Agentic AI Reference Architecture

Memory · Data store

Conversation State Store

Data storeMemoryCognition & MemoryVariation point (abstract)arc:ConversationStateStore

A store holding per-session conversation history and agent state machine state used to continue a user's conversation across turns.

Responsibility. Holds per-session conversation state between turns of a conversation.

Also known as: Conversation history, Session persistence, Session state store, State store, Conversation Session Store, Conversation buffer memory, Per-agent message history, Kernel context, Customer preference state, Session cache, Short-term memory cache, Multi-turn specialty context cache, Unified multimodal conversation state, Short-term context

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Direct neighbourhood (hover for relationship types)

Variants

VariantWhen to choose
External Session State StoreChoose for large-scale deployments (100+ instances), frequent autoscaling that would churn sessions, or when no session may be lost on instance failure.
Instance-Local Session StateChoose when latency requirements are extreme (sub-100 ms), scale is modest (tens of instances), and session recreation after instance failure is acceptable.

Relationships

is configured by structural

is read by dependency

is written by dependency

Design guidance

Quantitative guidance

As stated by the sources; verify before use.

Classification

Patterns
Session resumeSession affinity vs. stateless trade-off
Technologies
LangChainAutoGenSemantic KernelRedisAmazon DynamoDB
Quality attributes
Reliability (ISO/IEC 25010 | NIST AI RMF: valid and reliable)Interaction capability (ISO/IEC 25010)Performance efficiency (ISO/IEC 25010)
Risks mitigated
Context loss between sessionsLoss of conversation continuityLost context in multi-turn refinement

Sources

  1. Ch1.1A: T. Nguyen, "Designing User Interfaces for Intuitive Human-Agent Interaction," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 1.1A. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  2. Ch1.8: T. Nguyen, "Scalability and Production Deployment," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 1.8. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  3. Ch2.1: T. Nguyen, "Framework Landscape and Selection," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 2.1. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  4. Ch2.3: T. Nguyen, "LangChain Sequential Frameworks," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 2.3. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  5. Ch2.9: T. Nguyen, "Streaming and Real-Time Responses," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 2.9. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  6. Ch3.3: T. Nguyen, "Web Navigation and Interaction Benchmarks," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 3.3. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  7. Ch3.6: T. Nguyen, "Trace Analysis and Execution Debugging," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 3.6. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  8. Ch3.7: T. Nguyen, "Tool Usage Auditing," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 3.7. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  9. Ch3.8: T. Nguyen, "Action Accuracy Metrics," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 3.8. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  10. Ch3.9: T. Nguyen, "Reasoning Quality," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 3.9. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  11. Ch3.10: T. Nguyen, "Efficiency Metrics," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 3.10. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  12. Ch4.2: T. Nguyen, "Deployment and Scaling," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 4.2. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  13. Ch5.8: T. Nguyen, "Semantic Memory," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 5.8. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  14. Ch7.1A: T. Nguyen, "Advanced Implementation with Nvidia NEMO Framework and Nvlink," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 7.1A. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  15. Ch7.1B: T. Nguyen, "Nvidia NIM and Colang," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 7.1B. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  16. Ch10.1: T. Nguyen, "Conversational UI," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 10.1. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  17. Ch10.2: T. Nguyen, "Proactive Agents," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 10.2. ISBN: 9798244538229.
  18. Ch10.5: T. Nguyen, "Human-over-the-Loop," in Mastering Agentic AI Systems: Guide for the NVIDIA NCP-AAI Exam, 1st ed. 2026, ch. 10.5. ISBN: 9798244538229.