Memory in teams and organizations
In a Dropstone organization, memory has three levels. Private is yours alone. Team is shared with one team. Organization is shared with everyone. Nothing is shared unless its author decides to share it.
On a personal account, memory is private to you and that is the whole story. In an organization, memory can also be shared, so that something one engineer teaches Dropstone is available to the whole team without each person teaching it again.
This page explains the three levels, how sharing works, and what Dropstone does when two memories disagree.
Three levels
| Level | Who can see it |
|---|---|
| Private | Only you |
| Team | Everyone on one named team |
| Organization | Every member of the organization |
Every memory starts private. Nothing becomes shared automatically. A memory moves to team or organization level only when its author chooses to share it.
Sharing a memory
Sharing is the author's decision, and the author's alone. Dropstone cannot share a memory on your behalf and will not claim to have done so.
When you have taught Dropstone something your team would plainly want, it may say so, and leave the decision with you. You share from the memory list, choosing whether it goes to one team or to the whole organization.
Before a memory is shared, it is scanned for anything that looks like a credential or a secret. A memory that contains one cannot be shared until it is removed.
The author can withdraw a shared memory at any time, which returns it to private.
How shared memory appears to others
When Dropstone brings a shared memory into a teammate's conversation, it is marked with who shared it and at what level:
Dropstone attributes shared memory when it relies on it, so a teammate can tell the difference between something they taught it themselves and something a colleague wrote down. It will not present a colleague's note as its own conclusion or as something you told it.
It also treats shared memory as evidence, not as fact. If a shared note conflicts with what Dropstone can see in the code in front of it, it says so rather than deferring to the note because someone senior wrote it.
When memories disagree
Your own memory, your team's, and your organization's can point in different directions. Which one wins depends on what kind of thing they disagree about.
For how work is done (conventions, preferences, style), the most specific wins. Your own instruction beats your team's convention, which beats an organization default. You are the one doing the work.
For what is true or required (policy, security, compliance, contracts, decisions already taken), the most authoritative wins. Organization beats team beats personal preference. A personal preference never overrides a company requirement.
When two memories genuinely conflict, Dropstone says so in one line and names which one it followed. It does not silently pick one.
What is never shared
Your conversations. Your project files. Your private memories. Anything from an incognito chat. Only a memory its author has explicitly shared is visible to anyone else, and only to the people at the level it was shared to.
Memory shared to a team is invisible to members of other teams in the same organization. Memory is never visible across organizations.
Setting up teams
Organizations and teams are managed from the dashboard by an organization admin. See Dropstone for teams and organizations for how to create an organization, add members, and define teams, and Shared memory across a team for the admin side of shared memory.
Related articles
- Dropstone for teams and organizationsAn organization gives a company one Dropstone account structure, centralized billing, members and teams, shared memory, and enterprise sign-in. What an organization is, roles, and how to set one up.
- Shared memory across a teamHow organization admins oversee shared memory in Dropstone. Reviewing what has been shared, removing entries, setting a retention window, and how secrets are kept out.
- How Dropstone compounds in an organizationWhat an organization teaches Dropstone stays, belongs to the organization, and is recalled by everyone it is shared with. It survives model changes, it can be exported in full, and it is never used to train Dropstone's models.
- Memory and your privacyWhat Dropstone memory stores, what it never stores, who can see it, and how to keep something out of it. Memory is private to your account and you can see and remove all of it.
- Change or forget a memoryTell Dropstone to forget something and it stops applying it. Tell it a fact should be a rule, or a rule is too broad, and it adjusts. Only you can remove a memory. It never forgets on its own.