---
title: "Your Vercel Chat SDK bot forgets everything. Hindsight fixes that."
authors: [nicoloboschi]
date: 2026-02-26
tags: [chat-sdk, slack, discord, typescript, memory]
image: /img/blog/vercel-chat.png
---


![`@vectorize-io/hindsight-chat` adds persistent memory with one wrapper function](/img/blog/vercel-chat.png)

## TL;DR

- Chat bots built with Vercel's Chat SDK forget everything between messages
- `@vectorize-io/hindsight-chat` adds persistent memory with one wrapper function
- Memories cross platforms automatically -- Slack, Discord, Teams, Google Chat
- We built a team assistant that tracks feature requests and bugs across Slack and Discord with shared memory

<!-- truncate -->

---

## The Problem: Your Team Bot Forgets Everything

Your team uses a bot across Slack and Discord. Someone reports a bug in Slack: "The checkout flow is broken on mobile." Someone else mentions a feature request in Discord: "We need dark mode support." A week later, the PM asks the bot: "What are the open issues?" Nothing. The bot has no idea.

This is the default for every Chat SDK bot. Each message is a blank slate. No memory of past conversations, no awareness across platforms, no accumulated knowledge.

Teams work around this by piping everything into Jira or Notion manually. But the context -- the nuance of why something was requested, who cares about it, what was discussed -- gets lost in the handoff.

What if the bot just remembered?

---

## The Fix: One Wrapper, Shared Memory

[`@vectorize-io/hindsight-chat`](https://hindsight.vectorize.io/sdks/integrations/chat) adds a `withHindsightChat()` wrapper to any Chat SDK handler. It automatically recalls relevant memories before your handler runs and retains conversations after.

```
Slack message ─────┐
                    ├─→ withHindsightChat() ─→ recall ─→ your handler ─→ retain
Discord message ───┘                            │
                                                ▼
                                         Hindsight API
                                         (shared memory)
```

Both platforms share the same memory bank. A bug reported in Slack shows up when someone asks in Discord. Feature requests accumulate across both. The bot builds institutional knowledge over time.

Here's what the core handler looks like:

```typescript
bot.onNewMention(
  withHindsightChat(
    {
      client: hindsight,
      bankId: () => 'team-memory',
      retain: { enabled: true, tags: ['chat'] },
    },
    async (thread, message, ctx) => {
      const system = [
        'You are a team assistant that tracks feature requests, bugs, and decisions.',
        'You remember everything the team has discussed across Slack and Discord.',
        ctx.memoriesAsSystemPrompt()
          ? `\nHere is what you know:\n${ctx.memoriesAsSystemPrompt()}`
          : '',
      ].join('\n');

      const { text } = await generateText({
        model: openai('gpt-4o-mini'),
        system,
        prompt: message.text,
      });

      await thread.post(text);
      await ctx.retain(`User: ${message.text}\nAssistant: ${text}`);
    }
  )
);
```

That's the whole handler. The wrapper takes care of recalling memories, formatting them for the LLM, and retaining conversations. You just write the logic. See the [full API reference](https://hindsight.vectorize.io/sdks/integrations/chat) for all configuration options.

---

## What This Looks Like in Practice

**Monday, Slack:**
> **@team-bot** checkout is broken on mobile -- users can't tap the pay button on iOS

The bot acknowledges and retains the bug report.

**Tuesday, Discord:**
> **@team-bot** we really need dark mode, three customers asked about it this week

The bot retains the feature request.

**Wednesday, Slack:**
> **@team-bot** what are the open issues this week?

The bot recalls both the checkout bug and the dark mode request -- even though they came from different platforms, different days, and different people.

No Jira integration. No manual tagging. The bot just remembers.

---

## How It Works

Hindsight isn't a simple vector store. When the bot retains a conversation, Hindsight's pipeline:

1. **Extracts structured facts** -- "checkout is broken on mobile iOS" becomes a fact with entities (checkout, mobile, iOS) and relationships
2. **Builds a knowledge graph** -- entities link across conversations, so "checkout" connects the bug report to any prior discussions about the checkout flow
3. **Recalls with multiple strategies** -- semantic search, keyword matching, graph traversal, and temporal ranking all run in parallel and fuse results

This means the bot doesn't just find messages that look similar to your query. It understands that "open issues" relates to both a bug report and a feature request, even if neither message contained the word "issue."

---

## Memory Isolation

The `bankId` option controls who shares memory:

- **Shared team memory** (`bankId: 'team-memory'`): everyone reads and writes to the same bank. Good for tracking bugs, decisions, and feature requests across the team.
- **Per-user memory** (`bankId: (msg) => msg.author.userId`): each person gets their own bank. Good for personal assistants that remember individual preferences.
- **Per-channel or per-project**: scope the bank ID however you want. One bank per project, per team, per customer.

For the cross-platform use case, a shared bank is the key. Both Slack and Discord write to the same bank, so memories are available everywhere.

---

## Supported Platforms

The Vercel Chat SDK supports Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, GitHub, and Linear. The `withHindsightChat()` wrapper works with all of them -- same code, same memory, any combination of platforms.

---

## Try It

The full working example is in the [Hindsight Cookbook](https://github.com/vectorize-io/hindsight-cookbook/tree/main/applications/chat-sdk-multi-platform). It includes:

- Complete bot with Slack + Discord adapters
- LLM-powered responses with Vercel AI SDK
- Shared Hindsight memory bank
- Discord Gateway route setup
- Environment configuration and setup instructions

Start Hindsight locally or use [Hindsight Cloud](https://ui.hindsight.vectorize.io/signup), clone the cookbook, and you'll have a working cross-platform bot with memory in minutes.

---

## Next Steps

- **Read the docs**: [Chat SDK integration guide](https://hindsight.vectorize.io/sdks/integrations/chat) covers the full API, configuration options, and advanced patterns
- **Clone the cookbook**: [chat-sdk-multi-platform](https://github.com/vectorize-io/hindsight-cookbook/tree/main/applications/chat-sdk-multi-platform) has the full working example
- **Try Hindsight Cloud**: Skip self-hosting with a [free account](https://ui.hindsight.vectorize.io/signup)
- **Add more platforms**: Teams, Google Chat, GitHub -- same wrapper, same memory
- **Scope memory per team or project**: Use `bankId` to isolate memory for different contexts