The user-side manifest at ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json records every file installed from this repo. It’s the source of truth for --update, uninstall, and audit.

Schema 

{
  "files": {
    "<slug>": {
      "type": "instruction | memory-* | settings-fragment | project-claude-md | path-rule",
      "installed-at": "2026-05-15T10:30:00Z",
      "installed-hash": "sha256:abc123def456...",
      "upstream-ref": "<commit-sha or 'main'>",
      "source-path": "instructions/<name>.md",
      "local-path": "/absolute/path/to/installed/file",
      "forked": false,
      "merged-fragment": null | { ... },
      "history": [
        { "event": "install", "ref": "<sha>", "at": "<ISO>" },
        { "event": "update",  "ref": "<sha>", "at": "<ISO>" }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Field-by-field

type

Mirrors the file’s frontmatter type:. Drives per-type uninstall behaviour.

installed-at

ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of the last install or update. Bumped on each --update event.

installed-hash

SHA-256 of the file’s body (frontmatter-stripped) as of last install/update. The --update flow compares this against the upstream hash to detect drift.

upstream-ref

Git ref (SHA when gh resolved it, otherwise the symbolic ref like main or a tag) the file was last fetched from. Helps --update reproduce the exact upstream state.

source-path

Relative path in the repo (e.g. instructions/github-pr-title-issue-link.md). Used by --update to refetch.

local-path

Absolute path where the file was written. For settings-fragment, this is ~/.claude/settings.json (the merge target). For project-claude-md, this is the user-chosen <project>/CLAUDE.md.

forked

true for scope: personal-share installs. Tells --update to no-op by default; --upstream flag overrides.

merged-fragment

For settings-fragment entries only: the JSON object that was merged into settings.json. Used by uninstall (to subtract precisely) and by --update (to subtract old fragment before merging new one).

history

Append-only audit trail. Every install/update appends one event. Useful for forensics ("when did this rule change?") and for the v1.1 /check-memory-files deprecation scanner.

Inspecting the manifest 

# All entries
jq . ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json

# Just installed slugs
jq -r '.files | keys[]' ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json

# History for one entry
jq '.files["github-pr-title-issue-link"].history' ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json

# Which files were installed before a date
jq '.files | to_entries | map(select(.value."installed-at" < "2026-05-01"))' ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json

Backup files

The installer creates timestamped backups in the same directory:

  • ~/.claude/settings.json.bak.<timestamp> — before each settings-fragment install or update.

These accumulate over time; clean up manually with rm ~/.claude/settings.json.bak.* when you’re confident the merges were correct.

See also