Enable fact and instruction memories from Chat admin settings without agents or actions

[Paul Lizer (paullizer)]

Fixes #1352
Partially advances #1153

Version locked at 0.261.001.

Problem

Fact memory was presented purely as an agent action, which caused two distinct problems.

Discoverability. The only control was enable_fact_memory_plugin in Agents & Actions → Actions, labeled "Enable Fact Memory Action". An admin running plain chat had no reason to open that tab, so they never found the switch — even though memory recall already worked without agents.

A real functional gap. Recall was agent-free, but creating, updating, and deleting memories was not. FactMemoryPlugin was only attached to a kernel with automatic function calling on the Semantic Kernel agent path, so "remember that I prefer bullet points" or "stop calling me Paul" silently did nothing unless agents were enabled.

Approach

Mirrors the existing Tabular Processing precedent: the capability is owned by the tab it actually belongs to, and the Actions pane keeps a read-only dependency note.

Admin control moved to Chat

enable_fact_memory_plugin remains the single settings key, so existing deployments keep their value and no migration is required. What changed is ownership:

• Live toggle now renders in Chat → Chat Experience → Fact Memory (fact-memory-section), saved by the main admin settings form.
• Actions pane shows a read-only fact-memory-dependency-note pointing at Chat, exactly like tabular-processing-dependency-note points at Enhanced Citations.
• Added is_fact_memory_enabled() to functions_settings.py and registered the section in admin_settings_nav.py.

⚠️ Save-path hazard this created, and how it's handled

The Actions toggle saved through POST /api/admin/plugins/settings, where enable_fact_memory_plugin was a required field. Removing the input without relaxing that contract would have made admin_settings.js resolve the element to null and post enable_fact_memory_plugin: false — meaning toggling any unrelated core action would have silently disabled fact memory.

The key moves to deprecated_optional_keys: accepted so older clients don't 400, never written from that endpoint. The JS no longer sends it, and instead refreshes the Actions note from the GET response.

Agent-free memory writes

New application/single_app/functions_fact_memory_autosave.py, modeled on the existing tabular mini-SK runner:

• user_requested_memory_update() — pure intent pre-filter in the style of the existing user_requested_chart_visualization(). Matches explicit save/change/forget language and screens out recall questions ("do you remember…") so the broad remember pattern doesn't fire a write pass on every such turn.
• should_run_fact_memory_autosave() — combines the filter with the admin toggle, and skips when an agent ran since that path already had the tool inline.
• run_fact_memory_autosave() — a Kernel carrying only FactMemoryPlugin, service id fact-memory-autosave, executed with FunctionChoiceBehavior.Auto filtered to the fact_memory plugin.

Design constraints that shaped this:

• Runs after the assistant response is finalized in both the standard and streaming paths, so it can never alter or delay the answer the user sees.
• Runs inside the originating request — FactMemoryPlugin resolves its authorization boundary from g.authorized_chat_context, which is what prevents a tool call from writing outside the caller's own user or group scope. This rules out background execution.
• Gated by the pre-filter, so ordinary chat turns pay no extra model call.
• Every failure is contained and logged. A memory problem never breaks a chat response.

Changes surface as fact_memory processing thoughts in both paths.

flowchart TD
    A[User turn] --> B{enable_fact_memory_plugin?}
    B -- no --> Z[Normal chat, no memory]
    B -- yes --> C[Recall: inject instruction + relevant fact memories]
    C --> D[Generate assistant response]
    D --> E{Agent path handled it?}
    E -- yes --> Y[Agent already had fact_memory tool - skip]
    E -- no --> F{user_requested_memory_update?}
    F -- no --> Y2[Skip - no extra model call]
    F -- yes --> G[Mini-SK kernel: FactMemoryPlugin only]
    G --> H[set_fact / update_fact / delete_fact]
    H --> I[Emit fact_memory thought + persist message]

Loading

Validation

New coverage:

Test	Result	Covers
test_chat_fact_memory_admin_placement.py	8/8	Chat pane card, Actions read-only note, single form-field ownership across every admin pane, nav registration, admin form persistence, plugins endpoint contract, JS payload regression
test_chat_fact_memory_autosave.py	7/7	Intent positives/negatives, gating, mini-kernel composition and tool filtering, change reporting, graceful degradation, route wiring across both paths

Existing suites re-run green: test_fact_memory_profile_and_mini_sk.py, test_admin_settings_field_contract.py (451 baseline fields intact, no duplicate field names), test_docs_app_surface_coverage.py, test_docs_site_quality.py, and all three route_tests/ policy suites.

Nine adjacent tests fail, but they fail identically on a clean worktree at HEAD — verified with git worktree add --detach — so no regressions were introduced by this change.

Also repairs a stale path in test_fact_memory_profile_and_mini_sk.py that had been silently breaking since the feature doc moved into docs/explanation/features/v0.241.001/.

Documentation

• New feature doc: docs/explanation/features/v0.261.001/CHAT_FACT_MEMORY_WITHOUT_AGENTS.md
• docs/admin/chat.md — new Fact Memory section and settings row
• docs/admin/agents-actions.md and docs/reference/actions/fact-memory.md — now point at Chat
• docs/_data/features.yml — key re-claimed under a new chat-memory feature (admin_tab: chat), removed from core-actions
• docs/_data/app_surface.yml — regenerated via scripts/build_docs_inventory.py
• docs/explanation/release_notes.md — new v0.261.001 section

Notes for reviewers

• No new Flask routes, so no new @swagger_route decorators are needed; route policy suites confirm this.
• No new browser assets — all JS changes are within the existing local static/js/admin/admin_settings.js.
• Nothing under deployers/ changed, so deployers/version.txt is untouched.
• Scope: this delivers the explicit save/update/forget path. The inferred memory proposal cards with approve/deny/edit remain tracked in Add normal chat support for creating fact and instruction memories #1153; the first two acceptance criteria there are now satisfied.