Ghost Knowledge
Facts that exist in the system but can't be traced to an author or source.
Ghost Knowledge is one of the most dangerous problems in agentic systems, because it looks like everything is working. The system "knows" something — a configuration value, a design decision, a constraint — but nobody can tell you where that knowledge came from. Did a human set it? Did an agent infer it? Was it from last week's session or six months ago? When Ghost Knowledge turns out to be wrong, debugging is nearly impossible because there's no trail to follow. The knowledge is there, haunting the system, with no provenance.
More in Memory & State
Context Anxiety
The dread of re-explaining everything every session because the system has no persistent memory.
Context Rot
Deterioration of an agent's understanding over time due to limited memory and compaction.
State Loss
Failure to maintain awareness of prior actions.
Context Continuity
Seamless persistence of knowledge across sessions — the user never re-explains. The cure for Context Anxiety.
Memory Fidelity
The accuracy and completeness of what a system retains over time. The opposite of Context Rot.
Provenance Clarity
Every fact in the system is traceable to its author, source, and reasoning. The cure for Ghost Knowledge.
Recall Precision
The system retrieves exactly the right context at the right time — no noise, no gaps.
State Awareness
The system's ability to maintain and use awareness of prior actions within a session. The opposite of State Loss.