MemoFS

Open-source, file-first memory runtime for AI agents.

What is MemoFS?

File-first memory runtime for AI agents. Store, recall, and synchronize memory using plain files on disk — local-first by default, with optional cloud sync.

Most AI memory systems are database-first, vendor-locked, hard to inspect, and hard to version. MemoFS inverts that: your agent's memory lives as Markdown and JSONL under a .memofs/ directory you can cat, git diff, and roll back.

.memofs/
├── config.json       # Workspace settings and engine routing
├── manifest.json     # Asset registry tracking and hashes
├── memory/
│   ├── core.md       # Durable, project-wide facts (Markdown)
│   └── notes.md      # Timestamped notes and logs (Markdown)
├── events/
│   └── conversations.jsonl # Chronological interactions for recall
├── graph/
│   ├── nodes.jsonl   # Entities extracted from memory
│   └── edges.jsonl   # Relational connections
├── archive/          # Cold storage for deprecated memories
│   └── <id>.json     # Full-fidelity archived memory records
└── snapshots/
    └── snap_123.json # Versioned restore checkpoints

Related MCP server: contextforge-mcp

Quick Start

MemoFS serves two primary paths: users running AI agents day-to-day and engineers building custom agents & runtimes.

Path A: For Users of AI Agents (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cline, etc.)

Initialize MemoFS in any project in under a minute. The CLI creates .memofs/, sets up project rules, pre-wires platform lifecycle hooks, and configures the local MCP server:

npx @memofs/cli init

Your agent now automatically inherits durable memory across sessions — zero manual prompting required.

Path B: For Builders of AI Agents & Runtimes

Embed the runtime directly into your TypeScript or Node.js agent architecture:

npm install @memofs/core

import { MemoFS } from "@memofs/core";
import { createNodeFsMemoryStore } from "@memofs/core/node-fs";

// Initialize a Node.js filesystem-backed memory store
const store = createNodeFsMemoryStore({
  rootDir: ".",
});

// Create the unified client
const memo = new MemoFS({
  store,
  projectId: "my-app",
  mode: "local",
});

// Read project-wide core memory (core.md)
const core = await memo.core.read();
console.log(core);

// Record a durable note (notes.md)
await memo.notes.record({
  content: "User prefers TypeScript with ESM modules.",
  kind: "preference",
});

// Recall works offline (lexical BM25 + fuzzy matching) with zero config
const hits = await memo.recall("TypeScript configuration");

To upgrade to semantic vector search, plug in an embedder adapter like OpenAI (@memofs/adapter-openai) or Voyage AI (@memofs/adapter-voyage). For zero-API-key local vector search, enable the ONNX embedder (@memofs/adapter-transformers) to run embeddings completely in-process.

Architecture

Your App / Agent / MCP client
        │
        ▼
    MemoFS   (local-first runtime)
      ├─ .read() / .write() / .recall()
      ├─ .snapshot.create() / .restore()
      ├─ AgentFS  (lease-locking & virtual paths)
      └─ .sync *  (Cloud sync pushes and pulls)

   read() / write() / recall() — core client methods
        │
        ▼
   .memofs/   (plain files on disk)
     ├─ memory/core.md      ├─ memory/notes.md
     ├─ events/*.jsonl      ├─ graph/{nodes,edges}.jsonl
     └─ snapshots/  manifest.json
        │   git-friendly, inspectable, versionable
        ▼   (optional)
   MemoFS Cloud

The runtime resolves configuration from constructor options → env vars → .memofs/config.json. Three runtime modes are supported: local (filesystem-only, default), hybrid (local + cloud sync with read/write policies), and memory (in-memory volatile, ideal for tests).

Memory Intelligence

• Project & Source Anchoring — bind memories to project files, data schemas, byte hashes, and symbol paths; query-time drift detection automatically demotes stale knowledge when assets change.

• Agent Behavior Enforcement — deterministic push hooks across 9+ agent tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, etc.) inject active memory context at session start and preserve it across context compactions.

• Causal Lineage & Action Receipts — traverse decision provenance (memofs why <id>) backed by append-only action receipts with task correlation (taskRef).

• Ephemeral Coordination Stream — real-time cross-agent pub/sub (stream.jsonl) with typed coordination events (agent.heartbeat, resource.intent, task.status, agent.hint) filtered out of durable recall.

• Static Memory Linter — memofs lint CI/CD rule pipeline detecting broken references, contradictory assertions, and broken provenance links.

• Cognitive Decay & Cold Archive — kind-specific expiry thresholds transition old memories to unverified status before semantic archiving.

• Session Outcomes & AgentFS — isolated workspace scratchpads with success / failure / aborted outcome gates governing durable memory promotion and cleanup.

Packages

MemoFS is structured as a monorepo containing 16 published public packages under the @memofs/ scope. The CLI ships as @memofs/cli and installs the memofs command.

Core Engine & Servers

Providers & Adapters

Development Tooling

Open Source vs. MemoFS Cloud

The core runtime is open source (MIT) and fully functional locally. You do not need a cloud account to run MemoFS.

MemoFS Cloud is the memory plane for your agents: it keeps every machine, teammate, and agent on the same memory, and gives you a dashboard to see and govern it.

Join the Cloud waitlist →

Repository Structure

memofs/
├── apps/
│   └── docs/         # React Router & Fumadocs documentation (docs.memofs.dev)
├── packages/         # 16 published @memofs/* packages
├── tooling/          # Private @repo/* workspace build packages
├── benchmarks/       # Workspace benchmarking suite
├── examples/         # Runnable examples
└── package.json

Workspace Commands

Run these command tasks from the repository root:

# Install all dependencies
pnpm install

# Build all packages and applications
pnpm build

# Run TypeScript compilation checks
pnpm typecheck

# Run unit tests across all packages
pnpm test

# Run code style and lint checks (Biome)
pnpm check

# Fix linting and formatting issues automatically
pnpm format-and-lint:fix

# Run local documentation dev server
pnpm docs:dev

# Build documentation locally
pnpm docs:build

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for details on formatting, testing, and pull requests. For roadmap targets, see ROADMAP.md.

For security reports, refer to SECURITY.md — do not open public issues for security vulnerabilities.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.