短期记忆
让 Agent 在单个会话内"记住"之前的交互,而不是每次都从零开始。
概览
记忆(Memory)是一个记录先前交互信息的系统。对 AI Agent 来说,记忆至关重要——它让 Agent 能记住之前的互动、从反馈中学习、适应用户偏好。随着 Agent 处理越来越复杂的任务、面对越来越多的用户交互,这种能力对效率和满意度都必不可少。
短期记忆让应用在单个 thread(线程/会话)内记住先前的交互。一个 thread 把一个会话中的多次交互组织在一起,类似邮件把多条消息归到同一个对话里。
对话历史(conversation history)是短期记忆最常见的形态。但长对话对今天的 LLM 是个挑战:完整历史可能塞不进上下文窗口,导致上下文丢失或报错。即便模型支持完整上下文长度,大多数 LLM 在超长上下文上表现仍然不佳——它们会被过时或离题的内容"分心",同时响应变慢、成本升高。
需要跨会话记住信息?请使用长期记忆在不同 thread 和 session 间存储和调用用户级或应用级数据。
基本用法
要给 Agent 加上短期记忆(thread 级持久化),需要在创建 Agent 时指定 checkpointer。
LangChain 的 Agent 把短期记忆作为 agent state 的一部分管理。通过将记忆存储在图的 state 中,Agent 可以访问某个对话的完整上下文,同时在不同 thread 之间保持隔离。State 通过 checkpointer 持久化到数据库(或内存),thread 可以随时恢复。短期记忆在 Agent 被 invoke 或一个步骤(如工具调用)完成时更新,state 在每个步骤开始时读取。
代码要点:创建一个带
MemorySavercheckpointer 的 Agent,通过thread_id标识会话,连续两轮对话验证 Agent 记住了用户的名字。
import { createAgent, tool } from "langchain";
import { MemorySaver } from "@langchain/langgraph";
import * as z from "zod";
const getUserInfo = tool(() => "No user profile on file.", {
name: "get_user_info",
description: "Look up information about the current user.",
schema: z.object({}),
});
const checkpointer = new MemorySaver();
const agent = createAgent({
model: "google-genai:gemini-3.5-flash",
tools: [getUserInfo],
checkpointer,
});
const threadConfig = { configurable: { thread_id: "1" } };
let result = await agent.invoke(
{ messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hi! My name is Bob." }] },
threadConfig,
);
let response = result.messages.at(-1)?.content;
console.log(response); // "Hi Bob! Nice to see you here. How are you doing?"
result = await agent.invoke(
{ messages: [{ role: "user", content: "What's my name?" }] },
threadConfig,
);
response = result.messages.at(-1)?.content;
console.log(response); // "You are Bob!"生产环境配置
生产环境请使用数据库支持的 checkpointer:
import { PostgresSaver } from "@langchain/langgraph-checkpoint-postgres";
const DB_URI = "postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/postgres?sslmode=disable";
const checkpointer = PostgresSaver.fromConnString(DB_URI);更多 checkpointer 选项(SQLite、Postgres、Azure Cosmos DB 等)请参阅 Persistence 文档中的 checkpointer 库列表。
自定义 Agent 记忆
你可以通过创建带 state schema 的自定义中间件来扩展 agent state。自定义 state schema 通过中间件的 stateSchema 参数传入。推荐使用 StateSchema 类定义 state(也支持原生 Zod 对象)。
import { createAgent, createMiddleware } from "langchain";
import { StateSchema, MemorySaver } from "@langchain/langgraph";
import * as z from "zod";
const CustomState = new StateSchema({
userId: z.string(),
preferences: z.record(z.string(), z.any()),
});
const stateExtensionMiddleware = createMiddleware({
name: "StateExtension",
stateSchema: CustomState,
});
const checkpointer = new MemorySaver();
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5.5",
tools: [],
middleware: [stateExtensionMiddleware],
checkpointer,
});
// Custom state can be passed in invoke
const result = await agent.invoke({
messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello" }],
userId: "user_123",
preferences: { theme: "dark" },
});常见模式
启用了短期记忆后,长对话可能会超出 LLM 的上下文窗口。常见解决方案有:
- Trim messages:在调用 LLM 前移除前 N 条或后 N 条消息。
- Delete messages:从 LangGraph state 中永久删除消息。
- Summarize messages:把较早的消息摘要后替换掉。
- Custom strategies:自定义策略(如消息过滤等)。
这些手段让 Agent 既能跟踪对话,又不会撑爆 LLM 的上下文窗口。
裁剪消息(Trim messages)
大多数 LLM 有最大上下文窗口(以 token 计)。一种决定何时截断消息的方式是统计消息历史中的 token 数,接近上限就截断。LangChain 提供了 trimMessages 工具函数,可以指定保留的 token 数和 strategy(如保留最后 maxTokens 条)。
在 Agent 中裁剪消息历史,用 createMiddleware 配合 beforeModel 钩子:
import { RemoveMessage } from "@langchain/core/messages";
import { createAgent, createMiddleware } from "langchain";
import { MemorySaver, REMOVE_ALL_MESSAGES } from "@langchain/langgraph";
const trimMessages = createMiddleware({
name: "TrimMessages",
beforeModel: (state) => {
const messages = state.messages;
if (messages.length <= 3) {
return; // No changes needed
}
const firstMsg = messages[0];
const recentMessages =
messages.length % 2 === 0 ? messages.slice(-3) : messages.slice(-4);
const newMessages = [firstMsg, ...recentMessages];
return {
messages: [
new RemoveMessage({ id: REMOVE_ALL_MESSAGES }),
...newMessages,
],
};
},
});
const checkpointer = new MemorySaver();
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5.5",
tools: [...],
middleware: [trimMessages],
checkpointer,
});删除消息(Delete messages)
你可以从图状态中删除消息来管理历史。这在需要移除特定消息或清空全部消息历史时很有用。
要删除消息,使用 RemoveMessage。它要求 state key 配置 messagesStateReducer reducer(如 MessagesValue)。
import { RemoveMessage } from "@langchain/core/messages";
import { createAgent, createMiddleware } from "langchain";
import { MemorySaver } from "@langchain/langgraph";
const deleteOldMessages = createMiddleware({
name: "DeleteOldMessages",
afterModel: (state) => {
const messages = state.messages;
if (messages.length > 2) {
// remove the earliest two messages
return {
messages: messages
.slice(0, 2)
.map((m) => new RemoveMessage({ id: m.id! })),
};
}
return;
},
});
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5.5",
tools: [],
systemPrompt: "Please be concise and to the point.",
middleware: [deleteOldMessages],
checkpointer: new MemorySaver(),
});
const config = { configurable: { thread_id: "1" } };
const streamA = await agent.streamEvents(
{ messages: [{ role: "user", content: "hi! I'm bob" }] },
{ ...config, version: "v3" }
);
for await (const snapshot of streamA.values) {
const messageDetails = snapshot.messages.map((message) => [
message.getType(),
message.content,
]);
console.log(messageDetails);
}删除消息时,确保结果消息历史是合法的。不同 LLM 提供商有不同限制,例如:有些提供商要求消息历史以
user消息开头;大多数要求带 tool call 的assistant消息后面必须紧跟对应的tool结果消息。
摘要消息(Summarize messages)
裁剪和删除消息的问题在于可能丢失信息。因此,有些应用更适合用聊天模型对消息历史做摘要。
在 Agent 中摘要消息历史,使用内置的 summarizationMiddleware:
import { createAgent, summarizationMiddleware } from "langchain";
import { MemorySaver } from "@langchain/langgraph";
const checkpointer = new MemorySaver();
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5.5",
tools: [],
middleware: [
summarizationMiddleware({
model: "gpt-5.4-mini",
trigger: { tokens: 4000 },
keep: { messages: 20 },
}),
],
checkpointer,
});
const config = { configurable: { thread_id: "1" } };
await agent.invoke({ messages: "hi, my name is bob" }, config);
await agent.invoke({ messages: "write a short poem about cats" }, config);
await agent.invoke({ messages: "now do the same but for dogs" }, config);
const finalResponse = await agent.invoke({ messages: "what's my name?" }, config);
console.log(finalResponse.messages.at(-1)?.content);
// Your name is Bob!访问记忆
你可以通过多种方式访问和修改 Agent 的短期记忆(state)。
在工具中读取短期记忆
在工具中通过 runtime 参数(类型为 ToolRuntime)访问短期记忆(state)。runtime 参数对工具签名是隐藏的(模型看不到),但工具可以通过它访问 state。
import { createAgent, tool, type ToolRuntime } from "langchain";
import { StateSchema } from "@langchain/langgraph";
import * as z from "zod";
const CustomState = new StateSchema({
userId: z.string(),
});
const getUserInfo = tool(
async (_, config: ToolRuntime<typeof CustomState.State>) => {
const userId = config.state.userId;
return userId === "user_123" ? "John Doe" : "Unknown User";
},
{
name: "get_user_info",
description: "Get user info",
schema: z.object({}),
}
);
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5-nano",
tools: [getUserInfo],
stateSchema: CustomState,
});
const result = await agent.invoke(
{
messages: [{ role: "user", content: "what's my name?" }],
userId: "user_123",
},
{
context: {},
}
);
console.log(result.messages.at(-1)?.content);
// Outputs: "Your name is John Doe."在工具中写入短期记忆
在工具执行过程中,可以直接返回 state 更新来修改 Agent 的短期记忆。这在需要持久化中间结果、或让后续工具 / prompt 能够访问某些信息时很有用。
import { tool, createAgent, ToolMessage, type ToolRuntime } from "langchain";
import { Command, StateSchema } from "@langchain/langgraph";
import * as z from "zod";
const CustomState = new StateSchema({
userId: z.string().optional(),
});
const updateUserInfo = tool(
async (_, config: ToolRuntime<typeof CustomState.State>) => {
const userId = config.state.userId;
const name = userId === "user_123" ? "John Smith" : "Unknown user";
return new Command({
update: {
userName: name,
// update the message history
messages: [
new ToolMessage({
content: "Successfully looked up user information",
tool_call_id: config.toolCall?.id ?? "",
}),
],
},
});
},
{
name: "update_user_info",
description: "Look up and update user info.",
schema: z.object({}),
}
);
const agent = createAgent({
model: "openai:gpt-5-mini",
tools: [updateUserInfo],
stateSchema: CustomState,
});
const result = await agent.invoke({
messages: [{ role: "user", content: "greet the user" }],
userId: "user_123",
});在 prompt 中访问短期记忆
在中间件中访问短期记忆(state),可以根据对话历史或自定义 state 字段生成动态 prompt:
import * as z from "zod";
import { createAgent, tool, dynamicSystemPromptMiddleware } from "langchain";
const contextSchema = z.object({
userName: z.string(),
});
type ContextSchema = z.infer<typeof contextSchema>;
const getWeather = tool(
async ({ city }) => {
return `The weather in ${city} is always sunny!`;
},
{
name: "get_weather",
description: "Get user info",
schema: z.object({
city: z.string(),
}),
}
);
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5-nano",
tools: [getWeather],
contextSchema,
middleware: [
dynamicSystemPromptMiddleware<ContextSchema>((_, config) => {
return `You are a helpful assistant. Address the user as ${config.context?.userName}.`;
}),
],
});
const result = await agent.invoke(
{
messages: [{ role: "user", content: "What is the weather in SF?" }],
},
{
context: {
userName: "John Smith",
},
}
);beforeModel 与 afterModel 钩子
在模型调用前对消息历史做裁剪(beforeModel):
import { RemoveMessage } from "@langchain/core/messages";
import { createAgent, createMiddleware, trimMessages } from "langchain";
import { MemorySaver } from "@langchain/langgraph";
import { REMOVE_ALL_MESSAGES } from "@langchain/langgraph";
const trimMessageHistory = createMiddleware({
name: "TrimMessages",
beforeModel: async (state) => {
const trimmed = await trimMessages(state.messages, {
maxTokens: 384,
strategy: "last",
startOn: "human",
endOn: ["human", "tool"],
tokenCounter: (msgs) => msgs.length,
});
return {
messages: [new RemoveMessage({ id: REMOVE_ALL_MESSAGES }), ...trimmed],
};
},
});
const checkpointer = new MemorySaver();
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5-nano",
tools: [],
middleware: [trimMessageHistory],
checkpointer,
});在模型调用后对响应做校验(afterModel),例如检测并移除包含敏感词的回复:
import { RemoveMessage } from "@langchain/core/messages";
import { createAgent, createMiddleware } from "langchain";
import { REMOVE_ALL_MESSAGES } from "@langchain/langgraph";
const validateResponse = createMiddleware({
name: "ValidateResponse",
afterModel: (state) => {
const lastMessage = state.messages.at(-1)?.content;
if (
typeof lastMessage === "string" &&
lastMessage.toLowerCase().includes("confidential")
) {
return {
messages: [
new RemoveMessage({ id: REMOVE_ALL_MESSAGES }),
],
};
}
return;
},
});
const agent = createAgent({
model: "gpt-5-nano",
tools: [],
middleware: [validateResponse],
});小结
短期记忆是 Agent 的"工作内存":它通过 checkpointer + thread_id 实现同会话内的上下文保持。面对长对话,你可以选择裁剪、删除或摘要消息来管理上下文窗口。如果需要跨会话记住信息,请继续阅读长期记忆。想了解如何把这些记忆机制融入整体上下文策略,可以回顾上下文工程。
本文基于 LangChain 官方文档 翻译并二次创作。