> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hq.zone/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Memory that compounds

> What HQ remembers between sessions, how specialists arrive knowing your workspace, and the controls you have to view, correct, delete, or freeze what they know.

A specialist that forgets everything between sessions starts from zero every time. HQ specialists don't. They remember the work, arrive knowing your workspace, and get sharper the more your team relies on them — while leaving you in control of everything they know.

For how this fits the rest of the architecture, see [How HQ works](/concepts/how-hq-works).

## Knows your workspace from day one

From the first message, a specialist already knows your channels, people, and the documents you connect. It reads your team's past conversations — with consent — into a private index at install, so its very first reply fits how you already work, with no setup or re-explaining.

Inviting the bot opts a channel in; removing it pauses.

## Remembers across sessions

Memory persists between conversations and compounds over time:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="About you">
    Preferences per person — like how you want briefs written — so replies stay in your style.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Accounts">
    Facts about the accounts you work, shared across the team, so context carries between people.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Skills learned">
    The steps that worked for recurring tasks, so the work gets faster each time it runs.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Grounded every turn">
    A specialist pulls the relevant background into each answer on its own, so you don't re-supply context.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

Memory consolidates while a specialist is idle, so it sharpens with use rather than just accumulating.

## Yours to govern

You can always see what a specialist knows, then **correct, delete, or freeze** it. Memory is something you govern, not a black box — and that governance maps directly to the API.

<Note>
  Edit, delete, and freeze controls over stored data support your data-protection obligations under GDPR.
</Note>

→ Read and manage what a specialist knows through the [Memory API](/api-reference/memory/list-facts) (`memory:read` / `memory:write`).