Membrain

One memory, every AI.

A self-hosted memory ledger you run on your own machine. Your agents share it over MCP.

You write to the ledger from a paper-and-ink web UI. Your agents write to it over MCP: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, anything that speaks the protocol. What one remembers, all of them know.

Everything lives in one SQLite file on your disk. No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry. Works fully offline.

Install

Global install is the default — it gives you the membrain command everywhere:

npm install -g membrain-mcp
membrain

That one word brings everything up at once: the web ledger starts on http://127.0.0.1:7777 and opens in your browser, the MCP server is live at /mcp from the same moment, and the REST API is up at /api/memories. Keep the terminal open — that process is the server; Ctrl+C stops it and your memories stay in data/memory.db.

The first run downloads a small local embedding model (about 80 MB) into ./data; after that everything works offline.

Prefer not to install globally? One-shot from any folder:

npx membrain-mcp

Related MCP server: Cortex

How it fits together

%%{init: {'theme':'base','themeVariables':{
  'primaryColor':'#fdfcf7','primaryTextColor':'#1c1917','primaryBorderColor':'#1e3a8a',
  'lineColor':'#57534e','fontFamily':'Georgia, serif','fontSize':'14px',
  'clusterBkg':'#f4f1e8','clusterBorder':'#b8b09a','edgeLabelBackground':'#fdfcf7'
}}}%%
flowchart LR
    subgraph agents ["Your agents"]
        CC["Claude Code"]
        CD["Claude Desktop"]
        CU["Cursor · any MCP client"]
    end
    YOU(["You · browser"])

    CC -- "HTTP /mcp" --> MCP
    CU -- "HTTP /mcp" --> MCP
    CD -- "stdio" --> MCP
    YOU -- "web ledger + REST" --> REST

    subgraph membrain ["membrain · one process"]
        MCP["MCP server<br/>8 tools"]
        REST["REST + web UI"]
        CORE["core<br/>chunk · embed · hybrid search"]
        LLM["the clerk<br/>Ollama or cloud key"]
        MCP --> CORE
        REST --> CORE
        CORE -.-> LLM
    end

    CORE --> DB[("memory.db<br/>SQLite + sqlite-vec + FTS5")]

    classDef agent fill:#fdfcf7,stroke:#1e3a8a,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#1c1917
    classDef human fill:#fdfcf7,stroke:#0f766e,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#1c1917
    classDef store fill:#1c1917,stroke:#1c1917,color:#f4f1e8
    class CC,CD,CU agent
    class YOU human
    class DB store

Command

membrain [options]

  --port <n>            port, default 7777
  --data <dir>          data directory, default ./data (holds memory.db + models)
  --no-open             don't open the browser on start
  --stdio               run as an MCP stdio server (for clients that spawn the process)
  --readonly-skills     block writes to agent skill files
  --host <ip>           bind a non-localhost interface; requires --i-understand-no-auth

The whole store is data/memory.db. Copy it and that's a backup. Delete it and it's gone.

Connect your agents

Claude Code, one line:

claude mcp add --transport http membrain http://127.0.0.1:7777/mcp

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json) or any Streamable HTTP client:

{ "mcpServers": { "membrain": { "url": "http://127.0.0.1:7777/mcp" } } }

Claude Desktop (stdio, spawns its own process against the same data dir):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "membrain": {
      "command": "membrain",
      "args": ["--stdio", "--data", "/path/to/your/data"]
    }
  }
}

Then try it: tell one agent "remember that my favorite editor is neovim", open the ledger, and watch the entry appear stamped with that agent's name. Ask a different agent tomorrow; it knows.

MCP tools

The ledger

The web UI is a paper-and-ink ledger with a night mode. What it does:

• Memories — hybrid search (sqlite-vec + FTS5 with reciprocal rank fusion), ledger, card, and topic views, filters by tag and by writer, multi-select, right-click context menu, and a drawer for reading and editing each entry.

• The clerk — a local Ollama (or a cloud model, see below) organizes the store into topics with live progress, drafts titles one entry at a time, summarizes any selection, and flags duplicate entries so you can strike them in one click.

• Proposal queue — every change the AI wants to make to a live memory is staged for your review first. Nothing is applied silently.

• Reviewed imports — drop a PDF, Markdown, or text file; it's distilled into candidate entries you edit and selectively file. Ollama down? The raw text imports anyway.

• Map — an interactive constellation of the people, projects, and tools in your store.

• Skills — edit your agents' SKILL.md files (in ~/.claude/skills and ~/.agents/skills) with a markdown preview.

• Agent import — pull the memory your agents already keep on disk into the ledger, tracked by content hash so nothing imports twice.

• Backups — a snapshot on every boot (keeps five), one-click snapshot downloads, portable JSON export and import.

• Settings — all of it configurable in the UI, including the AI provider.

The AI

By default the clerk uses a local Ollama if one is running. No GPU, or no Ollama? Open Settings and paste an API key for OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), OpenRouter, NVIDIA NIM, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. There's a test button.

The AI is optional. Memory itself — saving, searching, the MCP tools — runs entirely on the local embedding model and needs nothing.

Security

There is no auth, by design. The default bind is 127.0.0.1 and the docs assume it stays there. Anyone who can reach the port can read and write your memory, so never expose it on a public interface. Binding anything else requires an explicit --host <ip> --i-understand-no-auth, and should only ever point at a private network you trust (Tailscale, WireGuard).

Docker

docker build -t membrain .
docker run -p 127.0.0.1:7777:7777 -v membrain-data:/app/data membrain

Keep the port binding on 127.0.0.1. The container boundary is not an auth layer.

Development

npm install
npm run dev        # server via tsx
npm test           # vitest, 50 tests, no network
npm run build      # dist/server + dist/ui

Architecture and working rules live in CLAUDE.md; the product spec in docs/membrain-prd.md; agent connection details in docs/connect-agents.md.

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