mnemo

Local‑first memory for AI coding agents — typed, deterministic, project‑scoped.

What it is

A persistent memory layer for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, any MCP client) that remembers decisions, bugs, progress, and rules across sessions, so you don't re‑explain your project every time.

• local‑first — the embedder and the optional recall model run on your machine; external model providers are a possible option, not a requirement;

• deterministic — a write is a local embedding + insert, with no LLM in the loop. mnemo never runs a model over your memories to extract, merge, or summarize them, and nothing rewrites them in the background; a stored memory changes only on an explicit supersede / topic_key signal;

• on‑demand — nothing runs in the background; the shared service starts under load and exits after an idle grace period;

• no Docker, no external DB — the whole store is one process over SQLite + sqlite-vec + FTS5;

• typed & project‑scoped — decision / progress / rule / learning / research / working-notes, scoped per project, with first‑class cross‑project search on request (scope=all);

• small MCP surface — one write (remember) and four reads (search by meaning, browse by filter, get by id/topic_key, recall for an LLM‑synthesized answer), plus delete and project tools.

Related MCP server: Agent Memory Bridge

How writes work

A write is a local embedding + insert — no LLM on the path. Many memory tools run an LLM on every write to extract or summarize what was said, and some keep rewriting it in the background; mnemo doesn't, so what you store is what you get back. The only LLM in the system is the opt‑in recall read tool: it loads a small model on demand to synthesize an answer over retrieved memories, then unloads it, and it never changes what's stored (recall is gated behind an explicit force flag).

Retrieval quality

Retrieval is tested in‑repo (tools/eval/) against public benchmarks (LoCoMo, LongMemEval) and a real project‑fact set, where it compares favorably with other open‑source memory servers on Recall@k and abstention.

Install & use

See docs/13-usage.md for install, the CLI, and one‑command MCP client setup (mnemo setup). The full tool surface is in docs/05-mcp-api.md.