Skip to main content
Glama
byte5ai

palaia

Official
by byte5ai
             .__         .__
___________  |  | _____  |__|____
\____ \__  \ |  | \__  \ |  \__  \
|  |_> > __ \|  |__/ __ \|  |/ __ \_
|   __(____  /____(____  /__(____  /
|__|       \/          \/        \/

The Knowledge System for AI Agent Teams

Your agents forget. palaia doesn't.

CI PyPI Python 3.9+ License: MIT OpenClaw Plugin


What palaia Does

AI agents are stateless by default. Every session starts from scratch — no memory of past decisions, no shared knowledge between agents, no context that survives a restart.

palaia gives your agents a persistent, searchable knowledge store. They save what they learn. They find it again by meaning, not keyword. They share it across tools and sessions — automatically.


Related MCP server: AgentBase

What palaia Is Not

  • Not a chatbot or prompt manager

  • Not a cloud service (everything runs locally)

  • Not a vector database you manage yourself (it manages itself)

  • Not limited to one tool — works across OpenClaw, Claude Code, and any MCP client


What You Get

Capability

What it means

Agents remember across sessions

Knowledge survives restarts, tool switches, and team handoffs

Find anything by meaning

Hybrid BM25 + vector search across 6 embedding providers

Zero-config local setup

SQLite with native SIMD vector search — no separate database process

Works everywhere via MCP

OpenClaw and Claude Code: paste a prompt, done. Claude Desktop, Cursor, any MCP host: manual config.

Multi-agent ready

Private, team, and public scopes — agents see what they should

Agent isolation

--isolated mode for strict per-agent memory boundaries

Crash-safe by default

SQLite WAL mode survives power loss, kills, OOM

Fast

Embed server keeps model in RAM — CLI queries ~1.5s, MCP/Plugin <500ms

WebUI memory explorer

palaia ui — browse, search, create entries in the browser. Localhost only.

Scales when needed

Swap to PostgreSQL + pgvector for distributed teams, no code changes


Comparison

Feature

palaia

claude-mem

Mem0

OpenClaw Built-in

Local-first

Yes

Yes

Yes (optional cloud)

Yes

Cross-tool (MCP)

Yes (any MCP client)

No (Claude Code only)

No

No (OpenClaw only)

Native Vector Search

sqlite-vec / pgvector

ChromaDB (separate)

FAISS (embedded)

No

Structured Types

memory/process/task

Yes (6 categories)

No

No

Multi-Agent Scopes

private/team/public

Partial (session isolation)

Yes (user/agent/run)

No

Smart Tiering

HOT/WARM/COLD

No

No

No

Embedding Providers

6 (configurable)

1 (fixed)

Cloud

External (5+)

Open Source

MIT

AGPL-3.0

Apache 2.0

MIT

Crash-safe (WAL)

Yes

Yes (WAL)

Partial (SQLite, not primary)

No


Install

Both OpenClaw and Claude Code support fully autonomous setup. Copy the prompt below and paste it directly into your agent's chat — the agent handles everything from there.

OpenClaw — copy this prompt into your OpenClaw agent:

Install or update the palaia memory skill from ClawHub to the latest version (even if already present). Read the SKILL.md completely and follow it step by step. Run palaia init, then palaia doctor --fix and resolve all warnings — don't stop until the doctor report is clean. Set up completely.

Claude Code — copy this prompt into Claude Code:

Install palaia for persistent memory in this Claude Code environment.
Run: pip install "palaia[mcp,fastembed]" && palaia init && palaia setup claude-code --global
Then tell me to restart Claude Code so the MCP tools become active.
After restart, read the CLAUDE.md and follow its instructions.

See Claude Code Integration for the full guide.

Manual Setup

OpenClaw:

pip install "palaia[fastembed]"
palaia init
openclaw plugins install @byte5ai/palaia
palaia doctor --fix

Then activate the memory slot in your OpenClaw config:

// openclaw.json
{
  plugins: {
    slots: { memory: "palaia" }
  }
}

Restart the gateway: openclaw gateway restart

Claude Code:

pip install "palaia[mcp,fastembed]"
palaia init
palaia setup claude-code --global

Restart Claude Code after setup.

Other MCP Clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor)

pip install "palaia[mcp,fastembed]"
palaia init

Add to your MCP config:

  • Claude Desktop: ~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json

  • Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "palaia": {
      "command": "palaia-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Note: These clients require manual MCP configuration. palaia provides the memory tools, but you need to instruct the agent yourself.

Optional Extras

pip install "palaia[curate]"       # Knowledge curation
pip install "palaia[postgres]"     # PostgreSQL + pgvector backend

Note: palaia[fastembed] already includes sqlite-vec for native vector search and the embed-server auto-starts on first query. No manual optimization needed.

Upgrading? palaia upgrade — auto-detects install method, preserves extras, runs doctor.

Quick Start

palaia write "API rate limit is 100 req/min" \
  --type memory --tags api,limits                   # Save knowledge
palaia query "what's the rate limit"                # Find it by meaning
palaia status                                        # Check health

Documentation

Document

Description

Getting Started

Installation, first steps, quick tour

Storage & Search

SQLite, PostgreSQL, sqlite-vec, pgvector, embedding providers

Claude Code

Claude Code integration, setup command, paste-this prompt

MCP Server

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, tool reference, read-only mode

Embed Server

Performance optimization, socket transport, daemon mode

Multi-Agent

Scopes, agent identity, team setup, aliases

Configuration

All config keys, embedding chain, tuning

CLI Reference

All commands with flags and examples

Migration Guide

Import from other systems, flat-file migration

Architecture

Module map, data flows, design decisions

SKILL.md

Agent-facing documentation (what agents read)

Contributing

Versioning, release process, development setup

Changelog

Release history


Development

git clone https://github.com/byte5ai/palaia.git
cd palaia
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

MIT — (c) 2026 byte5 GmbH

A
license - permissive license
-
quality - not tested
A
maintenance

Maintenance

Maintainers
2dResponse time
1dRelease cycle
46Releases (12mo)
Commit activity
Issues opened vs closed

Resources

Unclaimed servers have limited discoverability.

Looking for Admin?

If you are the server author, to access and configure the admin panel.

Latest Blog Posts

MCP directory API

We provide all the information about MCP servers via our MCP API.

curl -X GET 'https://glama.ai/api/mcp/v1/servers/byte5ai/palaia'

If you have feedback or need assistance with the MCP directory API, please join our Discord server