Brain Save

What it does

When your agent uses it

• You want the brain to remember something specific going forward without a full recompile
• Mark an old memory outdated
• With /brain-save

Example prompts

• “/brain-save”
• “Use the brain-save skill to save a single fact, decision, pattern, or convention into your governed knowledge brain so it can be recalled later —…”
• “/brain-save”

Requirements

• Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Designed for Claude Code; ships with the governed-second-brain plugin. Single-user local — you own the brain. Requires qmd on PATH for the index refresh after govern.
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): mcp__governed-brain__brain_search, mcp__governed-brain__brain_capture, mcp__governed-brain__brain_govern, mcp__governed-brain__brain_transition, mcp__governed-brain__brain_status, mcp__governed-brain__brain_audit_verify

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Confirm it's worth keeping — "Would I benefit from finding this in 30 days?" Skip ephemeral
2. 2Pick a category: decision, pattern, convention, architecture, troubleshooting,
3. 3Call brain_capture with { title, content, category, filePaths?, sessionId?, learningIndex? }.
4. 4Call brain_govern to drain the spool through the deterministic pipeline (dedupe →

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cfae287. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • mcp__governed-brain__brain_search
  • mcp__governed-brain__brain_capture
  • mcp__governed-brain__brain_govern
  • mcp__governed-brain__brain_transition
  • mcp__governed-brain__brain_status
  • mcp__governed-brain__brain_audit_verify

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • github.com

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

• Compatibility

  Designed for Claude Code; ships with the governed-second-brain plugin. Single-user local — you own the brain. Requires qmd on PATH for the index refresh after govern.

  From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Brain Save loads about 2.3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 107 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,009 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~107

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~2.3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace at commit cfae287, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© jeremylongshore). 1,009 words, ~2,275 tokens.

name

brain-save

description

Saves a single fact, decision, pattern, or convention into your governed knowledge brain so it can be recalled later — and retires memories that are outdated. Side-effecting: it writes to your durable corpus, so it never auto-fires — invoke it explicitly. Use when you want the brain to remember something specific going forward without a full recompile, or to mark an old memory outdated. Trigger with "/brain-save".

allowed-tools

mcp__governed-brain__brain_search, mcp__governed-brain__brain_capture, mcp__governed-brain__brain_govern, mcp__governed-brain__brain_transition, mcp__governed-brain__brain_status, mcp__governed-brain__brain_audit_verify

compatibility

Designed for Claude Code; ships with the governed-second-brain plugin. Single-user local — you own the brain. Requires qmd on PATH for the index refresh after govern.

version

1.0.0

author

Jeremy Longshore <jeremy@intentsolutions.io>

license

Apache-2.0

tags

brain, governance, save, capture, local-first

argument-hint

[save <fact> | retire <memory-id>]

disable-model-invocation

true

/brain-save I'm going Apache-2.0 across the stack so the public can self-host.

→ brain_capture({ title: "License: Apache-2.0 across the stack",
                  content: "...", category: "decision" })
→ brain_govern()
→ Promoted 1 (qmd://kb-decisions/license-apache-2-0.md); 0 rejected, 0 duplicate.
  Audit event written.

/brain-save retire memory 9c2e… — superseded by the new deploy runbook.

→ brain_transition({ memoryId: "9c2e…", to: "archived",
                     reason: "Superseded by the new deploy runbook", actor: "me" })
→ Memory 9c2e… → archived; audit event written.

© jeremylongshore, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in plugins/mcp/governed-second-brain/skills/brain-save of jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit cfae287