Agent Memory That Does Not Invent Policy

Memory is useful for tone and prior context. It is dangerous when it becomes a second policy store.

If the agent remembers a discount from a chat, it will offer it again. Even when finance never approved it.

A seller enablement agent at Meridian stored that Acme preferred net-60. That was a one-off exception. The agent later wrote net-60 into three new proposals. Finance found out late.

What memory may hold

• Communication preferences the user set.
• Working notes marked as unverified.
• Pointers to records, not copies of entitlements.

What must stay in systems of record

• Price, discount, and contract terms.
• Access and security policy.
• Entitlements and feature flags.
• Anything a customer could claim as a promise.

Meridian wiped commercial facts from agent memory and forced a CRM lookup for terms. Answers got a second slower. Wrong repeats stopped.

Rule to publish

If a fact can create a commitment, the agent reads it from the system of record every time. Memory is not a shortcut around that.