Not able to retain session context for random sessions in Bedrock Agents

Question

I understand that there are 2 types of context in bedrock agents. One is the session context and the other is using the memory (session summaries) when the session times out. I am observing that very rare sessions are not able to retain session context, especially if I ask questions like "What was my last question", "Summarize the conversation".... etc by returning the fallback message provided in the system prompt for agent. But one more observation is that its able to answer the same questions which it failed to answer after session times out and once once its session summary is created. What is the reason behind this behaviour

gokpra
9 months ago
Another observation: It only falls to the fallback message when asked meta-questions like stated in question. When asked "Tell more about what we were discussing".... etc its able to respond with the session context.

This behaviour of not responding to meta questions is on random sessions

re:Post Agent · Accepted Answer

The behavior you're experiencing with some sessions not retaining context is likely related to how session management works in Amazon Bedrock Agents.

When you use the same runtimeSessionId for related invocations, the agent should maintain context across the conversation. However, there are limitations to this approach. In rare cases, you might experience issues where the session context isn't properly maintained, especially for meta-questions about the conversation itself like "What was my last question" or "Summarize the conversation."

The interesting observation that these same questions can be answered after the session times out and the session summary is created points to how memory works in Bedrock Agents. By default, agents only retain conversational context within a single session. When a session ends (either explicitly or through timeout), the conversation gets associated with a memory context and receives a unique memory identifier.

This memory context contains processed information about the conversation, including summaries that might better capture the overall flow of the interaction than what was available in the active session. The memory system is designed to extract meaningful insights from raw conversation events, which explains why the agent can answer questions about previous interactions after the session summary is created.

To improve consistency in maintaining context:

1. Ensure you're using the same runtimeSessionId consistently for related invocations
2. Consider enabling and configuring memory for your agent with appropriate storage duration
3. For users with multiple sessions, provide the same memory identifier (memoryId) for the same user to maintain context across sessions

Without effective memory implementation, conversations can become disjointed and repetitive rather than continuous and evolving, leading to the inconsistent behavior you're observing.  
**Sources**  
[Use isolated sessions for agents - Amazon Bedrock AgentCore](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock-agentcore/latest/devguide/runtime-sessions.html)  
[Retain conversational context across multiple sessions using memory - Amazon Bedrock](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/agents-memory.html)  
[Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory: Building context-aware agents | Artificial Intelligence](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/amazon-bedrock-agentcore-memory-building-context-aware-agents/)  
[Build persistent memory for agentic AI applications with Mem0 Open Source, Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey, and Amazon Neptune Analytics | AWS Database Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/build-persistent-memory-for-agentic-ai-applications-with-mem0-open-source-amazon-elasticache-for-valkey-and-amazon-neptune-analytics/)

Not able to retain session context for random sessions in Bedrock Agents

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