I’ve been working in ML software for 4 years, and I quickly ran into a recurring problem: I kept asking myself, "Why did I write this function this way?" or "Why is this block here?"

I tried to organize my thoughts with Obsidian and other note-taking apps, but let’s be honest, documenting for yourself feels like a chore. Documentation always feels like it's meant for "someone else."

So, I decided to build a VS Code extension to save my reasoning and contextual memory directly linked to snippets, tags, and more. I even added a prioritized task list so I’d know exactly what was pending the next day.

And what happened? I never used it.

Months later, I felt disappointed. I felt like I had wasted all that time on something even I didn't find useful.

Then, agents arrived.

Working with AI agents has been a mind-opening experience, but I hit a wall: the "Cold Start" problem. Every new session required me to explain everything from scratch. I tried MEMORIES.md, AGENTS.md, and Claude’s project rules. Ironically, the cold start didn't improve as much as promised. Some benchmarks even show that agents perform worse when forced to parse too many static skill files, while others only show a marginal 10% improvement.

Out of curiosity, I decided to implement a local MCP so my agents could use Neurotrace autonomously.

The result was startling. I didn't think the agents would actually use the tool, but they are. I don't have formal benchmarks yet, but I can say with confidence that the cold start has drastically decreased. Since I use different agents from different providers, the "next" agent now knows exactly where we left off yesterday. They decide what contextual memories to save, and they do it surprisingly well. My workflow has improved significantly.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on agentic memory or if you've found better ways to handle context hand-off.

Cheers,

Irwing Castro (CastleOneX)

You can find it on the marketplaces here:

    VS Code Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=BlackIronTechnologies.neurotrace

    Open VSX: https://open-vsx.org/extension/BlackIronTechnologies/neurotrace