The Past Is Prologue: A Plug-in Controller for Selective Updates in Sequentially Evolving LLM Memory

Abstract

Sequentially evolving LLM memory enables agents to reuse past experience, but existing systems usually deploy each locally generated memory update without checking whether it improves future behavior. As a result, updates that help the current task may overwrite useful knowledge, introduce over-specific rules, or bias the final memory toward recent examples. We propose Janus, a plug-in memory controller that decides whether to accept a candidate memory update or retain the previous memory. To make this decision efficient, Janus uses a Memory Momentum Trigger to identify suspicious deviations in the memory-update trajectory, and compares old and new memories on a compact hybrid evaluation set of coverage, boundary, and fresh tasks instead of replaying the full history. Janus is method-agnostic and wraps existing updaters without changing their update rules. Across six datasets, two backbone LLMs, and two memory updaters, Janus improves average accuracy by +2.7 to +4.6 points over the corresponding base updaters.