Recall Latency Tax

Recall Latency Tax is the hidden cost of how long an agent takes to surface a fact it already learned. Every re-prompt, re-explanation, and context paste is a tax paid in senior hours, and it compounds across a retainer because the same client architecture gets re-taught every session. The framework separates two retrieval paths: recognition-first federation, where a fact learned by one agent is instantly available to others, versus search-based lookup, where the agent must be told what to look for. Bourdon's recognition-first design pushes recall latency toward zero across Claude, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, and Devin, while Knownbase organizes notes by project and tag so retrieval depends on correct querying. For an agency running five client accounts through three tools each, the difference shows up as fewer re-briefs per deliverable and more margin per retainer hour. Audit recall latency before you audit model quality.