April 13, 2026
When your diary fights your robot
Show HN: Continual Learning with .md
Reddit loses it over an AI “second brain” made of simple text notes
TLDR: A new tool turns your computer’s files into a readable “second brain” for AI, using simple text notes instead of complex databases. The community is split between loving the human-friendly simplicity and warning that, like many past memory systems, it may collapse once it’s stuffed with too much information.
A new Hacker News project promises an AI “memory” made out of plain text files, and the crowd showed up with feelings. The tool quietly scans your computer, summarizes what you’ve been working on, then stores it as a neat timeline of markdown notes — basically a diary your robot can read. One commenter swooned over the simplicity, immediately asking how fast it runs, like someone eyeing a new sports car. Others were far more skeptical.
The real drama? Veterans showed up to say, “We’ve seen this movie before.” One user warned that every fancy “AI memory” ends the same way: with so many notes that the bot just gives up and ignores its rules. Another dropped the hottest take: the magic isn’t the tech, it’s knowing what not to write down before your digital brain turns into a junk drawer. Meanwhile, the markdown fan club rolled in, cheering that using plain text you can actually read and edit keeps humans in control, unlike mysterious black-box systems.
There were even “I did this too!” replies, with people flexing their own note-based tools and linking their projects like battle cards. In classic Hacker News fashion, the vibe is evenly split between this is delightfully simple and this will absolutely collapse under real use — and everyone’s convinced they’re right.
Key Points
- •The system converts local files into a structured memory filesystem for AI agents using Markdown summaries.
- •It scans directories such as ~/.codex/sessions/, ~/.claude/sessions/, ~/Downloads/, and ~/Projects/ for source data.
- •Generated context is organized hierarchically in ~/.codex/user_context/ with year, quarter, month, and day .md files.
- •A hint is installed in ~/.codex/AGENTS.md to notify agents of user-specific context location.
- •Setup uses the codex CLI with Init.md and supports automated daily updates via cron using Update.md, with validation checks.