Filters

Filters

Filters narrow the scope of a CTX query. They appear after the target and before the payload, prefixed with specific symbols.

Filter Types

Prefix	Type	Example	Description
#	tag	#code	Filter by semantic tag
@	time	@7d	Time window constraint
^	limit	^3	Maximum results
*	project	*my-project	Scope to a project
&	format	&json	Response format

# Tag Filter

Tags categorize and filter content. Multiple tags narrow the search (logical AND).

?k "auth" #code                    Match knowledge tagged "code"
?m #architecture #decision @30d    Match memories with both tags
+m lesson #my #fact                Store with multiple tags

Special Memory Tags

On the memory plane (m), certain tags are automatically promoted to typed filters:

Layer tags — scope to a memory tier:

Tag	Layer
#ephemeral	Single-session only
#my	Individual (per-agent)
#team	Team-shared
#org	Organization-wide
#global	Platform-wide

Kind tags — classify the memory type:

#fact · #lesson · #preference · #spatial · #temporal · #social · #relation · #handoff

?m #my #lesson @7d ^5          My recent lessons
?m #team #decision             Team decisions
+m note #ephemeral "expires after session"

Live and Diff Tags

Two special tags work on any plane:

?m #live                       Subscribe to live updates (SurrealDB LIVE SELECT)
?m #diff                       Return change deltas instead of full results

@ Time Filter

Time filters restrict results to a time window. Two formats:

Relative duration — @{number}{unit}:

Unit	Meaning	Example
s	seconds	@30s
m	minutes	@15m
h	hours	@2h
d	days	@7d
w	weeks	@4w
M	months	@3M
y	years	@1y

?m #architecture @7d          Memories from the last 7 days
?k "deploy" @2h               Knowledge accessed in the last 2 hours

Absolute date — @YYYY-MM-DD or @YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ:

?m @2026-03-01                      Memories since March 1st
?k "release" @2026-01-01T00:00:00Z  Knowledge since start of year

^ Limit Filter

Limits the number of results returned.

?k "auth" ^3                   Return top 3 matches
?t github ^10                  Return up to 10 tools
?m #my @30d ^5                 Last 5 recent memories

^depth=N Depth Filter

Controls graph traversal depth (different from result limit):

?m @traverse auth-decision ^depth=3   Traverse 3 levels deep in the graph

* Project Filter

Scopes the query to a specific project namespace.

?k "deploy" *my-project        Knowledge from "my-project" only
?m #decision *agentctx         Decisions in the agentctx project

& Format Filter

Requests a specific response format.

?t github &json                Return results as JSON
?k "auth" &compact             Return compact format

Combining Filters

Filters can be combined freely. Order doesn’t matter:

?k "authentication" #code #security @30d ^5 *my-project &json

This searches the knowledge plane for “authentication” with tags code AND security, within the last 30 days, limited to 5 results, in the my-project namespace, formatted as JSON.

Mixed Script Detection

The parser detects potential homograph attacks in tag values (mixing Latin, Cyrillic, and other scripts). When detected, the filter is flagged with mixedScript: true for downstream security checks.

Next

• Pipeline Verbs → — ISA verbs for multi-step workflows
• Hybrid Mode → — mixing natural language and CTX