Long-term memory for AI coding agents. Quit Claude Code mid-task, start OpenAI Codex in the same directory, continue without re-explaining the architecture, the failed approaches, or the open questions.
| Area | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Supported | Primary Docker/server target and CI platform. Published Docker images support linux/amd64 and linux/arm64. Native Arch/AUR packages include system and user systemd units. |
| macOS | Supported | Workspace tests run in CI; tagged releases publish native ai-memory-macos-aarch64.tar.gz and ai-memory-macos-x86_64.tar.gz binaries. The native binary is the recommended path on Apple Silicon. See docs/macos.md. |
| Windows via WSL2 | Supported | Use the Linux install path inside WSL2 when the agent runs there. |
| Native Windows | Experimental | Tagged releases publish ai-memory-windows-x86_64.zip with ai-memory.exe; Docker Desktop wrapper and source builds are also available. Local supported profiles default to host-native hook commands; Claude Code may use its Windows exec form, while other agents use native single command strings matching their hook schema. PowerShell/Git Bash scripts are compatibility fallbacks. See docs/windows.md. |
| Claude Code | Supported | MCP config + lifecycle hooks; native commands enforce capture exclusions. install-mcp --session-aware optionally enables per-session auto-scope isolation through a local stdio bridge. Optionally captures the assistant's final turn on Stop when installed with --capture-assistant and the server enables capture_assistant (double opt-in, off by default). |
| Codex | Supported | MCP config + lifecycle hooks; native commands enforce capture exclusions. No automatic true session-end hook, so run ai-memory finalize-session when you need a final summary/handoff. |
| Devin CLI | Supported | MCP config + lifecycle hooks. Hooks use Devin's PostCompaction event, inject handoffs via hookSpecificOutput.additionalContext, and omit subagent events because Devin does not expose them. |
| OpenCode | Supported | Remote MCP config + generated TypeScript plugin; generated plugin enforces capture exclusions. |
| Cursor | Supported | MCP config + lifecycle hooks. |
| Gemini CLI | Supported | MCP config + lifecycle hooks. |
| Oh My Pi / OMP | Supported | Use --client omp / --agent omp (or oh-my-pi) for native .omp MCP config + TypeScript extension; generated extension enforces capture exclusions. |
| Pi | Supported | Generated ~/.pi/agent/extensions/ai-memory.ts extension provides lifecycle capture and an HTTP MCP bridge; generated extension enforces capture exclusions. |
| Crush | Managed-only | ai-memory run crush resumes its project-local session database and supplies portable context through a temporary supported global-context file; no lifecycle-hook installer is provided. |
| Managed workstreams | Opt-in | ai-memory run provides transparent cross-harness continuity for Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Crush, Kimi Code, OMP, and Grok Build CLI. Direct launches remain unchanged. See docs/managed-workstreams.md. |
| Claude Desktop | MCP-only | Uses mcp-remote; no lifecycle hooks. |
| OpenClaw | Supported | MCP config + native plugin lifecycle hooks; generated plugin enforces capture exclusions. |
| Antigravity CLI | Supported | MCP config (serverUrl) + lifecycle hooks (agy alias). Only PreInvocation with invocationNum = 0 maps to SessionStart; later model calls cannot consume a next-session handoff. No automatic true session-end hook, so run ai-memory finalize-session --agent antigravity-cli after the final turn when you need a summary, handoff, and opt-in SessionEnd consolidation. |
| Grok Build CLI | Supported | MCP config (install-mcp --client grok → $GROK_HOME/config.toml, default ~/.grok/config.toml) + lifecycle hooks (install-hooks --agent grok → $GROK_HOME/hooks/ai-memory.json, default ~/.grok/hooks/ai-memory.json, Grok-specific hook bundle). Capture works; no hook handoff injection — Grok ignores SessionStart stdout, so recover handoffs via MCP memory_handoff_accept. ai-memory run grok adds managed workstream resume with the context packet delivered natively through --rules. Skills root: .grok/skills / $GROK_HOME/skills (default ~/.grok/skills). |
| Zero | Supported | install-mcp --client zero (native HTTP + bearer in ~/.config/zero/config.json) + lifecycle hooks via install-hooks --agent zero --apply (exec-form native commands in ~/.config/zero/hooks.json, JSON payload on stdin, no shell). Capture works incl. specialist (subagent) events; no handoff injection — Zero discards sessionStart stdout, so recover handoffs via MCP memory_handoff_accept. |
| Kimi Code | Supported | MCP config (url entry in ~/.kimi-code/mcp.json) + lifecycle hooks ([[hooks]] in ~/.kimi-code/config.toml, 10 events including subagent start/stop and PostToolUseFailure for tool-failure capture); both paths honor $KIMI_CODE_HOME. Handoffs inject via UserPromptSubmit stdout (Kimi Code discards SessionStart hook stdout); ai-memory run kimi adds managed workstream resume. |
| VS Code Copilot | MCP-only | .vscode/mcp.json for Copilot agent mode; no lifecycle hooks (Copilot does not expose them yet). |
| Zed | MCP-only | Native remote MCP under context_servers in Zed's user settings.json; no lifecycle hooks or managed-workstream support. |
| Hermes Agent | Community | Core hook ingestion recognizes agent=hermes and Hermes' documented shell-hook tool_name / tool_input payload for concrete session attribution, tool-family titles, and capture exclusions. A community-maintained ai-memory-hermes-plugin is available, but no first-party installer is shipped; review its compatibility matrix, install/uninstall scripts, and secret handling before using it. Hermes ignores session-start hook stdout, so recover handoffs through MCP. |
| LLM/auth providers | Supported | Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenAI OAuth/Codex, GitHub Copilot, Gemini, OpenCode Zen/Go, OpenAI-compatible endpoints, and generic OIDC device auth for native hooks. |
| Embedding providers | Supported | OpenAI, Voyage, Google Gemini, and keyless OpenAI-compatible endpoints such as Ollama, LM Studio, and vLLM. |
LLM coding agents lose context when a session ends. ai-memory gives them a
shared, persistent wiki compiled from sanitized lifecycle observations. When a
session ends, relevant observations become a coherent summary; the next agent
receives a bounded handoff. Optional ai-memory run launches add a portable
visible-event ledger and native per-harness resume for higher-fidelity
cross-harness continuity.
The wiki is plain markdown in a git repo - grep-able, openable in
Obsidian, backed up with rsync. No vector database to babysit, no
write_note ceremony, no manual context-loading. The full design is
in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md; the influences and
priors are at the bottom.
- Zero-friction lifecycle capture. Hooks fire-and-forget bounded, sanitized prompt, tool-lifecycle, and session-boundary observations. Direct launches keep this lightweight path; it is not a complete native transcript. User prompts and post-compaction summaries retain up to 16 KiB; notifications and tool excerpts retain up to 2 KB, with a 16 KiB durable backstop for every observation body.
- Opt-in managed workstreams.
ai-memory run claude, thenai-memory run codex --yolo, thenai-memory run kimi, transparently resumes one logical workstream with native per-harness sessions, a portable visible-event ledger, and full-ledger search. Delivered packets are origin-marked; Claude transcript import rejects a packet that Claude persisted and read back through a tool.ai-memory runwith no harness continues the newest usable Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Crush, or Kimi Code session for this checkout. On first explicit use, an interactive launcher can adopt a previous session from the same checkout; later switches cannot select unrelated native history. Native arguments pass through unchanged except the wrapper-owned--yoloand--fresh; direct commands are unaffected.kimi-codeandkimi-cliare accepted aliases for the installedkimicommand. - Per-repository capture exclusions. A nearest-marker
[capture]ignore_pathspolicy drops matching recognized file-tool events before they reach the local spool or server. See the capture policy reference. - Optional per-operator memory slots. On shared servers,
[slots] per_user = truekeeps engine-written_slots/context in a bounded namespace derived from the authenticated operator. Session briefs and consolidation prompts receive shared slots plus the caller's own; exact wiki reads and searches remain project-wide, so this is context-injection isolation rather than RBAC. See multi-user operation. - Cross-agent handoffs. Quit Claude Code mid-task, start Codex in the same directory hours later - the next agent sees a "where you left off" block before its first prompt.
- Per-project isolation by construction. Each project lives at
<wiki_root>/<workspace_id>/<project_id>/…keyed by stable UUIDs. Workspace defaults to"default". Project is derived from$cwd: CLI subcommands (bootstrap,write-page,lint, …) walk to the main git repo root so all worktrees of the same repo share one project identity; the hook router defaults tobasename($cwd)and can opt into the repo-root rule. Drop a.ai-memory.tomlmarker file in any ancestor directory to override either field explicitly — perfect for multi-client consultancies, work/personal split, mono-repos, or linked git worktrees. Same page path can exist in two projects without collision; a rename is one column update; a purge is onerm -rf. - Global preferences scope. Standing user/team context — tech
choices, code style, durable personal rules — lives in the reserved
_globalscope (memory_write_pagewithscope: "global"). Defaultmemory_queryreads union it into every project asglobal_scope_hits, so preferences travel with you into new projects without naming a magic project or paying the all-projectsglobal=truefan-out. Event capture never writes there. - Entity-assisted recall. Consolidation stores up to 10 specific nouns per
page in canonical
entities:frontmatter. Exact, prefix, and compound-word matches form a project-scoped RRF stream, so a query can recover a page even when its body uses different wording. The stream is lexical and adds no query-time LLM call. - Authority-aware recall. FTS5, entity-match RRF, graph-neighbor RRF, and
optional vector RRF generate candidates by relevance. Before truncation, a
bounded adjustment favors maintained
_rules/,decisions/,procedures/, andgotchas/pages over closely matching episodic session evidence. Tier,pinned, and explicitcanonical/active/source-of-truthorsuperseded/historical/test-fixture/do-not-answer-fromtags contribute without becoming absolute filters, so targeted history searches still find session pages. These signals affect retrieval provenance only; retrieved text remains untrusted historical evidence and never gains instruction authority from its namespace, tier, tags, pin, or rank. - Karpathy-style LLM wiki. Pages are compiled from observations
at session-end (or PreCompact; clients without a true session-end event can
use
ai-memory finalize-session --agent <agent>for a manual final close), not retrieved over raw logs. Supersession chain + git-versioned markdown means you can time-travel withai-memory checkpoints,restore-page, or rawgit log. - Built-in
/webbrowser. Read-only HTML UI for the wiki - project list, folder tree, FTS5 search, markdown rendering, dark mode. Mounted on the same axum server as MCP. - Multi-agent + multi-machine ready. Supported clients: Claude
Code, Codex, Devin CLI, OpenCode, Cursor, Claude Desktop (via
mcp-remote), Gemini CLI, Antigravity CLI, Grok Build CLI, Kimi Code, OpenClaw, Oh My Pi / OMP (omp/oh-my-pi), Pi via generated bridge extension, VS Code GitHub Copilot agent mode (MCP-only, workspace.vscode/mcp.json), and Zed (MCP-only, usersettings.json). Server runs local (loopback) OR on a homelab box (LAN/VPN/cloud) with bearer-token auth. Shared servers can opt into[auto_scope]modes for per-user or session-aware current-project routing; Claude Code has a built-in opt-in bridge viainstall-mcp --session-aware. - Thin-client CLI.
ai-memory status,bootstrap,checkpoints,restore-page,purge-project,rename-project,move-project,audit-contamination,lint,curator,auto-improve,auto-improve-report,pending-writes,embed,forget-sweep,backup,finalize-sessionare all HTTP clients of the running server - never touch SQLite or wiki files directly.statusalso reports passive LLM/embedding provider health from the last real provider call. Server is the single source of truth.finalize-sessionlists matching open sessions throughGET /admin/open-sessions, then posts syntheticsession-endhooks back to the server. On shared deployments it defaults to the caller's own plus unattributed sessions; root can pass--all-ownersfor explicit cross-operator recovery. - LLM is opt-in. Zero-LLM mode still gives you FTS5, manually declared entity, and graph-neighbor search plus rule-based summarisation. Add a provider when you want consolidated pages, lint contradictions, or staged auto-improvement proposals.
-
"Quit Claude Code and continue the same work in Codex." Use the optional managed launcher when you want native session resume plus the portable visible history, not only a summary handoff:
cd /path/to/project ai-memory run claude # Quit Claude Code, then continue the same workstream in Codex. ai-memory run codex --yolo # Later, omit the name to resume the newest usable managed session here. ai-memory run # Start a new Codex session in the same workstream, keeping portable history. ai-memory run --fresh codex
The first explicit run can offer an existing session from this exact checkout or start a new one. Switching harnesses starts or resumes the native session linked to the shared workstream, so an obsolete local session cannot replace newer cross-harness history. After a normal quit, the next launch waits briefly if the previous launcher is still finalizing; handled failures release the workstream immediately. If a linked native transcript was deleted, ai-memory detects the orphan before launch and starts fresh;
--freshforces that recovery for one harness. Managed mode currently covers Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Crush, Kimi Code, OMP, and Grok Build CLI; direct harness launches remain unchanged. See Managed cross-harness workstreams. -
"Quit at 4 PM, pick up at 9 AM in a different agent." The classic. SessionStart hook in the next supported hook client prepends a typed handoff with open questions, next steps, and a session summary. Grok captures lifecycle events but ignores SessionStart stdout, so ask it to call
memory_handoff_acceptwhen resuming from a handoff. Zero has the same no-stdout behavior and also must callmemory_handoff_accept. -
"What did we decide about X six weeks ago?" Use
memory_query Xfrom the agent for FTS5 fused with entity matches and linked-page expansion (plus vector similarity when an embedder is configured). For a quick terminal-only FTS5 lookup, useai-memory search X; that admin command does not run the hybrid streams. Pages are LLM-consolidated, so the hit is a coherent decision page, not a raw chat log. Passexplain: trueto see why each hit ranked where it did in project or explicit-scope retrieval. Cross-projectglobal: truesearch uses its separate FTS-only ranker and reports that active stream without per-hit RRF details. -
"Remember this permanently." When something is worth keeping beyond auto-captured session logs - a decision, a convention, a gotcha - tell the agent "save a permanent note that we standardised on Postgres for X" or "annotate this as a project rule" and it calls
memory_write_pageto write a durable, git-versioned wiki page. From a terminal it'sai-memory write-page --path decisions/0007-db.md --body $'# Standardised on Postgres\n\n...' --pinned.--pinnedexempts it from the decay sweep; the H1 on the first line of--bodybecomes the page title (omit--title— it's still accepted, but LLM callers trip over JSON-escaping their way through it, see issue #67). Unlike a handoff (single-use) or an auto-synthesised session page (rewritten on consolidation), a write-page note is yours: it shows up inmemory_query, renders in/web, and stays until you change it. -
"That page you found is out of date." The agent calls
memory_feedbackwith the page's path and a signal:helpful/not_helpfultune how strongly retention keeps a sweep-eligible episodic page (they move its salience, which scales the decay formula's time term), whilestale/wrongfloor the salience and make any current page show up as afeedback_flaggedfinding in the nextmemory_lintreport. Feedback never deletes anything — it lowers confidence and flags for review — and it attaches to the version current when feedback is recorded, so a later rewrite clears the flag. Retrieved page text is untrusted and never authorizes feedback by itself. -
"Remember this, but only until the sprint ends." Pass
expires_attomemory_write_page(RFC3339 orYYYY-MM-DD= end of that day, UTC) — or putexpires_at:in a page's frontmatter by hand. Past the TTL the page disappears from search/recent/briefing (passinclude_expired: truetomemory_queryto still see it) and the next forget sweep hard-deletes the file and its rows. A TTL beats a pin;memory_lintwarns about pinned+expiring combos. -
"This new project has months of history before ai-memory."
cd /path/to/my-project && ai-memory bootstrapcollectsgit log, README,docs/, module headers, project rules and one-shot-summarises them into seed wiki pages. Future sessions build on top. -
"What durable lesson did that session teach?" When an LLM provider is configured, ai-memory runs a background auto-improvement scheduler for newly completed sessions in every project. It records proposed wiki edits in the pending-writes audit trail, then approves them immediately through the normal wiki write path by default. Scheduler ticks are non-overlapping: if reviewing all projects takes longer than the interval, the next tick is delayed until the current one finishes. Scheduling and approval are separate: set
[auto_improve.scheduler] enabled = falseto stop automatic review, or set[auto_improve] require_approval = trueto keep both scheduled and manual proposals pending for human review.ai-memory auto-improve --session-id <uuid>and MCPmemory_auto_improveremain available for manual catch-up or targeted reruns. When itssession_idis omitted, the MCP tool selects the newest completed session without a persisted auto-improvement run, so repeated calls advance past short preflight-skipped sessions; an explicit ID reruns that session.ai-memory auto-improve-report --workspace <w> --project <p>returns a read-only telemetry report for recent auto-improvement outcomes without staging or creating proposals; add--stageto create one pending report page for audit/approval. On deployments that distinguish operators, pending learning proposals are isolated by qualified operator identity, so one person's proposal for a page does not block another's; unattributed and single-user deployments retain the shared pending queue. Seedocs/auto-improve-eval-gates.mdfor example executable eval scorers.Existing installs do not need per-project migration. The scheduler initializes a per-project first-run watermark so historical sessions are not reviewed automatically on upgrade, then records per-session claims so failed scheduled reviews do not retry forever; use manual auto-improve for old sessions or failed scheduled sessions you want to catch up. Older configs may still contain an
[auto_improve] mode = ...line; current ai-memory ignores that legacy key, so you can remove it when convenient. -
"What housekeeping should I consider?"
ai-memory curatorruns a no-LLM, rule-based maintenance report over cold episodic pages, stale slots, duplicate exact normalized titles, and dangling cross-project links. It is report-only unless--stageis passed; staging queues one report page for approval and still performs no maintenance actions itself. Shared servers can opt into[decay] breadth_weightto give pages reinforced by several identified operators a retention bonus; the default0.0leaves existing retention scores unchanged. -
"Run one ai-memory for the whole household." Stand the server up on a homelab box at
0.0.0.0:49374with a bearer token; every laptop/desktop talks to it. Per-cwd routing keeps each project's pages cleanly separated; the/webUI is reachable from a browser anywhere on the LAN. -
"Audit what landed before sharing with a teammate." Browse the wiki at
http://<server>:49374/web- HTTP Basic dialog if auth is on, paste the token as password. Per-project tree view, rendered markdown, supersession chain visible per page. -
"Undo one bad page edit without rolling back the whole server."
ai-memory checkpointsshows recent wiki commits, thenai-memory restore-page --path notes/foo.md --from <rev>restores that one markdown file and reindexes it into SQLite. Fullbackup/restoreis still the answer for DB-only state such as sessions, observations, handoffs, users, audit rows, and embeddings. -
"Drop an experiment, keep the rest."
ai-memory purge-project --project experimental --confirm. Atomic: that project's DB rows cascade away, its wiki subdir getsrm -rf'd, every sibling project is untouched by construction.
For native Arch installs, use the AUR packages. They install
/usr/bin/ai-memory, packaged hook sources, and both system-level and
user-level systemd units.
yay -S ai-memory-bin # prebuilt Linux x86_64/aarch64 binary
yay -S ai-memory # builds from sourceSingle-user workstation:
mkdir -p ~/.config/ai-memory ~/.local/share/ai-memory
ai-memory --data-dir ~/.local/share/ai-memory \
--config ~/.config/ai-memory/config.toml init
systemctl --user enable --now ai-memory.service
ai-memory install-mcp --client claude-code --apply
ai-memory install-hooks --agent claude-code --applySystem service installs use /var/lib/ai-memory and /etc/ai-memory/ via the
packaged unit. Full user-service, system-service, auth, and provider setup is in
docs/install.md#arch-linux-native-packages-aur.
You need: Docker + an agent CLI from the Support Matrix, or anything else that speaks MCP.
The published Docker image includes linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 variants,
so Apple Silicon Macs and ARM64 Linux hosts can pull akitaonrails/ai-memory
without --platform linux/amd64 emulation.
The default quick-start has no authentication - the server binds to loopback only, so on a single-user laptop nothing else can reach it. Adding a bearer token is a one-line change once you're ready to expose the server on the LAN; see Security below.
# 1. Install the ai-memory CLI wrapper (a small shell script that
# runs the binary inside docker with your $HOME mounted). This is
# the only thing that needs to live on the host filesystem.
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
wrapper_tmp="$(mktemp -d)"
trap 'rm -rf "$wrapper_tmp"' EXIT
wrapper_base=https://github.com/akitaonrails/ai-memory/releases/latest/download/ai-memory-wrapper
curl -fsSL "$wrapper_base" -o "$wrapper_tmp/ai-memory-wrapper"
curl -fsSL "$wrapper_base.sha256" -o "$wrapper_tmp/ai-memory-wrapper.sha256"
expected="$(awk 'NR == 1 { print $1 }' "$wrapper_tmp/ai-memory-wrapper.sha256")"
if command -v sha256sum >/dev/null 2>&1; then
actual="$(sha256sum "$wrapper_tmp/ai-memory-wrapper" | awk '{ print $1 }')"
else
actual="$(shasum -a 256 "$wrapper_tmp/ai-memory-wrapper" | awk '{ print $1 }')"
fi
[ -n "$expected" ] && [ "$actual" = "$expected" ] || { echo "wrapper checksum mismatch" >&2; exit 1; }
install -m 0755 "$wrapper_tmp/ai-memory-wrapper" ~/.local/bin/ai-memory
rm -rf "$wrapper_tmp"
trap - EXIT
# Most distros put ~/.local/bin on PATH automatically. If `which
# ai-memory` comes up empty, add this to ~/.bashrc / ~/.zshrc:
# export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
# 2. Start the server. `--restart unless-stopped` makes it come back
# on docker daemon restart and on machine boot (provided your
# docker service is enabled at boot — `sudo systemctl enable
# docker` on most distros). Loopback-only bind (`127.0.0.1:49374`)
# so nothing outside this machine can reach it. Omit the LLM /
# EMBEDDING lines for zero-LLM mode — FTS5 search still works
# without any keys.
docker run -d --name ai-memory \
--restart unless-stopped \
-p 127.0.0.1:49374:49374 \
-v ai-memory-data:/data \
-e AI_MEMORY_LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic \
-e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... \
-e AI_MEMORY_EMBEDDING_PROVIDER=openai \
-e OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... \
akitaonrails/ai-memory:latest
# 3. Wire your agent CLI in two commands. The wrapper takes care of
# mounts and each client's config-path detection. Re-run with
# `--agent codex`, `--agent devin`, `--agent opencode`, `--agent gemini-cli`,
# `--agent grok`, `--agent kimi-code`, `--agent omp`, `--agent oh-my-pi`, `--client cursor`,
# `--client gemini-cli`, `--client grok`, etc.
# for additional agents; full list in docs/install.md.
ai-memory install-mcp --client claude-code --apply
ai-memory install-hooks --agent claude-code --apply
# Grok Build CLI example:
# ai-memory install-mcp --client grok --apply
# ai-memory install-hooks --agent grok --applyOn Linux/macOS, that's it. Start a Claude Code session as usual - every
prompt and tool call now lands in ai-memory, and the next session you
open in this project will see a handoff with where you left off.
On macOS, the native release binary is also supported and recommended when you
do not need Docker; see docs/macos.md.
If two Claude Code sessions use the same server concurrently, enable
per-session routing on the server and replace only the ai-memory MCP entry
with the optional bridge:
# <ai-memory data dir>/config.toml
[auto_scope]
mode = "per_session"ai-memory install-mcp --client claude-code --session-aware --applyThe bridge still connects to the configured local or remote HTTP server and
forwards its bearer token, but also attaches Claude's lifecycle session id to
every MCP request. Existing static HTTP installs remain the default. See
docs/auto-scope.md for Claude's /clear and
implicit-resume limitations.
The install-mcp / install-hooks commands use
AI_MEMORY_SERVER_URL / AI_MEMORY_AUTH_TOKEN when set; otherwise
they default to http://127.0.0.1:49374 (matching the server above)
and no bearer token. If hooks are installed after an ai-memory MCP
entry already exists, install-hooks reuses that endpoint so a remote
MCP setup cannot silently regenerate loopback-only hooks. Both commands
are idempotent - re-runs replace ai-memory's entry, preserve every
other server / hook you have configured, and write a timestamped
.bak-<ts> next to the file before each modifying write. The hook
scripts are staged into ~/.local/share/ai-memory/hooks/<agent>/
automatically; re-running overwrites them so future image updates ship
updated hooks. Drop --apply to print the snippet instead of mutating.
For Claude Code, CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR relocates MCP registration to
$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/.claude.json, hooks to
$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/settings.json, and global managed skills to
$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/skills. The Docker wrapper forwards this variable when
the directory is under its existing $HOME bind mount. Use the native binary
when the Claude config root is outside $HOME. Uninstall checks both the
active relocated paths and Claude's home defaults, so enabling the variable
does not leave an older default-path ai-memory installation behind.
If your agent often starts inside repository subdirectories or linked
worktrees, add --project-strategy repo-root to install-hooks so captures
collapse to the main git repo name; see docs/install.md
and docs/marker-file.md for details. Later bare
--apply refreshes, including ai-memory upgrade, preserve that choice;
pass --project-strategy basename explicitly to remove it.
The Docker wrapper also bridges thin-client commands such as
ai-memory status and ai-memory bootstrap back to the host's
loopback server. With the local Docker quick start above, no
AI_MEMORY_SERVER_URL override is needed.
Managed workstreams are optional. They execute the harness on the host while the server may remain local or remote:
ai-memory run claude
# later, continue the same workstream in another harness
ai-memory run codex --yolo
# omit the name to continue the newest usable local harness session
ai-memory runTo remove ai-memory later, run ai-memory uninstall --apply from the
same host environment. It removes ai-memory-owned config entries, instruction
blocks, default-root managed skill files, and generated plugin files only after
matching their ai-memory signatures; custom skill roots installed with
--target-dir are cleaned up manually. Use --mcp-url if you installed MCP
with a custom endpoint, and --mcp-name only when you need to narrow removal to
one matching entry.
- SELinux: on enforcing Linux hosts, the Docker wrapper automatically adds
--security-opt label=disableonly to short-lived helper commands that write bind-mounted host files. It does not alter the long-lived server container or relabel$HOME; do not add:z/:Zto the whole home bind. Seedocs/install.md. - Windows: use the Linux path inside WSL2, or the native Windows wrapper
from PowerShell/cmd. Local supported profiles default to host-native commands:
Claude Code may use its supported
ai-memory.exeexec form, while other agents use native single command strings matching their hook schema. The Docker wrapper protects.ps1fallback commands from nested PowerShell expansion with-EncodedCommand; reruninstall-hooks --agent <agent> --applyafter upgrading so existing hook entries receive the current form. PowerShell/Git Bash script bundles are compatibility fallbacks and do not enforce capture-policy v1. Do not mix path worlds. Seedocs/windows.md. - Docker compose:
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -dis supported; agent setup is the same as step 3 above. - Remote server: set
AI_MEMORY_SERVER_URL=http://<server-ip>:49374andAI_MEMORY_AUTH_TOKEN=<token>on the client before installing MCP/hooks. Explicit--server-urlflags still work, but are no longer required when the env vars are set. Any non-loopback server should use bearer auth. - Managed-run wrapper:
ai-memory runmust be intercepted by the current host wrapper so the native harness and its session store remain accessible. An old wrapper may passruninto Docker and fail withNo such file or directoryforcodex,claude, or another host executable. Runai-memory upgradeon the agent machine to refresh it. The host-native runner inheritsAI_MEMORY_SERVER_URL,AI_MEMORY_AUTH_TOKEN, and the hostPATH. - Upgrades: for Docker-wrapper installs, run
ai-memory upgradeon each agent machine. It refreshes the local wrapper, pulls the latest image, and re-stages hook scripts under~/.local/share/ai-memory/hooks/<agent>/. Native package/source installs should rerunai-memory install-hooks --agent <agent> --applyafter upgrading the binary. Remote/homelab servers must still be redeployed separately; local wrapper upgrade only updates the client machine. Existing project prompt files keep working. Refresh the managed ai-memory routing package (ai-memory install-instructions, or--target AGENTS.mdfor AGENTS-based projects) when you want new tool guidance. The refresh writes the slim markered snippet and managed Agent Skills from the same binary-owned assets.
For every client in the Support Matrix, plus curl-based hook
installs, source builds, CLI environment variables, and the full subcommand
reference, see docs/install.md.
Tab completion for the CLI is available in bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell, and elvish:
ai-memory completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/ai-memory.fishSee docs/shell-completions.md for the other
shells' install paths.
Loopback-only (127.0.0.1:49374) with no auth is the default because
it is safe for a single-user laptop: no process outside the machine can
reach the server.
Enable bearer auth when the server is exposed beyond loopback, when untrusted local processes share the machine, or when the data dir holds sensitive project history:
TOKEN=$(ai-memory generate-auth-token)
docker run -d --name ai-memory \
--restart unless-stopped \
-p 0.0.0.0:49374:49374 \
-v ai-memory-data:/data \
-e AI_MEMORY_AUTH_TOKEN="$TOKEN" \
-e AI_MEMORY_ALLOWED_HOSTS="<server-ip>,localhost,127.0.0.1" \
akitaonrails/ai-memory:latest
ai-memory install-mcp --client claude-code --apply \
--server-url "http://<server-ip>:49374/mcp" --auth-token "$TOKEN"
ai-memory install-hooks --agent claude-code --apply \
--server-url "http://<server-ip>:49374" --auth-token "$TOKEN"Bearer auth protects /mcp, /hook, /handoff, /admin/*, and
/web/*. Browser access to /web uses HTTP Basic auth with the token
as the password. Non-loopback binds should also set
AI_MEMORY_ALLOWED_HOSTS to guard against DNS rebinding.
Busy shared hook servers can also set AI_MEMORY_HOOK_RATE_PER_SEC (tokens per
second per actor/session source) and optionally AI_MEMORY_HOOK_RATE_BURST to
bound one runaway session without blocking unrelated hook sources. Unset or 0
rate leaves the limiter disabled.
For shared servers where each developer should authenticate their own hook writes, native Claude Code hooks can use a stored OIDC device token instead of embedding a shared static token:
ai-memory auth login oidc-device \
--issuer "https://issuer.example.com/realms/team" \
--client-id "ai-memory-cli"
ai-memory install-hooks --agent claude-code --apply \
--server-url "http://<server-ip>:49374"OIDC hook auth requires the native ai-memory hook ... command path. The Docker
wrapper keeps shell-script hooks by default; set up OIDC from a native release
binary or source install. Thin-client HTTP commands such as ai-memory status
and ai-memory search also use the stored OIDC access token when no static
AI_MEMORY_AUTH_TOKEN / [auth].bearer_token is configured; the static bearer
still wins when present. This is for OIDC-aware gateways/bridges; native
ai-memory server auth still accepts static root bearer / DB-user tokens, and
/admin/* remains root-only unless a gateway translates accepted OIDC auth into
upstream auth that ai-memory accepts.
OIDC/Keycloak session ids are login-provider sessions, not ai-memory agent
sessions. Shared servers that rely on [auto_scope] session isolation still
need explicit workspace + project / scopes, or a bridge that forwards the
real lifecycle-hook session id on MCP requests.
Want HTTPS? ai-memory deliberately does not terminate TLS itself —
the right answer is a battle-tested reverse proxy in front of it.
docs/https-via-proxy.md is the deployment
guide, with copy-paste docker compose templates in
docker/compose.tls.caddy.yml (Caddy
with Let's Encrypt or internal CA) and
docker/compose.tls.cloudflared.yml
(Cloudflare Tunnel — no open ports). Both are recommended once you
turn on multi-user or bind beyond loopback. The Quick Start happy
path of single-user on loopback doesn't need TLS — that case is
called out explicitly in the guide so you don't add ceremony where
it doesn't earn its keep.
Multi-user attribution (v0.8, optional). When more than one human
shares a server, ai-memory can attribute each write to a named user.
The bearer token continues to authenticate at the wire level; users
created via ai-memory user add get their own tokens that resolve to
their identity in audit logs, page frontmatter, /api/v1 responses, and the
page view UI. Data stays single-tenant — there is no per-page RBAC. A
[auth].token_pepper is required for DB-user authentication, but creating the
first user row is what immediately switches every /admin/* endpoint to
root-only, including status/search/read-page and user-management routes.
ai-memory init generates a pepper for new installs without changing
single-user behavior until a user is added. An SSO gateway can instead use a
dedicated [auth].actor_proxy_bearer_token and trusted X-Memory-Actor-*
headers; its credential is deliberately separate from the root bearer so a
missing identity cannot become root. See
docs/users.md for the full walkthrough and the
four-rung auth ladder.
See docs/deploy.md for the full homelab pattern
with bearer auth, host allowlisting, and TLS/reverse-proxy options.
Day to day, you mostly do not think about ai-memory. Lifecycle hooks capture prompts, tool calls, compaction checkpoints, and session boundaries. SessionStart hooks fetch pending handoffs before your first prompt in the next agent.
Useful entry points:
-
Ask "where did we leave off?" to continue from the pending handoff.
-
Ask "have we discussed X?" or "search memory for Y" to query the wiki.
-
Ask "catch me up" for a prose digest of recent project activity.
-
Run
ai-memory bootstraponce when adopting ai-memory in an existing project with months of history. -
Start the server with
--enable-weband visit/webfor a read-only browser view of the markdown wiki.--enable-webalso mounts a read-only JSON frontend API at/api/v1(workspaces, projects, pages, recent, briefing, search) so custom web UIs can read the memory without opening SQLite or wiki files directly:GET /api/v1/workspaces GET /api/v1/projects?workspace=... GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/projects/{project}/pages GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/projects/{project}/pages/{path} GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/projects/{project}/recent?limit=... GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/projects/{project}/briefing?limit=... GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/overview?limit=... GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/projects/{project}/overview?limit=... GET /api/v1/workspaces/{workspace}/projects/{project}/handoffs?state=...&limit=... GET /api/v1/search?q=...&workspace=...&project=...&limit=... POST /api/v1/search { "q": "...", "scopes": [{ "workspace": "...", "project": "..." }] }overviewbundles the open handoff + briefing + memory-health for a workspace or project in one call (the data a project overview screen needs). The handoff history defaults to the caller's own plus shared rows; root can useall_owners=truefor recovery across operators.Full integration guide: see
docs/frontend-api.mdfor auth setup, response schemas, error model, limits/pagination, custom-UI hosting, a workedfetch/curlexample, and the canonical source-of-truth files. Read that first if you're building a frontend.To serve your own static frontend instead of the built-in UI, point
--web-ui-dirat the frontend's build output (same-origin with/api/v1,/mcp,/admin/*, so the existing auth applies):ai-memory serve --transport http --bind 127.0.0.1:49374 \ --enable-web --web-ui-dir ../ai-memory-ui/dist
A reference implementation — a SolidJS knowledge browser with screenshots and e2e tests — lives at djalmajr/ai-memory-ui.
Richer products such as import/migration pipelines and write-capable browser chat/editors should live as optional companion crates or projects that call ai-memory's public HTTP/MCP surfaces. The first implemented companion is the standalone OMC wiki importer at
companions/ai-memory-importer, which is intentionally not a root workspace member and is not included in rootcargo test --workspace. Seedocs/companion-crates.mdfor the boundary.When a reverse proxy hosts ai-memory under a URL subpath, set
--base-path(orAI_MEMORY_BASE_PATH) so every HTTP surface moves together. Example:--base-path /wikiserves MCP at/wiki/mcp, hooks at/wiki/hook, the API at/wiki/api/v1, and the default browser at/wiki/web. Set--web-slug /if you want the browser or custom SPA at/wikiitself.
Install the managed routing package once so agents proactively call the right MCP tool for those prompts:
ai-memory install-instructionsThat command writes or updates the slim <!-- ai-memory:start --> block and
the managed ai-memory Agent Skills that carry the detailed routing guidance.
See docs/usage.md for handoff examples, proactive query
routing, bootstrap details, web UI screenshots, and the raw-wiki inspection
commands. CLI URL/auth configuration lives in
docs/install.md.
Consolidation extracts specific technologies, components, services, files, and domain nouns into each page's canonical frontmatter. Hand-edited wiki pages can declare the same bounded index explicitly:
---
title: Queue choice
entities:
- nats jetstream
- delivery guarantees
---Names are lowercased, whitespace-normalized, de-duplicated, capped at 10 per
page and 64 characters each, and rebuilt from Markdown during a clean-store
ai-memory reindex.
Entity lookup is project-scoped, ignores expired pages by default, and reports
entity_rank, its raw inverse-frequency entity_weight, matched_entities,
and its RRF contribution under
memory_query(..., explain: true).
ai-memory runs without an LLM: hooks still capture sessions, search uses
FTS5 + declared entities + graph neighbors, and summaries fall back to
rule-based output. Add an LLM provider
when you want LLM consolidation (on PreCompact, on demand via
memory_consolidate, or opt-in at session end with
AI_MEMORY_CONSOLIDATE_ON_SESSION_END), richer linting, and bootstrap.
Session end always writes a rule-based summary page + handoff either way.
When the session-end opt-in is enabled, provider work is durably queued after
those deterministic writes and handled by one bounded server worker, so hook
drain latency does not cancel it. Failed jobs retry with backoff and survive a
server restart. A resumed native session is ended again only after its
observation generation advances; the persisted generation watermark makes
duplicate SessionEnd delivery and system clock skew converge without repeated
provider work. The end watermark and automatic handoff commit atomically, and
an interrupted keyed replay finishes the wiki commit, queue insert, and key
completion without duplicating that handoff. On the next SessionStart, the
newest cwd-eligible automatic handoff wins; accepting it expires older eligible
automatic handoffs without consuming manual or sibling-directory work. A new
automatic handoff also expires prior open automatic handoffs from its exact
cwd, so repeated SessionEnds cannot accumulate there before a receiver starts.
To keep consolidation style project-specific, write
_prompts/consolidation.md in that project's wiki. Its body can express
preferences such as "prefer Portuguese titles" or "omit routine CI noise".
Automatic, single-page, and multi-page consolidation use the page; a manual
memory_consolidate call can pass instructions to override it once. ai-memory
sanitizes and caps the value at 2,000 characters, JSON-encodes it in the user
message, and treats it as untrusted advisory data. It cannot supply facts,
request tool use or disclosure, or override the consolidation schema and
faithfulness rules. TTL-expired preference pages are ignored. With no active
page or argument, no preference block is appended.
Recommended defaults:
| Provider | Default | Use when |
|---|---|---|
anthropic |
claude-haiku-4-5 |
Best default for consolidation quality and rule classification. |
anthropic-oauth |
claude-sonnet-4-6 |
Use a Claude Pro/Max subscription via claude setup-token, no API key. |
openai |
gpt-5.4-mini |
Cheaper and faster hosted option. |
openai-oauth |
gpt-5.5 |
ChatGPT Pro/Plus/Codex backend via ai-memory auth login openai-oauth; no Platform API key. |
copilot |
gpt-5.5 |
GitHub Copilot Chat backend via ai-memory auth login copilot or COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN; requires a Copilot subscription. |
gemini |
gemini-2.5-flash |
Google-hosted option with a generous free tier. |
openai-compat |
no default | OpenRouter, Atlas Cloud, Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio, and other compatible endpoints. |
openai-oauth stores a refresh token in <data_dir>/auth.json and talks to
the ChatGPT/Codex Responses backend, not api.openai.com. For Docker quick
starts, run ai-memory auth login openai-oauth with the wrapper so the token
lands in the same ai-memory-data volume as the server.
anthropic-oauth hits the same /v1/messages endpoint as anthropic but
authenticates with an OAuth bearer token instead of an API key. Run
claude setup-token once, then set AI_MEMORY_LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic-oauth and
ANTHROPIC_OAUTH_TOKEN=<token> (or CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN, which claude setup-token writes automatically). No ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is needed.
docs/install.md.
copilot stores a GitHub user token in the same auth file, exchanges it for a
short-lived Copilot API token via GitHub's /copilot_internal/v2/token, and
uses the Copilot Chat endpoint with vscode-chat integration headers. You can
also set COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN, GH_TOKEN, or GITHUB_TOKEN on the server.
Tip
For the OAuth/subscription backends (anthropic-oauth, openai-oauth,
copilot), pick a small, fast model via AI_MEMORY_LLM_MODEL — e.g.
claude-haiku-4-5 or gpt-5-mini. ai-memory's LLM work (consolidation,
lint, explore) is summarisation, not hard reasoning, so a Haiku/mini-class
model is plenty and is much easier on subscription rate limits. Save the
high-effort thinking models for your coding agent.
Tip
OpenAI-compatible structured output is schema-constrained by default.
ai-memory sends each operation's JSON Schema through
response_format=json_schema, which recent Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio, and
llama.cpp releases honour. It falls back to the tolerant parser when an
endpoint explicitly rejects that field or returns a malformed shape. Set
AI_MEMORY_LLM_COMPAT_STRICT=false only for an incompatible endpoint.
Reranking is optional and off by default. With an LLM provider configured,
AI_MEMORY_RERANKER=llm makes project and explicit-scope memory_query
calls over-fetch from the hybrid stage, fuse scopes, and make at most one LLM
call to reorder the best candidates. This can promote a relevant page that
RRF ranked below the requested cut, at the cost of LLM latency and usage. The
request sends the query plus at most 30 bounded page titles and search snippets
to the configured provider; all values are JSON-encoded and treated as
untrusted data. A timeout, provider error, or incomplete/invalid score set
preserves the normal order. global=true and supplemental global-preference
hits keep their existing non-RRF ranking. Concurrent provider calls are capped
at four; saturated queries keep their local ranking without waiting.
Embeddings are optional and separate from the LLM provider. Set
AI_MEMORY_EMBEDDING_PROVIDER=openai, voyage, google/gemini, or
openai-compat when you want vector retrieval in addition to FTS5 + entity +
graph-neighbor retrieval. openai-compat targets self-hosted engines
(Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM): it needs no API key and requires explicit
AI_MEMORY_EMBEDDING_BASE_URL, AI_MEMORY_EMBEDDING_MODEL, and
AI_MEMORY_EMBEDDING_DIM. Both the FTS-only and hybrid paths apply the same
bounded page-authority adjustment after candidate generation; embeddings
improve relevance recall but do not decide which source is canonical.
See docs/install.md#llm-provider-tiers
for env vars and Ollama/OpenRouter/Atlas Cloud examples, and
docs/llm-provider-comparison.md
for the empirical model comparison.
One Rust binary runs an MCP/HTTP server and owns one data directory:
<data_dir>/
├── wiki/ # markdown source of truth, git-versioned
├── raw/ # immutable sanitized managed-workstream transcript segments
├── db/ # SQLite indexes, including FTS5, entities, and embeddings
├── models/ # reserved for local embedding models
└── logs/ # rolling tracing output
Hooks POST observations to the server. The server serializes writes through one SQLite writer, compiles session observations into markdown pages, and serves retrieval through FTS5, entity-match and graph-neighbor RRF, optional vector RRF, bounded source-authority adjustment, and bounded raw-observation fallback for non-global searches.
See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the data-flow
diagram, crate breakdown, schema notes, and invariants.
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
docs/install.md |
Installation cookbook. Every agent CLI, every alternative (curl, source build, no-docker, no-auth), and the server-on-a-different-machine (homelab/LAN) walkthrough. Read after the Quick start if your setup doesn't match the happy path. |
docs/usage.md |
Handoffs, proactive memory queries, slim routing snippet + managed Agent Skills, migration from other memory tools, web UI, raw-wiki inspection, and rules-vs-facts workflow. |
docs/managed-workstreams.md |
Optional ai-memory run continuity across Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Crush, Kimi Code, OMP, and Grok Build CLI: automatic harness selection, native resume, argument forwarding, ledger search, privacy, and recovery. |
docs/managed-harness-contributions.md |
Protocol and acceptance bar for contributors adding managed resume, read-only transcript import, and startup context delivery to another harness. |
docs/marker-file.md |
.ai-memory.toml workspace/project routing for multi-client trees, mono-repos, worktrees, and work/personal separation. |
docs/auto-scope.md |
[auto_scope] modes for shared servers: default single-slot routing, session-aware isolation, and multi-user per_actor behavior. |
docs/macos.md |
macOS install paths: native release binary (recommended), source build, the Docker wrapper, hook-platform notes, and current macOS limitations. |
docs/windows.md |
Windows install modes: full WSL2, native Windows with Docker Desktop, prebuilt native release zip, native source builds, and current hook/MCP harness caveats. |
docs/mcp-install.md |
Per-client MCP and lifecycle notes, handoff-injection limits, and community bridge guidance. |
docs/deploy.md |
Homelab deploy: bin/deploy, bearer-token auth, pointers to the TLS guide. |
docs/users.md |
Multi-user attribution (v0.8). Four-rung auth ladder, ai-memory user add/list/expire/revive/rotate-token walkthrough, backward-compat migration for pre-v0.8 installs, token storage rationale. |
docs/https-via-proxy.md |
HTTPS via a reverse proxy. When you need TLS (multi-user, non-loopback) and when you don't (loopback / stdio). Copy-paste docker compose templates for Caddy + Let's Encrypt, Caddy + internal CA (LAN-only), Cloudflare Tunnel (no open ports), and external cert files; plus native-Caddy + nginx recipes. The "thinking you're secure when you're not" failure modes explicitly called out. |
docs/lifecycle-ops.md |
Read before running purge / rename / backup / restore / reset / reindex / restore-page. Safety matrix for state-touching commands, per-project disk layout (how isolation actually works), checkpoint-based page recovery, and operator workflows for "fresh start", "snapshot before risky op", "drop one project", and rebuilding SQLite from wiki files. |
docs/auto-improvement-loop.md |
Auto-improvement design notes: Hermes-inspired scheduled review, auto-approval default, manual review opt-in, pending proposal storage, and curator work. |
docs/companion-crates.md |
Boundary and implementation plan for optional companion projects, including the standalone importer at companions/ai-memory-importer, without widening core ai-memory. |
docs/llm-provider-comparison.md |
Empirical notes behind the recommended LLM defaults. |
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md |
Operational summary: data flow, crate layout, cross-cutting invariants, schema. |
docs/design-decisions.md |
The full v1 spec. |
Research docs under docs/ |
Karpathy LLM Wiki notes, Hermes Agent, agentmemory / basic-memory / cognee deep-dives, lessons-learned from upstream issues. |
- Karpathy LLM Wiki - the compile-not-retrieve pattern.
- agentmemory - most of the right ideas; this project is the Rust successor.
- basic-memory - the markdown-on-disk source-of-truth model.
- cognee - pipeline composition and triplet embeddings.
- Hermes Agent - the self-improvement loop: post-turn review, approval gates, and curator boundaries.
- A-MEM - Zettelkasten-style atomic notes with link evolution.
MIT - see LICENSE.
This codebase is being built collaboratively with Claude Code
(Anthropic Claude Opus 4.7) following the plan documented in
docs/design-decisions.md.