingest are on, and how many sittings went. /past where do I live asks past from the shell.
• Ingest. A finished turn's two texts are filed in its session's buffer; a sitting is sent when a later turn closes it, when it has been quiet for sitting_minutes, or when the cell stops. Each sitting is content-hashed, so an unchanged one is never sent twice. Tool calls and their results are never sent, and the obvious shapes of keys and tokens (past_sk_…, sk-…, ghp_…, Bearer …, PASSWORD=…, private keys) are redacted from the query and the content alike.

The wire

POST /api/v1/recall with {query, identity, limit, level} — and queryTimestamp when a caller names one — answering {results: [{occurredAt, content}]}. POST /api/v1/ingest/batch with {items: [{id, content, label, timestamp, identity?, audience?, metadata}]}, the id nodecode:<session> for a session's first sitting and nodecode:<session>:<n> after it, so a resent sitting replaces its own.

Not ported

• The on-disk buffer. The original keeps each session under ~/.past/hermes/ while it runs and sends what a crash left behind at the next start. Here the buffer lives in the cell: a sitting is sent when it closes or when the cell stops, so a crash loses the sitting that was running.
• ~/.past/config.json. The original shares one config file with past's other connectors, and hermes pastdotdev setup / status write and read it. A cell takes its settings from its own section, /settings and /past are the same surface, and PAST_API_KEY is still read.
• The messaging-gateway opt-out. The original turns itself off on a gateway session unless the operator says it serves only them, because past recalls as one identity. This cell does not tell a shared room from a private session; a home that serves several people should set recall and ingest off, or use a project per person.

MIT, past's.