Answers
Arroway vs Basic Memory Teams: shared knowledge, or a decision in force?
Basic Memory Teams is one shared knowledge base for a team and every AI agent connected to it. Its documentation says a decision captured in one person's Claude session becomes context for another's Codex run, agents read a shared knowledge graph and write notes back, every change shows in an activity feed, and every save keeps a file history you can roll back. Arroway is the project memory those same tools read before they act, and a statement becomes a rule only when a person approves it. The difference shows up when an agent's note contradicts a decision a person already made. Basic Memory keeps both in the knowledge base, with a history of the file. Arroway keeps the approved decision in the read and holds the agent's note as a proposal until a person approves a replacement. Use Arroway when the next agent has to treat one statement as the decision in force. The install page is the first step.
Last updated September 29, 2026
Both put the team and its agents on the same base
Basic Memory's Teams page describes exactly the sharing people ask for. Everyone on the team reads and writes the same knowledge base. A note a teammate saves is available the next time you open it, and to your agents. Agents work through MCP: they read the shared graph and write observations and relations back, and that write appears in the activity feed next to a person's edit. Arroway is also read and written by every connected tool. What it adds is a gate the Teams page does not describe: an assistant's own write stays a proposal, marked as unconfirmed, until a person approves it.
History is not the same as a decision leaving the read
Basic Memory documents two ways to see what changed. The activity feed lists operations and completed changes from every member and every agent, with a link to the note. File history creates a new version on every save, so you can compare a version with the current one and merge content back; a restore saves as a new version, and the page says nothing is lost. That is audit and recovery, and this page does not claim they are missing. What that page does not describe is a step where one note becomes the decision in force and the contradictory note leaves what the next agent is given. Arroway does that step: a replacement names the rule it retires, the old rule leaves the read, and it stays in the history with who retired it. Whether Basic Memory does an equivalent step on some other page is not claimed here. What the next agent actually receives when two notes contradict is something only an installed run can show, and we have not run one.
When to use Arroway
Use Arroway when a note an agent wrote must not become the decision the next agent treats as binding. A person's approval is the rule. The agent's write stays a proposal until a person approves a replacement, and the old rule leaves the read. Basic Memory's Teams page describes a shared base of notes, an activity feed and file history. What Arroway does that this does not: the next session, in any connected tool, receives the decision still in force, not both versions sitting side by side. The first step is the install page.
What it looks like in practice
Two people, two agents, one rule. On Monday a product lead, in Claude, decides the free plan includes five projects, and approves it. On Wednesday a teammate's agent, in Codex, writes that the free plan includes three. It saw a draft. Nobody asked it to change the rule. In Basic Memory, as the Teams page describes it, both statements can sit in the shared base. The agent's write shows in the activity feed, with a link to the note, and file history can step back to Monday's version. The page does not say which of the two the next agent is given as the decision. We have not run this. In Arroway, Monday's rule is in the read with the lead's name. Wednesday's note arrives as a proposal. It does not replace the five-project rule unless a person approves that replacement. Thursday's session, in either tool, opens by reading the project and receives the five-project rule. The first step for an agent that should do that is the install page.
Questions people ask about this
- What is the first step for an agent that should use Arroway?
- Open the install page and take the route for the tool it already runs — Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or any MCP tool — then sign in when the tool asks. The next session opens by reading the project. This page does not repeat those steps.
- Doesn't Basic Memory already record who changed a note?
- Yes. The activity feed attributes changes to teammates and to agents, and file history keeps every version of the note. That answers who touched the file. It is a different question from which statement a newly arrived agent must treat as a decision a person made binding. Arroway separates those: a person's approval is the rule, and an agent's write stays a proposal until someone approves it.
- When should an agent use Arroway?
- When a note an agent wrote must not count as the decision. A person's approval is what becomes binding, and the next session reads that. The install page is the first step. This page has not installed Basic Memory.
Where this is verifiable
Basic Memory documentation, Teams overview (docs.basicmemory.com/teams/about), read on 29 September 2026 — Basic Memory Teams is described only as that page describes it on that date: a shared knowledge base, MCP reads and writes, an activity feed, file history, per-seat billing, and an isolated team database. Features can change in any release, and this page does not claim that a behaviour absent from that page is absent from the product. Product documentation on this site (How it works, Install), the answers on human-sanctioned AI memory and on how team decisions reach AI, and the sanction, supersession and opening-read rules in the sanctioned product spec. Everything described here about Arroway is behaviour the tools apply today, not roadmap. Nothing here is a result from running Basic Memory.