# Codemem
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[](https://codecov.io/gh/cogniplex/codemem)
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A standalone Rust memory engine for AI coding assistants. Single binary, zero runtime deps.
Codemem stores what your AI assistant discovers -- files read, symbols searched, edits made -- so repositories don't need re-exploring across sessions.
## Quick Start
### Install
```bash
# Shell (macOS/Linux)
# Homebrew
brew install cogniplex/tap/codemem
# Cargo
cargo install codemem-cli
```
Or download a prebuilt binary from [Releases](https://github.com/cogniplex/codemem/releases).
| macOS | ARM64 (Apple Silicon) | `codemem-macos-arm64.tar.gz` |
| Linux | x86_64 | `codemem-linux-amd64.tar.gz` |
| Linux | ARM64 | `codemem-linux-arm64.tar.gz` |
### Initialize
```bash
cd your-project
codemem init
```
Downloads the local embedding model (~440MB, one-time), registers lifecycle hooks, and configures the MCP server for your AI assistant. Automatically detects Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.
### That's it
Codemem now automatically captures context, injects prior knowledge at session start, and provides 28 MCP tools to your assistant.
### Map your codebase (optional)
Index your codebase to build a structural knowledge graph with call relationships, dependency edges, and PageRank-based importance scores:
```bash
codemem index
```
Then use the built-in [code-mapper agent](examples/agents/code-mapper.md) to analyze architecture, detect clusters, and store insights:
```
# In your AI assistant, the code-mapper agent runs these MCP tools:
find_important_nodes { "top_k": 20 } # Find most important symbols
find_related_groups { "resolution": 1.0 } # Detect architectural modules
get_symbol_graph { "qualified_name": "...", "depth": 2 } # Blast radius analysis
search_code { "query": "database connection" } # Semantic code search
```
See [`examples/agents/code-mapper.md`](examples/agents/code-mapper.md) for the full workflow.
## Key Features
- **Graph-vector hybrid architecture** -- HNSW vector search (768-dim) + petgraph knowledge graph with 25 algorithms (PageRank, Louvain, betweenness centrality, BFS/DFS, and more)
- **28 MCP tools** -- Memory CRUD, self-editing (refine/split/merge), graph traversal, code search, enrichment pipeline (14 enrichment types), consolidation, impact analysis, session context, pattern detection over JSON-RPC (legacy tool names still accepted)
- **4 lifecycle hooks** -- Automatic context injection (SessionStart), prompt capture (UserPromptSubmit), observation capture (PostToolUse), and session summaries (Stop)
- **9-component hybrid scoring** -- Vector similarity, graph strength, BM25 token overlap, temporal alignment, tag matching, importance, confidence, and recency
- **Code-aware indexing** -- tree-sitter structural extraction for 14 languages (Rust, TypeScript/JS/JSX, Python, Go, C/C++, Java, Ruby, C#, Kotlin, Swift, PHP, Scala, HCL/Terraform) with manifest parsing (Cargo.toml, package.json, go.mod, pyproject.toml)
- **Contextual embeddings** -- Metadata and graph context enriched before embedding for higher recall precision
- **Pluggable embeddings** -- Candle (local BERT, default), Ollama, or any OpenAI-compatible API
- **Cross-session intelligence** -- Pattern detection, file hotspot tracking, decision chains, and session continuity
- **Memory consolidation** -- 5 neuroscience-inspired cycles: Decay (power-law), Creative/REM (semantic KNN), Cluster (cosine + union-find), Summarize (LLM-powered), Forget
- **Self-editing memory** -- Refine, split, and merge memories with full provenance tracking via temporal graph edges
- **Operational metrics** -- Per-tool latency percentiles (p50/p95/p99), call counters, and gauges via `codemem_status` tool
- **Real-time file watching** -- notify-based watcher with <50ms debounce and .gitignore support
- **Persistent config** -- TOML-based configuration at `~/.codemem/config.toml`
- **Production hardened** -- Zero `.unwrap()` in production code, safe concurrency, versioned schema migrations
## How It Works
```mermaid
graph LR
A[AI Assistant] -->|SessionStart hook| B[codemem context]
A -->|PostToolUse hooks| C[codemem ingest]
A -->|Stop hook| E[codemem summarize]
A -->|MCP tools| D[codemem serve]
B -->|Inject context| A
C --> F[Storage + Vector + Graph]
D --> F
F -->|Recall| A
```
1. **Passively captures** what your AI reads, searches, and edits via lifecycle hooks
2. **Actively recalls** relevant context via MCP tools with 9-component hybrid scoring
3. **Injects context** at session start so your assistant picks up where it left off
### Hybrid scoring
| Vector similarity | 25% |
| Graph strength (PageRank + betweenness + degree + cluster) | 25% |
| BM25 token overlap | 15% |
| Temporal | 10% |
| Tags | 10% |
| Importance | 5% |
| Confidence | 5% |
| Recency | 5% |
Weights are configurable via `codemem config set scoring.<key> <value>` and persist in `~/.codemem/config.toml`.
## Configuration
### Embedding providers
By default, Codemem runs a local BERT model (no API key needed). To use a remote provider:
```bash
# Ollama (local server)
export CODEMEM_EMBED_PROVIDER=ollama
# OpenAI-compatible (works with Voyage AI, Together, Azure, etc.)
export CODEMEM_EMBED_PROVIDER=openai
export CODEMEM_EMBED_URL=https://api.voyageai.com/v1
export CODEMEM_EMBED_MODEL=voyage-3
export CODEMEM_EMBED_API_KEY=pa-...
```
### Observation compression
Optionally compress raw tool observations via LLM before storage:
```bash
export CODEMEM_COMPRESS_PROVIDER=ollama # or openai, anthropic
```
### Persistent config
Scoring weights, vector/graph tuning, and storage settings persist in `~/.codemem/config.toml`. Partial configs merge with defaults.
## MCP Tools
28 tools organized by category. See [MCP Tools Reference](docs/mcp-tools.md) for full API documentation. Legacy tool names from v0.7.0 are still accepted.
| Memory CRUD (7) | `store_memory`, `recall`, `delete_memory`, `associate_memories`, `refine_memory`, `split_memory`, `merge_memories` |
| Graph & Structure (7) | `graph_traverse`, `summary_tree`, `codemem_status`, `index_codebase`, `search_code`, `get_symbol_info`, `get_symbol_graph` |
| Graph Analysis (3) | `find_important_nodes`, `find_related_groups`, `get_cross_repo` |
| Consolidation & Patterns (3) | `consolidate`, `detect_patterns`, `get_decision_chain` |
| Namespace (3) | `list_namespaces`, `namespace_stats`, `delete_namespace` |
| Session & Context (2) | `session_checkpoint`, `session_context` |
| Enrichment (3) | `enrich_codebase`, `analyze_codebase`, `enrich_git_history` |
## CLI
```
codemem init # Initialize project (model + hooks + MCP)
codemem search # Search memories
codemem stats # Database statistics
codemem serve # Start MCP server (JSON-RPC stdio)
codemem index # Index codebase with tree-sitter
codemem consolidate # Run consolidation cycles
codemem watch # Real-time file watcher
codemem export/import # Backup and restore (JSONL, JSON, CSV, Markdown)
codemem sessions # Session management (list, start, end)
codemem doctor # Health checks on installation
codemem config # Get/set configuration values
codemem migrate # Run pending schema migrations
```
See [CLI Reference](docs/cli-reference.md) for full usage.
## Performance
| HNSW search k=10 (100K vectors) | < 2ms |
| Embedding (single sentence) | < 50ms |
| Embedding (cache hit) | < 0.01ms |
| Graph BFS depth=2 | < 1ms |
| Hook ingest (Read) | < 200ms |
## Documentation
- [Architecture](docs/architecture.md) -- System design, data flow diagrams, storage schema
- [MCP Tools Reference](docs/mcp-tools.md) -- All 28 tools with parameters and examples
- [CLI Reference](docs/cli-reference.md) -- All 18 commands
- [Comparison](docs/comparison.md) -- vs Mem0, Zep/Graphiti, Letta, claude-mem, and more
## Building from Source
```bash
git clone https://github.com/cogniplex/codemem.git
cd codemem
cargo build --release # Optimized binary at target/release/codemem
cargo test --workspace # Run all 415 tests
cargo bench # Criterion benchmarks
```
12-crate Cargo workspace. See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for development guidelines.
## Research and Inspirations
Codemem builds on ideas from several research papers, blog posts, and open-source projects.
<details>
<summary>Papers</summary>
| [HippoRAG](https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14831) | NeurIPS 2024 | Neurobiologically-inspired long-term memory using LLMs + knowledge graphs + Personalized PageRank. Up to 20% improvement on multi-hop QA. |
| [From RAG to Memory](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.14802) | ICML 2025 | Non-parametric continual learning for LLMs (HippoRAG 2). 7% improvement in associative memory tasks. |
| [A-MEM](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.12110) | 2025 | Zettelkasten-inspired agentic memory with dynamic indexing, linking, and memory evolution. |
| [MemGPT](https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.08560) | ICLR 2024 | OS-inspired hierarchical memory tiers for LLMs -- self-editing memory via function calls. |
| [MELODI](https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.03156) | Google DeepMind 2024 | Hierarchical short-term + long-term memory compression. 8x memory footprint reduction. |
| [ReadAgent](https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.09727) | Google DeepMind 2024 | Human-inspired reading agent with episodic gist memories for 20x context extension. |
| [LoCoMo](https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.17753) | ACL 2024 | Benchmark for evaluating very long-term conversational memory (300-turn, 9K-token conversations). |
| [Mem0](https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.19413) | 2025 | Production-ready AI agents with scalable long-term memory. 26% accuracy improvement over OpenAI Memory. |
| [Zep](https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.13956) | 2025 | Temporal knowledge graph architecture for agent memory with bi-temporal data model. |
| [Memory in the Age of AI Agents](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.13564) | Survey 2024 | Comprehensive taxonomy of agent memory: factual, experiential, working memory. |
| [AriGraph](https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.04363) | 2024 | Episodic + semantic memory in knowledge graphs for LLM agent exploration. |
</details>
<details>
<summary>Blog posts and techniques</summary>
- [Contextual Retrieval](https://www.anthropic.com/news/contextual-retrieval) (Anthropic, 2024) -- Prepending chunk-specific context before embedding reduces failed retrievals by 49%. Codemem adapts this as template-based contextual enrichment using metadata + graph relationships.
- [Contextual Embeddings Cookbook](https://platform.claude.com/cookbook/capabilities-contextual-embeddings-guide) (Anthropic) -- Implementation guide for contextual embeddings with prompt caching.
</details>
<details>
<summary>Open-source projects</summary>
- [AutoMem](https://automem.ai/) -- Graph-vector hybrid memory achieving 90.53% on LoCoMo. Direct inspiration for Codemem's hybrid scoring and consolidation cycles.
- [claude-mem](https://github.com/thedotmack/claude-mem) -- Persistent memory compression via Claude Agent SDK. Inspired lifecycle hooks and observation compression.
- [Mem0](https://github.com/mem0ai/mem0) -- Production memory layer for AI (47K+ stars). Informed memory type design.
- [Zep/Graphiti](https://github.com/getzep/graphiti) -- Temporal knowledge graph engine. Inspired graph persistence model.
- [Letta](https://github.com/letta-ai/letta) (MemGPT) -- Stateful AI agents with self-editing memory.
- [Cognee](https://github.com/topoteretes/cognee) -- Knowledge graph memory via triplet extraction.
- [claude-context](https://github.com/zilliztech/claude-context) -- AST-aware code search via MCP (by Zilliz).
</details>
See [docs/comparison.md](docs/comparison.md) for detailed feature comparisons.
## License
[Apache 2.0](LICENSE)