/hindsight-docs

AutoGen

Persistent long-term memory for AutoGen agents via Hindsight. Provides FunctionTool instances that plug directly into AutoGen's AssistantAgent.

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Features

• Memory Tools — retain, recall, and reflect as AutoGen FunctionTool instances compatible with AssistantAgent(tools=[...])
• Async-Native — Uses aretain, arecall, areflect directly — works seamlessly in AutoGen's async runtime
• Selective Tools — Include only the tools you need with include_retain/recall/reflect flags
• Tag-Based Scoping — Partition memories by topic, session, or user with tags
• Global Configuration — Configure once with configure(), create tools anywhere

Installation

pip install hindsight-autogen autogen-agentchat "autogen-ext[openai]"

hindsight-autogen pulls in autogen-core and hindsight-client. You also need autogen-agentchat for AssistantAgent and autogen-ext[openai] for the OpenAI model client.

Quick Start

import asyncio
from autogen_agentchat.agents import AssistantAgent
from autogen_ext.models.openai import OpenAIChatCompletionClient
from hindsight_client import Hindsight
from hindsight_autogen import create_hindsight_tools

async def main():
    client = Hindsight(base_url="http://localhost:8888")
    await client.acreate_bank(bank_id="user-123")

    model_client = OpenAIChatCompletionClient(model="gpt-4o")
    tools = create_hindsight_tools(client=client, bank_id="user-123")

    agent = AssistantAgent(
        name="assistant",
        model_client=model_client,
        tools=tools,
    )

    # Store a memory
    result = await agent.run(task="Remember that I prefer dark mode")
    print(result.messages[-1].content)

    # Hindsight processes retained content asynchronously (fact extraction,
    # entity resolution, embeddings). A brief pause ensures memories are
    # searchable before the next recall. In production, this delay is only
    # needed when retain and recall happen back-to-back in the same script.
    await asyncio.sleep(3)

    # Recall it later
    result = await agent.run(task="What are my UI preferences?")
    print(result.messages[-1].content)

    # Clean up
    await client.aclose()
    await model_client.close()

asyncio.run(main())

💡 Jupyter Notebooks

If you're running in a Jupyter notebook, you don't need asyncio.run() — just use await directly in cells since the notebook already has an active event loop. The agent gets three tools it can call:

• hindsight_retain — Store information to long-term memory
• hindsight_recall — Search long-term memory for relevant facts
• hindsight_reflect — Synthesize a reasoned answer from memories

Selecting Tools

Include only the tools you need:

tools = create_hindsight_tools(
    client=client,
    bank_id="user-123",
    include_retain=True,
    include_recall=True,
    include_reflect=False,  # Omit reflect
)

Global Configuration

Instead of passing a client to every call, configure once:

from hindsight_autogen import configure, create_hindsight_tools

configure(
    hindsight_api_url="http://localhost:8888",
    api_key="your-api-key",       # Or set HINDSIGHT_API_KEY env var
    budget="mid",                  # Recall budget: low/mid/high
    max_tokens=4096,               # Max tokens for recall results
    tags=["env:prod"],             # Tags for stored memories
    recall_tags=["scope:global"],  # Tags to filter recall
    recall_tags_match="any",       # Tag match mode
)

# Now create tools without passing client — uses global config
tools = create_hindsight_tools(bank_id="user-123")

Memory Scoping with Tags

Use tags to partition memories by topic, session, or user:

# Store memories tagged by source
tools = create_hindsight_tools(
    client=client,
    bank_id="user-123",
    tags=["source:chat", "session:abc"],
    recall_tags=["source:chat"],
    recall_tags_match="any",
)

Production Patterns

Error Handling

Tools raise HindsightError on failure, which AutoGen surfaces to the agent as a tool error. Wrap agent calls for graceful degradation:

from hindsight_autogen.errors import HindsightError

try:
    result = await agent.run(task="What do you remember about me?")
except HindsightError as e:
    print(f"Memory operation failed: {e}")

Bank Lifecycle

Create banks before first use and clean up when done:

async def main():
    client = Hindsight(base_url="http://localhost:8888")

    # Create bank (idempotent)
    await client.acreate_bank(bank_id="user-123")

    tools = create_hindsight_tools(client=client, bank_id="user-123")
    # ... use tools ...

    # Optional: delete bank when no longer needed
    await client.adelete_bank(bank_id="user-123")

Multi-Agent Teams

Give each agent its own memory bank, or share a bank across a team:

# Per-agent memory
researcher_tools = create_hindsight_tools(client=client, bank_id="researcher-memory")
writer_tools = create_hindsight_tools(client=client, bank_id="writer-memory")

# Shared team memory
shared_tools = create_hindsight_tools(
    client=client,
    bank_id="team-shared",
    tags=["team:content"],
)

API Reference

create_hindsight_tools()

configure()

Requirements

• Python >= 3.10
• autogen-core >= 0.4.0
• hindsight-client >= 0.4.0