nworks3d/THOR-memory-bible-for-AI

**Most memory tools can only remind your assistant. THOR can refuse.**
Give it a note with a proof attached - a small check it can run right now,
like "this file still contains that line." From then on the note stops being
advice. THOR refuses the matching edit or command before it runs. Not a
suggestion your assistant is free to skip. A hard stop.
That proof runs live, at the exact moment it matters, against your actual
project. A note that has gone stale, that no longer describes what is really
there, quietly stops counting as proof - so it can never block you by
mistake.
Other local memories can refuse a write too. What is different is where
the block comes from: a proof, checked live, never a rule taken on faith.
And the whole loop that produces it, learning included, runs in one place:
this machine.
Most notes only inform: pinned so they are handed over at the start of
every session, or surfaced the first time your assistant reaches for the
file or command they are about.
A note that keeps being served without ever being judged is asked about in
one block, not one note at a time: the end-of-session review (/thor-eval),
which THOR asks for about once a week per project. THOR does not stop an
ordinary turn to ask whether one note helped or got in the way. The review
only names a note your own session actually saw fire - never one that only
ever showed up during other, unrelated work. Two "this did not belong"
verdicts since the note was last rewritten stop a plain note from being served
again, though it stays there if you go looking for it. A rewrite of the note's
text, check or bindings starts that count again, and a note whose check can
refuse is never hidden this way.
A health check names what has rotted, out loud: proofs that now come out
false, notes pointing at nothing, notes too crowded to ever be shown.
Everything that is not code - a recipe, a book, a training log - lives in
its own library, kept apart, so it never competes with a deploy rule for
room.
Everything stays on your machine by default: no account, no key, no cloud -
including what it learns about which of your notes are worth keeping. The only
two things that can leave it are listed under "Stays on your machine" below.
**Get started.** Send this repository's link to your AI assistant (Claude Code)
and say "install THOR". It does the whole setup itself; the only thing it asks
of you is to close Claude Code and open it again, once.
The full step-by-step is under Getting started further
down. If you are the assistant, read AGENTS.md.
---
THOR is free and GPLv3. If it earns its keep, you can support the work:
**buy me a Ko-fi** or
**become a YouTube member** -
no pressure, no paywall, everything stays open either way.
> **Are you an AI assistant, setting THOR up for the person you work with?** Go
> straight to **AGENTS.md**. It is written for you.
*Prefer watching? The video above walks through what THOR is and why it exists.*
What it does
**Remembers what you tell it.** A rule, a gotcha, a decision, the shape of the
project. Once, in your own words. It stays until you change it.
**Hands it back at the right moment.** Not a search box you have to remember.
The note arrives while you are touching the file or running the command it is
about, in a conversation that never heard it.
**Stops a wrong change, not just warns about it.** A note carrying something
checkable can refuse the write outright. Most notes only inform, and that is
deliberate: a rule that blocks honest work is the most expensive thing this
system can do.
**Keeps projects apart.** Every project has its own memory. One repo's rules
never leak into another.
**Says when it has rotted.** It counts its own dead ends: notes pointing at
files that moved, notes nothing ever reads, notes crowded out by louder ones.
Out loud, in plain language, so you can fix them.
**Stays on your machine.** No account, no key, no server. THOR never sends
anything on its own. Exactly two things can leave your machine, and only
because you say so: a bug report about THOR itself, sent to its GitHub page only
after your explicit yes to the exact text shown (file paths, project and
computer names, addresses, keys and passwords are removed first), and a backup
of your memory to a place you name, if you choose one - a backup kept on this
machine sends nothing. A short record of recent commands and replies, kept
beside the memory so THOR can test its own rules, never leaves the machine and
can be switched off (install --set-recording off).
What that looks like in practice