Memory Reference

Memory is project-local runtime state. It belongs to the workspace that produced it and is safe to remove when you want Once to forget local history.

Storage

Once stores project memory under .once/. Evidence records are stored in .once/once.sqlite.

The database records what ran, its status, its cache decision, and identifiers for command output and declared outputs. Cached content stays in the shared content-addressed store instead of being duplicated in project memory. See Evidence for the records you can query.

Location

The memory database is workspace-local. The XDG_CACHE_HOME and XDG_STATE_HOME variables from the freedesktop.org base directory specification can move user-level caches and state, but they do not move project memory out of the workspace.

Use -C, --directory on command-line operations, or once mcp --workspace, to choose which workspace owns the memory being read or written.

The memory location cannot be configured independently from the workspace. Evidence remains associated with the graph and files that produced it.