memory-graveyard

Audit which entries in your project's MEMORY.md Claude actually reads. Surfaces dead memory entries, broken pointers, and (uniquely) entries that fall below the system-prompt truncation cutoff and are invisible to Claude.

npx memory-graveyard@latest             # audit current project's memory
npx memory-graveyard@latest lint        # static checks on MEMORY.md
npx memory-graveyard@latest prune       # plan removal of dead entries
npx memory-graveyard@latest projects    # cross-project sweep — find cold memory dirs

All analysis is local; reads ~/.claude/projects/<project>/memory/ and the per-project session JSONL logs. No network calls.

What it surfaces

Memory entries from MEMORY.md are sorted into four buckets:

1. Active — file exists, indexed in MEMORY.md, Read at least once in the window.
2. Dead — file exists, indexed, zero successful Reads. Removal candidate.
3. Missing — file exists, NOT in MEMORY.md, but Claude found it anyway. Re-index candidate.
4. Hallucinated — pointer in MEMORY.md ⇒ file does not exist; Claude tried to follow and got an error. Broken pointer with confirmed cost.

Static-only issues (broken pointers never followed, orphan files never read, truncation-budget overflow) are surfaced by lint.

Subcommands

• audit (default) — bucket table for the current project. --days N, --only <bucket>, --json, --project <path>, --claude-dir <path>.
• lint — five static checks on MEMORY.md and the memory dir:
  1. Broken pointers (entries referenced but missing on disk).
  2. Orphan files (on disk but not in MEMORY.md).
  3. Truncation budget — how many entries fall below the configured cutoff (default 200 lines) and are therefore invisible in the system prompt.
  4. Index size (token count, with the same cl100k_base 5–15% drift disclaimer as skill-graveyard cost).
  5. Stale dated entries — type: project entries whose newest absolute date is older than --stale-days (default 30). Exit code 1 on any error/warning, 0 otherwise.
• prune — print a removal plan for dead entries and hallucinated pointers. --apply executes (with automatic snapshot backup in .graveyard-backup/<timestamp>/). --include orphans|broken-pointers opts in additional groups.
• projects — sweep all ~/.claude/projects/*/memory/ and surface cold memory dirs (--cold-days N).

Why a tool

MEMORY.md is auto-loaded into the system prompt at session start. Above the line-cutoff, every entry costs tokens; below, it's invisible to Claude. Both are wasted budget. The tool surfaces both at once.

Companion tools

• skill-graveyard — same pattern for installed skills.
• mcp-graveyard — same pattern for MCP servers.

License

MIT