Kairo

Kairo is a local-first development intelligence system. It observes project activity, stores it locally, and reconstructs useful project memory.

This README is only for setting up Kairo as a user.

Requirements

• Node.js 22 or newer
• Git

Install

npm install -g @kairohq/cli @kairohq/mcp

Initialize A Project

Run this inside the project you want Kairo to remember.

kairo init

kairo init creates local Kairo state, installs Claude Code and Codex capture hooks, and registers the local Kairo MCP server so those assistants can query project memory. No Kairo AI provider is required by default.

Ingest Existing History

kairo sweep

This reads existing git history and writes local Kairo state under .kairo/.

Check Setup

kairo doctor

Use With Codex Or Claude Code

After kairo init, use Codex or Claude Code normally from the project. When you ask about previous decisions, past fixes, architecture changes, or why something exists, the assistant can query Kairo through the MCP setup written by init.

kairo ask "what changed in the dashboard data source?" is only a manual CLI check; it is not required for assistant integrations.

Where To Read More

• apps/cli/README.md: CLI commands.
• apps/mcp/README.md: MCP server usage.
• docs/README.md: full documentation map.
• docs/developer.md: local development setup.
• SECURITY.md: security and privacy reporting.