MemPenny
Your Claude memory companion. Turn it on, keep it lean, schedule the upkeep, reverse anything.
Claude's memory grows. Old notes pile up. The signal gets buried. MemPenny tidies it — and Claude's next session starts sharper.
Before: 424 files · 1,247 KB loading every session
After: 227 files · 458 KB · ~63% lighter
A real second-pass run; full case study: Real-world results.
Two ways:
- Clean now —
/mempenny:clean. One command. Minute or two. You see the proposal, say yes, done.
- Set a learning nap —
/mempenny:nap. Pick a schedule (daily / weekly / once). MemPenny tidies on your next Claude Code session — backup-first, no prompts, fully reversible. Each pass leaves Claude with cleaner notes to learn from next time.
What it does:
- Drops what's clearly stale.
- Files away historical stuff (still searchable, just out of the way).
- Trims bloated notes to one or two lines.
- Spots duplicates and keeps the best one.
- Flags files that contradict each other so you can sort them out.
- Leaves alone files and folders you mark off-limits.
Don't like a change? /mempenny:restore puts everything back. Backup-first, always.
Install
/plugin marketplace add marcelopaniza/mempenny
/plugin install mempenny@mempenny
/reload-plugins
Advanced
/mempenny:clean — clean now
One command, end-to-end:
/mempenny:clean
What happens, in order:
- Triages every memory file — DELETE the obsolete, ARCHIVE the historical, DISTILL the bloated, KEEP the rest.
- Looks across files — proposes DEDUPE when duplicates show up, MERGE when files cover the same topic from different angles, FLAG when files contradict each other.
- Shows you the proposal —
Yes, apply / No, cancel / Show full table. Nothing on disk changes until you say yes.
- Backs up first — every change goes through a timestamped backup. Reversible via
/mempenny:restore.
First run in a memory directory asks where to keep backups (defaults to a sibling folder next to the memory dir) and remembers the choice. Every subsequent run is one command.
Roll back any time:
/mempenny:restore
Lists backups, you pick one. The current state is snapshotted first — the restore itself is reversible.
/mempenny:nap — schedule a learning nap
Pick a frequency and a time. MemPenny runs /clean --yes for you when the schedule fires — no prompt, just a clean memory waiting for you.
/mempenny:nap # configure: backup folder → frequency → time
/mempenny:nap --list # show all configured schedules
/mempenny:nap --cancel # remove the schedule for this memory dir
Three questions, no daemons, works with whatever auth Claude Code already uses — OAuth or API key, both fine. The hook installs with the plugin and never modifies your ~/.claude/settings.json — MemPenny only writes that file when you explicitly accept the auto-memory enable offer.
When the schedule fires, MemPenny runs /mempenny:clean --yes on your next Claude Code session in this project — no Yes/No prompt, just a clean memory waiting for you. Backup-first, fully reversible via /mempenny:restore. Uses Claude credits per fire (same as a manual /clean).
Cross-platform: Linux + macOS for now. Windows support deferred.
Flags on /mempenny:clean
--dir <path> — operate on a memory directory other than the current project's.--only <glob> — restrict triage scope by filename glob. Comma-separate multiple globs. Example: --only "project_*_20*.md,reference_*.md".--lang <code> — locale for user-visible output. Ships with en, es, pt-BR. Also honors MEMPENNY_LOCALE.--reconfigure — re-prompt for this memory directory's backup folder (ignores the saved entry). Other projects' entries are left alone.--yes — skip the confirmation gate; auto-apply after triage. Backup-first. This is what /mempenny:nap fires when the schedule runs.
Manual phases
/mempenny:memory-triage [--dir <path>] [--only <glob>] [--lang <code>] — dry-run triage. Produces a markdown classification table at a private mktemp path with permissions 600. No writes./mempenny:memory-apply <table-file> [--dir <path>] [--lang <code>] — applies a previously approved triage table. Table path is required; pass the path printed by /mempenny:memory-triage. Creates a backup before modifying anything./mempenny:memory-distill <file> [--lang <code>] — one-off distillation of a single file. Interactive: shows the proposal, asks to apply / skip / edit.
Tell MemPenny what to leave alone
Lock a whole folder — drop an empty .mempenny-lock file in it:
touch .mempenny-lock
/clean and /nap refuse to touch anything inside.
Lock a single memory file — add this line at the top:
<!-- mempenny-lock -->
