user-md - Know your user: a USER.md that grows. Your AI's understanding of you, in a file you own.

Mirrored in three places, same version everywhere: Hugging Face (you are here) · GitLab · GitHub

Get the files - GitLab is the most reliable plain-git route:

git clone https://gitlab.com/LucioLiu/user-md.git

# or from this page
hf download LucioLiu/user-md --repo-type dataset --local-dir ./user-md

Then drop the folder into your agent's skills directory - ~/.claude/skills/user-md/ for Claude Code, ~/.agents/skills/user-md/ for Codex, or your client's equivalent.

Note: links to github.com inside the text below point to the GitHub mirror; if one does not resolve, use the GitLab mirror above - it carries the same content.

Licence: PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 - the LICENSE file in this repo is authoritative.

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English | 简体中文

user-md / a USER.md that grows

Your AI's understanding of you — in a file you own. Moves when you move.

Know your user

user-md is a discipline for keeping your AI's understanding of you in a single Markdown file that you own: USER.md. It ends the re-explaining — your role, your standards, how you like answers delivered — and unlike vendor cloud memory, it moves when your folder moves. Hand-written sections capture who you are; an agent-curated section grows with dated, confidence-tagged observations.

Every agent has an About Me. Yours should have an About You.

Leave USER.md empty and your agent still runs — but every session starts with zero knowledge of you. And unlike memory features locked inside a vendor's cloud account, this file sits in your folder — readable and editable by you, usable by any agent you point at it. As one reviewer put it about a vendor's GDPR-only memory export: "The export feature exists to satisfy regulators, not users." (Nick Sawinyh)

Three layers, two lanes

flowchart TB
    subgraph U["USER.md — portable, loaded every session"]
        direction TB
        subgraph H["Hand-written lane — you author it, the agent may only suggest"]
            W1["Who I am"]
            W2["How I work"]
            W3["Our relationship"]
            W4["What I'm up to"]
        end
        subgraph A["Agent-curated lane — append-only, dated, confidence-tagged"]
            W5["Learned by your agent"]
        end
    end
    LOCAL["USER.local.md — machine-local, gitignored<br/>env · toolchain · paths · credential pointers"]
    PROJ["Project-local files<br/>facts only true inside one project"]
    OVER["user/*.md overflow files<br/>details sunk when the main file outgrows its budget"]

    W5 -- "repeated observation + your explicit OK" --> H
    W5 -- "overflow" --> OVER
    U -. "breaks on machine switch? → goes here instead" .-> LOCAL
    U -. "only true in one project? → goes here instead" .-> PROJ

Three layers — where a fact about you belongs:

Layer	File	Test
Portable profile	USER.md	still true on any machine, in any project
Machine-local	USER.local.md (gitignored)	stops being true when you switch machines
Project-local	that project's own context file	stops being true outside one project

Two lanes inside USER.md:

• Hand-written lane — Who I am, How I work, Our relationship, What I'm up to. You author these. The agent may suggest edits and may apply one only after your explicit confirmation; it never rewrites this lane silently.
• Agent-curated lane — Learned by your agent. Append-only. Every entry carries a date, a source event, and a confidence tag; single observations are explicitly marked unverified. Repeated observations can be promoted into the hand-written lane — only with your explicit OK. Nothing is ever silently rewritten; everything stays visible, editable, and deletable.

The main file is kept deliberately small so it can be loaded in full every session; details overflow into user/*.md helper files. Exact size, promotion, and consolidation thresholds live in one place: references/curation.md.

How it compares

	user-md	Cloud memory features	Memory-layer products (service + DB)	Vanilla OpenClaw USER.md
Where it lives	a file in your folder	your vendor account	a service + database	a file in your folder
Read/edit directly	plain Markdown, any editor	product UI only	API/SDK	plain Markdown
Portable across vendors	yes — copy the folder	no	depends on self-hosting	yes
Growth mechanism	two-lane curation discipline	automatic, sometimes silent	automatic pipeline	none — static, hand-filled
Audit trail	every entry dated + sourced	limited	varies	none

The gap user-md fills: tools that are file-shaped have no growth mechanism, and tools that grow aren't file-shaped. This is a file that grows — under explicit, auditable rules.

Compatibility

The USER.md convention comes from the OpenClaw agent workspace, where the file is defined as "Who the user is and how to address them. Loaded every session." (docs.openclaw.ai). It is not part of the AGENTS.md standard — that standard has no user-profile slot. user-md adopts the OpenClaw name and every-session loading model, and adds the layering and curation discipline on top.

OpenClaw

Drop-in. USER.md occupies the user axis only; SOUL.md, IDENTITY.md, and MEMORY.md stay untouched. Copy the templates into your workspace and you are done.

Claude Code

Add one reference line to your CLAUDE.md (project-level, or ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md for global use):

@USER.md

Optionally, a SessionStart hook can be wired instead — an example configuration ships in SKILL.md. The hook is optional wiring, not a built-in runtime; the discipline works without it.

Any other harness

Any tool that reads instructions at session start can use this. Add a line like "Read the relevant sections of USER.md before starting work" to its system prompt or rules file. Cross-vendor transfer and session injection require the user's authorization; load only the sections needed for the task instead of treating "portable" as blanket disclosure consent.

Install (2 minutes)

1. Copy templates/USER.md and templates/USER.local.md into your workspace root.
2. Add USER.local.md to .gitignore — before your first commit.
3. Wire session loading for your harness (see Compatibility above).

Then spend five minutes filling in the first four sections of USER.md. Honest bullet points beat polished prose.

To teach your agent the curation rules, also install this folder as a skill/plugin:

gh skill install LucioLiu/user-md user-md --agent claude-code --scope user

or copy the folder into your harness's skills directory (Chinese-speaking users should copy SKILL.zh-CN.md instead and rename it to SKILL.md locally). Or just tell your agent: "Read SKILL.md in this folder and set up user-md for me."

This release ships the root plugin.json as its package manifest. (A .claude-plugin packaging variant exists in an unpublished workspace and is deliberately not part of this release — don't look for that directory in what you installed.)

Uninstall

Remove the plugin/skill folder. Your USER.md file family stays where it is — those files are yours, which is rather the point.

Version & self-check

• Current version: 1.1.0 (see plugin.json).
• Repository: https://github.com/LucioLiu/user-md
• Self-check: diff your installed SKILL.md and plugin.json against the repo's main branch.

Verification boundary

The unified structural entrypoint, privacy/gitignore checks, and independent behavior bundle are not published in this repository yet — don't expect a tests directory in what you installed. A structural PASS would not prove curation behavior or cross-harness loading anyway; both frozen behavior cases remain not-run until independently executed and judged.

Privacy

This file family is PII by nature. USER.local.md must be gitignored. Review USER.md manually before pushing it to any public repository. Never store plaintext credentials in either file — pointers only. "Moves when you move" means the user can transfer the file; it does not grant automatic cross-project, cross-vendor, or cross-model sharing. Each transfer/load must follow explicit user authorization and minimum necessary disclosure. All examples shipped in the templates are fictional.

License

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 — free for personal and non-commercial use.

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Both language editions are maintained in sync. If they ever diverge, the English edition is authoritative — please open an issue if you spot one.