13.4.1 Cause matrix ¶

• Store is empty. ownsona list --limit 1 returns nothing. Add facts first.
• Tag filter excludes everything. The tags parameter is a strict filter — a memory must have at least one of the listed tags to qualify. Remove the filter or fix the tag list.
• The fact was soft-deleted. Pass ownsona list --include-deleted to see tombstones. If the row is there with a non-null deleted_at, it was forgotten.
• The fact expired. recall excludes memories where expires_at has passed. Check via SQL:

  SELECT id, text, expires_at FROM memories
  WHERE expires_at IS NOT NULL AND expires_at < now();
  

• Embedding model changed without re-embed. If you switched EMBEDDING_MODEL but REEMBED_ON_STARTUP was never set to true, old rows have vectors in the old model’s space, query vectors are in the new model’s space, and cosine distance is noise. Trigger a re-embed (see Embedding Migration).