You: "What do we know about the backup configuration?"
Claude: memory_search → finds relevant memories in milliseconds

git clone https://github.com/Jensimogit/mcp-recall.git
cd mcp-recall
npm install
cp .env.example .env
# Generate a random database password (you'll never need to type it)
echo "POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 32)" >> .env

node scripts/download-model.js multilingual-e5-large

ls models/multilingual-e5-large/
# Expected: config.json  onnx/  tokenizer.json  tokenizer_config.json

find node_modules/@xenova/transformers/.cache -name "config.json"
# Copy the directory that contains config.json + tokenizer.json:
cp -r node_modules/@xenova/transformers/.cache/Xenova/multilingual-e5-large/* models/multilingual-e5-large/

docker compose up -d

# Verify it's running
curl http://localhost:3000/health
# {"status":"ok","version":"0.2.0","model":"multilingual-e5-large","memories":0,"sessions":0}

docker compose run --rm mcp-recall node scripts/seed-examples.js

# Quick test via the health endpoint — should show memories: 10
curl http://localhost:3000/health

claude mcp add -s user --transport http mcp-recall http://localhost:3000/mcp

claude mcp add -s user --transport sse mcp-recall http://localhost:3000/sse

$ claude

❯ Use memory_stats to check the database

● mcp-recall - memory_stats (MCP)
  ⎿  Total memories: 10
     Unique tags: 14

● The database has 10 memories with 14 unique tags.

❯ Search memories for "backup"

● mcp-recall - memory_search (MCP)(query: "backup")
  ⎿  [1] (79.1% match) Database backup: docker exec mcp-recall-db pg_dump -U mcp
     mcp_recall > backup.sql. Restore: cat backup.sql | docker exec -i
     mcp-recall-db psql -U mcp mcp_recall.
         Tags: operations, backup

❯ Store a new memory: "The deploy key is in 1Password under 'production-deploy'"

● mcp-recall - memory_store (MCP)(content: "The deploy key is in 1Password under
                                 'production-deploy'", tags: ["deployment","credentials"])
  ⎿  Stored memory 33c6f4e8-f0bc-435a-bb46-fd83676698dd:
     The deploy key is in 1Password under 'production-deploy'

❯ Search for "deploy credentials"

● mcp-recall - memory_search (MCP)(query: "deploy credentials")
  ⎿  [1] (85.0% match) The deploy key is in 1Password under 'production-deploy'
         Tags: deployment, credentials

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  MCP Client (Claude Code, claude.ai, etc.)  │
└─────────────────┬───────────────────────────┘
                  │  HTTP (Streamable HTTP or SSE)
                  ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  mcp-recall-server (Node.js 22)             │
│  ├── MCP Protocol (6 tools)                 │
│  ├── Express HTTP                           │
│  └── @xenova/transformers (ONNX, local)     │
│       └── Embedding model (volume mount)    │
└─────────────────┬───────────────────────────┘
                  │
┌─────────────────▼───────────────────────────┐
│  PostgreSQL 16 + pgvector                   │
│  └── HNSW index (cosine similarity)         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

# Compare models against your data (read-only, no changes)
docker compose run --rm mcp-recall node scripts/benchmark-models.js multilingual-e5-large

# Switch to a different model (migrates DB, re-embeds everything)
docker compose run --rm mcp-recall node scripts/switch-model.js bge-m3

# Restart the server to use the new model
docker compose restart mcp-recall

# Generate a key and add to .env
echo "MCP_API_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32)" >> .env

# Configure Claude Code with the key
claude mcp add -s user --transport http \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  mcp-recall http://localhost:3000/mcp

# Add to .env
MCP_AUTH_PIN=123456          # choose a secure PIN
MCP_BASE_URL=https://your-server.example.com  # public URL

mcp-recall/
├── compose.yml             # Docker Compose (2 services)
├── Dockerfile              # Server image (node:22-slim)
├── .env.example            # Configuration template
├── package.json            # 5 dependencies
├── models/                 # Embedding models (git-ignored, volume-mounted)
│   └── multilingual-e5-large/
│       ├── config.json
│       ├── tokenizer.json
│       ├── tokenizer_config.json
│       └── onnx/model_quantized.onnx
├── migrations/
│   └── 001_init.sql        # Schema: memories table + HNSW index
├── scripts/
│   ├── switch-model.js     # Switch models with DB migration + re-embedding
│   ├── benchmark-models.js # A/B compare models against your data
│   ├── download-model.js   # Download models from Hugging Face
│   └── seed-examples.js    # Load example memories for testing
└── src/
    ├── index.js            # MCP server, Express, dual transport (308 lines)
    ├── database.js         # PostgreSQL CRUD operations (158 lines)
    ├── embeddings.js       # Model-agnostic embedding engine (42 lines)
    └── migrate.js          # Standalone migration runner (16 lines)

CREATE TABLE memories (
    id          UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
    content     TEXT NOT NULL,
    metadata    JSONB DEFAULT '{}',
    tags        TEXT[] DEFAULT '{}',
    embedding   vector(1024) NOT NULL,
    created_at  TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW(),
    updated_at  TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW()
);

# Dump the database
docker exec mcp-recall-db pg_dump -U mcp mcp_recall > backup.sql

# Restore
cat backup.sql | docker exec -i mcp-recall-db psql -U mcp mcp_recall