From 36c6b75e98804086390d780872880c9417168127 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: William Valentin <william.valentin.info@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:31:10 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] fix(memory): improve hybrid search ranking across namespaces

---
 src/memory/hybrid-search.test.ts | 26 +++++++++++++++
 src/memory/hybrid-search.ts      | 56 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 2 files changed, 79 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/memory/hybrid-search.test.ts b/src/memory/hybrid-search.test.ts
index 62b6475..a036434 100644
--- a/src/memory/hybrid-search.test.ts
+++ b/src/memory/hybrid-search.test.ts
@@ -200,6 +200,32 @@ describe('HybridSearch', () => {
       expect(results.length).toBe(3);
     });
 
+    it('keeps user namespace visible when daily namespace is noisy', async () => {
+      const keywordResults: SearchResult[] = [
+        { namespace: 'daily/2026-02-20', line: 10, content: 'Xfinity update', context: 'ctx' },
+        { namespace: 'daily/2026-02-20', line: 20, content: 'Xfinity follow-up', context: 'ctx' },
+        { namespace: 'daily/2026-02-20', line: 30, content: 'Xfinity notes', context: 'ctx' },
+        { namespace: 'daily/2026-02-20', line: 40, content: 'Xfinity details', context: 'ctx' },
+        { namespace: 'user', line: 5, content: 'Internet: Xfinity/Comcast', context: 'ctx' },
+      ];
+
+      const failingProvider: EmbeddingProvider = {
+        dimensions: 4,
+        embed: vi.fn(async () => { throw new Error('API error'); }),
+      };
+
+      const hybrid = new HybridSearch(
+        mockMemoryStore(keywordResults),
+        mockVectorStore([]),
+        failingProvider,
+        0.7,
+      );
+
+      const results = await hybrid.search('xfinity', 3);
+      expect(results.length).toBe(3);
+      expect(results.some((r) => r.namespace === 'user')).toBe(true);
+    });
+
     it('returns empty array when both searches find nothing', async () => {
       const hybrid = new HybridSearch(
         mockMemoryStore([]),
diff --git a/src/memory/hybrid-search.ts b/src/memory/hybrid-search.ts
index b33d239..bbd86da 100644
--- a/src/memory/hybrid-search.ts
+++ b/src/memory/hybrid-search.ts
@@ -174,9 +174,59 @@ export class HybridSearch {
       }
     }
 
-    // Sort by score descending, return top K
+    // Apply a light namespace prior so durable memory (user/global) is less
+    // likely to be drowned out by verbose daily/session logs on keyword-heavy queries.
     const merged = Array.from(resultMap.values());
-    merged.sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score);
-    return merged.slice(0, topK);
+    const adjusted = merged.map((result) => ({
+      ...result,
+      score: this._clampScore(result.score + this._namespaceScoreAdjustment(result.namespace)),
+    }));
+
+    adjusted.sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score);
+
+    // Diversity pass: first take top unique namespaces, then fill remainder
+    // by score. This prevents a single noisy namespace from monopolizing topK.
+    const selected: HybridSearchResult[] = [];
+    const seenNamespaces = new Set<string>();
+    const seenKeys = new Set<string>();
+
+    for (const result of adjusted) {
+      if (selected.length >= topK) {break;}
+      const key = `${result.namespace}:${result.line}:${result.content}`;
+      if (seenNamespaces.has(result.namespace) || seenKeys.has(key)) {continue;}
+      selected.push(result);
+      seenNamespaces.add(result.namespace);
+      seenKeys.add(key);
+    }
+
+    for (const result of adjusted) {
+      if (selected.length >= topK) {break;}
+      const key = `${result.namespace}:${result.line}:${result.content}`;
+      if (seenKeys.has(key)) {continue;}
+      selected.push(result);
+      seenKeys.add(key);
+    }
+
+    return selected;
+  }
+
+  private _namespaceScoreAdjustment(namespace: string): number {
+    if (namespace === 'user' || namespace.startsWith('user/')) {
+      return 0.2;
+    }
+    if (namespace === 'global' || namespace.startsWith('global/')) {
+      return 0.1;
+    }
+    if (namespace.startsWith('daily/')) {
+      return -0.05;
+    }
+    return 0;
+  }
+
+  private _clampScore(score: number): number {
+    if (Number.isNaN(score)) {return 0;}
+    if (score < 0) {return 0;}
+    if (score > 1) {return 1;}
+    return score;
   }
 }