Allow recurring automations to be excluded from global Memories

Summary

Recurring Codex automations currently appear to be eligible for the same global memory generation and consolidation pipeline as interactive user conversations. Over time, frequent automation runs can dominate the global memory store and reduce the relevance of memories used in ordinary conversations.

This is not a request to remove automation-local continuity. Codex already has per-automation memory under $CODEX_HOME/automations/<automation_id>/memory.md. The request is to separate that local continuity from global user memory.

Current behavior

1. Enable Memories.
2. Create one or more recurring automations.
3. Let them run repeatedly while also using normal interactive conversations.
4. Inspect the generated memories.
5. Summaries derived from automation runs appear alongside memories derived from interactive conversations.

With enough recurring runs, routine status updates, transient failures, and repeated execution details can become overrepresented in the global memory store.

There does not appear to be a per-automation policy that allows automation-local memory to remain enabled while preventing those runs from generating global memories. The practical workaround is to disable memory generation globally, which also disables desired memory generation for normal conversations.

Why this matters

• Repetition frequency can be mistaken for long-term importance.
• Routine automation output can reduce the signal-to-noise ratio of user preferences, corrections, and durable decisions.
• Automation-local memory and global memory have overlapping responsibilities.
• Users cannot currently choose: “normal conversations may generate global memory, but recurring automations should remain local.”

Requested behavior

Please support source-aware memory policies for automations. For example:

• Do not generate global memories from automation runs by default.
• Preserve per-automation local memory for run-to-run continuity.
• Add per-automation controls for using and generating global memories.
• Allow explicit promotion of a stable automation-derived fact into global memory.
• Record memory provenance so entries can be inspected, filtered, pruned, or re-scoped by source.

A possible policy model would expose separate controls such as:

use_automation_local_memory = true
generate_automation_local_memory = true
use_global_memory = false
generate_global_memory = false

Expected behavior

Interactive conversations can continue to use and generate global memories, while recurring automations use their own local memory unless the user explicitly opts an automation into global memory.

Related issues

• #18343
• #17496
• #21714
• #29818
• #30299

Privacy note

No memory contents, conversation titles, local absolute paths, account data, project names, automation names, thread identifiers, or other private user data are included in this report.