---
title: MEMORY.md Validator — Free open-spec validator
description: MEMORY.md is an open specification for portable AI agent memory — defining what an agent retains across sessions, how it compresses context when limits are reached, and how memory transfers between agents. The Cromus validator is free, deterministic, and runs in your browser.
canonical: https://cromus.ai/validator/memory
source_html: https://cromus.ai/validator/memory
---

# MEMORY.md Validator

> Free, deterministic validator for the MEMORY.md open specification.

Paste or upload any MEMORY.md file. Get a structured report against the open spec — including retention policy, compression strategy, and inter-agent transfer contract. No signup, no API key, no LLM calls.

---

## What MEMORY.md is

MEMORY.md is an open specification for **portable AI agent memory**. It defines, deterministically and portably:

- **Retention** — what the agent keeps across sessions
- **Compression** — how the agent compacts context when limits are reached
- **Transfer** — how memory hands off between agents in a multi-agent workflow
- **Scope** — what is per-user, per-workspace, per-session
- **Expiry** — when memory is dropped or rotated

It works at the model, infrastructure, and application level universally — independent of any specific vector store, key-value cache, or runtime.

---

## What the validator checks

The Cromus validator runs deterministic checks across:

- **Schema conformance** — required sections present, valid retention enums
- **Compression policy** — strategy declared, threshold defined, behaviour testable
- **Transfer contract** — inter-agent fields typed, no orphan references
- **Scope correctness** — no cross-tenant leakage in declared scopes
- **Expiry coverage** — every retention class has a defined expiry

Every check is deterministic. The same file always produces the same report.

---

## Why memory needs an open spec

Without a portable memory spec, every runtime invents its own retention model. Workflows that move between Claude Managed Agents, Google AI Studio, LangGraph, and a local Ollama stack today have to re-implement memory four times.

MEMORY.md sits **upstream** of all of them — one portable contract that any runtime can honour.

---

## How to use

- **Web** — paste / upload at [cromus.ai/validator/memory](https://cromus.ai/validator/memory)
- **MCP** — call `validate_memory` on the Cromus MCP server at `https://mcp.cromus.ai/mcp`
- **CI** — same MCP tool, zero LLM calls, no-retention contract, safe for production CI

---

## Related

- [MEMORY.md spec on GitHub](https://github.com/cromus-ai/specs)
- [SKILL.md Validator](/validator/skill.md)
- [ETHOS.md Validator](/validator/ethos.md)
- [Pre-Execution Governance](/pre-execution-governance.md)