tracemem/when-not-to-use

Skill: TraceMem When NOT to Use

Purpose

This skill helps agents determine when TraceMem is unnecessary or potentially harmful to performance/complexity. Not every line of code needs a decision envelope.

When to Use

• When planning a task.
• During architectural decision making.

When NOT to Use

• When the task is trivial, internal, or clearly outside the scope of "governance".

Core Rules

• No Side Effects? No Trace needed: If you are just calculating pi or formatting a string, you don't need TraceMem.
• Public Data Only? Low Risk: If you are fetching public weather data, you might not need TraceMem (unless your organization requires tracking all external inputs). Default to using it if unsure, but know it's optional for non-sensitive public reads.
• High Frequency: If you need to write 10,000 records per second, TraceMem's HTTP/JSON-RPC overhead (and policy checks per write) might be too slow. TraceMem is for decisions, not bulk ETL.

Correct Usage Pattern

Scenario: "I need to summarize this text."

• Action: Purely computational.
• TraceMem?: NO.
• Reason: No side effects, no private data fetch (assuming text is already in memory).

Scenario: "I need to delete a user."

• Action: Side effect, sensitive, irreversible.
• TraceMem?: YES.
• Reason: High risk, requires governance.

Scenario: "I need to look up a timezone for a city."

• Action: Read public utility data.
• TraceMem?: OPTIONAL / NO.
• Reason: Low risk. But if "timezone" is from a proprietary customer database, then YES.

Common Mistakes

• Over-instrumentation: Wrapping every single function call in a new Decision Envelope. Envelopes are for logical units of work (e.g., "Process Order"), not atomic instructions ("Add number").
• Bulk Loading: Trying to push millions of rows through decision_write one by one. (TraceMem connectors may support batching, but if not, this is inefficient).

Safety Notes

• Consistency: If you skip TraceMem for "small" writes, you break the guarantee of the audit log. "Small" usage is the most dangerous exception. Be very strict: if it touches governed data, it must go through TraceMem. The "When NOT to use" applies primarily to non-governed or computational scopes.