fur-cli 1.7.0

Turn your AI chats into a durable, local-first diary. Save messages, attach notes, organize conversations, and stop losing context every time the model forgets you exist.
Documentation

FUR: AI Conversation Archiving and Retrieval System

FUR is a command-line system that transforms fragmented AI chats into structured, navigable, and fully searchable local archives.
Designed for researchers, developers, and writers who think with AI and need durable memory, clarity, and fast retrieval.

Why FUR exists

AI chats vanish.
They get buried, lost, unsearchable, and unrecoverable.
FUR turns those conversations into structured knowledge you can return to, reuse, and build on.

Overview

FUR stores every AI conversation in a clean local directory.
Each project (a diary) contains multiple conversations, and each conversation contains timestamped messages, metadata, trees, timelines, and optional Markdown attachments.

Core capabilities:

  • Local, transparent JSON storage
  • Full-project search (fur search)
  • Conversation tagging
  • Timelines and message trees
  • Jot mode and chat import
  • Markdown attachments and export
  • .frs conversation scripting
  • Project encryption (fur lock / fur unlock)
  • Fast, portable, offline

Installation

From crates.io

cargo install fur-cli

From source

cargo install --path . --force

Project Structure

.fur/
 ├── index.json            # master index
 ├── avatars.json          # persona aliases
 ├── lock.json             # encryption state
 ├── .lockcheck            # password verification
 ├── threads/              # per-conversation metadata
 └── messages/             # per-message storage

All files are plain JSON or Markdown.

Core Commands

Create and Write

Command Description
fur new <name> Create a conversation
fur jot "<text>" Add a short message
fur jot "<text>" --file notes.md Add a message with a Markdown attachment
fur chat [avatar] Add long-form content
fur msg Edit or delete a message

Navigate

Command Description
fur convo List conversations
fur convo <id> Switch active conversation
fur timeline Chronological timeline
fur tree Message tree
fur jump <message-id> Jump to a message

Organize

Command Description
fur convo --tag research Add a tag
fur convo --tag "deep learning" Add spaced tag (normalized)
fur convo --clear-tags Remove all tags
fur convo --delete <id> Permanently delete a conversation
fur clone [-i <id>] [--title <name>] Deep-clone a conversation (full copy w/ Markdown)
fur search <query> Full-project search
fur search "deep learning, optimization" Multi-query search

Export

Command Description
fur printed Export current thread to Markdown
fur save Export as .frs script
fur gsearch Scan all FUR journals on disk

Security

Command Description
fur lock Encrypt the entire diary
fur unlock Decrypt the diary
fur lock --hide Hide password input
fur unlock --hide Hide password input

FUR encrypts all conversations, messages, and Markdown attachments using AES-256-GCM.

Passwords are verified before unlocking to prevent corruption or mutation when an incorrect password is provided.

Example Workflow

# Create a project
mkdir research && cd research
fur new "GPT-5 Experiments"

# Add short notes
fur jot "Symbolic regression tests using KAN"

# Add longer content
fur chat gpt5

# Attach markdown notes
fur jot "Derivations" --file derivations.md

# Explore
fur convo
fur timeline
fur tree

# Search the entire archive
fur search "memory architecture"
fur search "deep, learning"

# Export
fur printed
fur save session.frs

Search System (v1.0)

FUR’s search engine inspects:

  • Message text
  • Attached Markdown files
  • All conversations across the diary
  • Flexible multi-query syntax
  • Contextual snippet extraction

Examples:

fur search "universal approximator"
fur search "symbolic regression, metadata"
fur search "deep, learning"

Tagging System (v1.0)

Tags are stored at the conversation level:

fur convo --tag research
fur convo --tag "neural forecasting"
fur convo --tag "macro-modeling, metadata-tools"
fur convo --clear-tags

Normalization:

  • lowercase
  • trimmed
  • spaces → hyphens

Example: Input: deep learning Stored as: deep-learning

Philosophy

FUR is not a chat client. It is a durable memory system for people who think and work with AI as part of their intellectual workflow.

Principles:

  • Local ownership
  • Transparent formats
  • Reliability
  • Portability
  • Speed
  • Long-term retrieval

Roadmap

Future enhancements include:

  • Advanced editors for message modification
  • Enhanced search output formats
  • New export templates
  • Cross-platform installers

License

MIT License