Claude Code MEMORY.md Gets Truncated After 200 Lines - How to Fix It

Fazm Team··2 min read

Claude Code MEMORY.md Gets Truncated After 200 Lines - How to Fix It

If you have been using Claude Code's native memory system heavily, you have probably noticed something strange. After accumulating enough memories, the newer ones stop being read. The MEMORY.md index file gets truncated at around 200 lines, and everything after that cutoff is effectively invisible to the agent.

This is not a bug you will find documented anywhere. You discover it when Claude keeps forgetting things you explicitly told it to remember last week.

Why This Happens

The MEMORY.md file is loaded into the system prompt at the start of each session. System prompts have size limits. When the memory file grows beyond what the system prompt can accommodate, it gets silently truncated from the bottom. Your oldest memories survive. Your newest ones get dropped.

This creates a counterintuitive situation where the memories you added most recently - the ones most likely to be relevant - are the first to disappear.

The Fix

Split your memories across multiple files. Instead of one massive MEMORY.md, create topic-specific memory files that Claude Code references through its project structure. Keep the main MEMORY.md as an index with high-priority items, and move detailed memories into separate files in a .claude/ directory.

Another approach is to be aggressive about pruning. Review your MEMORY.md regularly and remove entries that are no longer relevant. Consolidate related memories into single, concise entries. Five well-written lines beat twenty verbose ones.

A Better Memory Architecture

The real solution is a persistent memory system that does not rely on stuffing everything into a single file. A local knowledge graph that stores memories as queryable entities, retrieving only what is relevant to the current session, avoids the truncation problem entirely.

This is exactly the kind of infrastructure that desktop AI agents need to move from impressive demos to genuinely useful daily tools.

More on This Topic

Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.

Related Posts