Context is the first layer of the control layer between your tools and the model. Power Pals carries forward the right context without restating everything - and keeps what is retained visible, controllable, and auditable. This page explains thread memory, broader retained context, Topic continuity, and the governance controls that decide what a Pal is allowed to remember.
Three practical context horizons
Broader learned context
Durable notes about you, your role, your preferences, and recurring patterns.
This thread
Chat history, summaries, and local notes that keep one conversation coherent.
Topic continuity
Related chats grouped together so Browser can help you resume and refile intelligently.
Every ongoing thread builds its own local context through message history, summaries, and thread-specific notes. This is what helps a long conversation stay coherent instead of resetting every few turns.
Open the Memory view inside a chat to inspect what the system has kept from that thread. Use it when you want to understand what the Pal is carrying forward locally, or when the thread feels slightly off and you want to check the remembered summary.
Some context is worth carrying beyond one conversation. Durable notes help the system remember your preferences, recurring facts, and the way you like work framed.
In the Memory view, the broader-context section shows what the system has learned beyond this one thread. This is useful before important follow-up work, because it shows what the Pal now thinks it knows about you and your recurring context.
Memory is useful only when it stays accurate. If the system learned the wrong fact, the wrong preference, or an outdated assumption, fix that early rather than working around it in later prompts.
Review remembered notes when a Pal feels off-track or keeps leaning on something outdated. It is usually better to remove or correct bad memory than to keep re-explaining yourself in fresh words.
Topics are part of the context system, not just the archive system. Filing related chats together makes Browser retrieval stronger and helps you continue the right thread in the right lane.
Use Browser and the chat Topic selector to move work into the Topic it really belongs to. The benefit is not just tidiness. It becomes easier to resume, compare, and build on related work later.
Retained context is only useful if you can see it, control it, and trust how it is handled. Memory in Power Pals is governed by default rather than accumulating silently in the background.
The Memory view shows what a Pal is carrying forward - thread summaries and broader retained context - so nothing is held about you that you cannot inspect.
Individual notes can be corrected or removed, and organisations can govern how memory and retained context are used across their accounts. Control sits with you, not the model.
Context is scoped to where it belongs - a thread, a Topic, or a deliberately retained note - rather than being shared indiscriminately across unrelated work.
Because context feeds a governed control layer, what informed a response can be reviewed alongside the full audit trail, keeping retained context accountable rather than opaque.
The goal is not more memory for its own sake. The goal is better continuity, less restating, and easier re-entry into important work.