Mnela

Your second brain becomes an MCP server, in one click.

Install · Features · Quick start · Docs

What is Mnela?

Self-hosted personal-knowledge OS. Drop in your ChatGPT / Claude.ai exports, Obsidian vaults, voice notes, PDFs — Mnela parses them, links them into a knowledge graph, and exposes everything as an MCP server so Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, ChatGPT and any other MCP client can read and write into your second brain.

• Postgres is the source of truth. A markdown vault is generated as an export.

• AI calls route through a pluggable provider layer (ADR-0049). The built-in Claude Code (CLI) subprocess works out of the box with a Claude Max subscription — no API key required. Anthropic API and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, DeepSeek, Grok, Gemini-via-OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio) can be added in /admin/system → AI Providers.

• Falls back to Dumb Mode (FTS-only) if no provider is reachable, so the UI never goes dark.

Related MCP server: mybrain

Features

• Drag-and-drop ingestion — ChatGPT/Claude.ai exports, Obsidian vaults, PDFs, Office docs, voice notes, images. Streaming ZIP parser handles multi-GB archives. Folder watcher picks up files dropped into ${MNELA_DATA_DIR}/dropbox/.

• Auto knowledge graph — every document is enriched by your chosen LLM; entities, relationships, decisions, and confidence-scored link suggestions land in the graph. Low-confidence proposals queue in Review for human triage.

• Ask Brain — chat over your vault with inline citations. SSE-streamed answer + tool-call timeline. Pin any Q&A turn to promote it to a Document and feed it back into enrichment.

• Auto-suggested projects — post-ingest detector groups related documents into project candidates; accept or dismiss in /projects?status=suggested.

• MCP server — bearer-token-authenticated MCP host (apps/mcp); connect from Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, ChatGPT, anything that speaks MCP.

• Telegram bot — second canonical client. Multi-modal turn bundling: voice + photo + text in one TG thread becomes one /search/ask call.

• One settings sheet — /admin/system is the only admin page. Provider routing, ingestion limits, suggestion gates, Telegram config, API tokens — all hot-reloadable via Restart Services (no process restart).

Install (one command on a fresh VPS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SmartDogg/mnela/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

The script auto-installs Docker if missing, asks for domain / IP / Cloudflare Tunnel choice, generates /opt/mnela/.env with random secrets, builds the six service images locally (sequentially, ~15–30 min on a 4-core VPS), applies Prisma migrations, brings the stack up, and offers an inline claude login for Claude Max users. For IP-mode installs it also mints a self-signed TLS cert into the Caddy volume before bringing Caddy up.

After install, open /setup, create the first admin, then walk through the wizard (config / Claude / modules / token). If you skipped Claude Max during install you can sign in later via docker exec -it mnela-orchestrator claude login, or add an API provider under /admin/system → AI Providers.

Backup / restore: mnela backup and mnela restore <file> round-trip everything including the encrypted provider keystore.

Full guide → DEPLOYMENT.md

Quick start (local dev)

git clone https://github.com/SmartDogg/mnela && cd mnela
cp .env.example .env       # edit POSTGRES_PASSWORD, REDIS_PASSWORD, COOKIE_SECRET
pnpm install
docker compose -f infra/docker/docker-compose.yml up -d postgres redis
pnpm --filter @mnela/db db:migrate
pnpm --filter @mnela/db db:seed
pnpm dev                   # api :3000 · web :3001 · worker · orchestrator
# open http://localhost:3001/setup

Requires Node 22 LTS, pnpm 10+, Docker. Optional: Claude Code CLI for the default built-in provider.

Configuration model

Two tiers, deliberately split:

Provider API keys and the Telegram bot token are AES-256-GCM-encrypted in the database — never put them in .env.

Architecture (one-line tour)

Documentation

• Operators

  • DEPLOYMENT.md — fresh-VPS install, backup/restore, Cloudflare Tunnel

  • TROUBLESHOOTING.md — typical failures and fixes

  • docs/EXPORT_GUIDES/ — exporting from ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Obsidian

  • docs/MCP_INTEGRATION.md — connecting MCP clients

• Contributors

  • CONTRIBUTING.md — how to propose changes

  • CLAUDE.md — developer guide for Claude Code working inside this repo

  • docs/dev/DECISIONS.md — architectural decisions log (ADRs)

  • docs/dev/PLAN.md — phase plan and acceptance criteria

  • docs/dev/QUESTIONS.md — open + resolved questions log

  • docs/dev/ORIGINAL_TZ.md — original technical spec, preserved as historical north star

• Security

  • SECURITY.md — vulnerability disclosure policy

License

MIT — © 2026 SmartDogg