Engram

An engram is the hypothetical physical trace of memory in neural tissue — the biochemical change that encodes what we've learned.

Local-first cognitive memory system that transforms raw LLM conversation history into structured, consolidated knowledge. Unlike traditional conversation search (which treats sessions as documents to retrieve), Engram mimics human memory architecture: episodic memories are captured, consolidated into semantic knowledge during "dream state" processing, and emergent connections surface through graph analysis — much like how a Zettelkasten's backlinks reveal Maps of Content that no individual note anticipated.

Designed as an MCP server for Claude Code and other LLM agents, with CLI and web visualization interfaces.

Install & first run

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or newer (node --version)
• macOS, Linux, or Windows for the CLI, MCP server, and web visualizer. Scheduled background consolidation ships an installer for each (launchd, systemd user timer, Task Scheduler); see the platform matrix below.
• Claude Code if you want engram sync to ingest your conversation history from ~/.claude/projects
• At least one LLM provider for extraction and dream consolidation (see Configuration). Search, remember, and the web visualizer work without one.

Quick start — three commands

npx @devinmlowe/engram preflight    # is this node/platform/arch/libc covered by prebuilt native modules? (fix per OS if not)
npm install -g @devinmlowe/engram   # puts `engram` on your PATH; the postinstall hook runs the same preflight
engram setup                        # doctor → init → sync (asked) → register every host present → install the three services → doctor --fix → one real extraction → summary

engram setup walks a bare install to running and ends by telling you which LLM tier did the extraction (extraction smoke: tier=ollama memories=3). Every step prints what it did and the manual command it stands for, so nothing is hidden. It installs all three services — the MCP HTTP daemon, the nightly dream timer and the web visualizer (port 3001, loopback) — by default (decision #62); --no-daemons or --daemons=mcp,dream narrows that, --host claude narrows host registration, --no-sync / --sync skip or force indexing, --no-smoke skips the extraction, --yes answers every question for scripts (the Linux loginctl enable-linger prompt is never implied), --json prints the result. With no LLM provider configured the dream timer is still installed and setup ends with [warn] dream timer installed but no LLM tier is reachable … naming the variables to set — exit 0; only a required doctor failure (or a failed init) exits 1. Later, engram doctor --fix repairs whatever is red — the service env file, a model cache inside node_modules, a missing Ollama model (asked first), a stopped MCP daemon, an unregistered host — printing the manual equivalent of each; a second run says nothing to fix. See CLI and docs/api-reference.md.

The same, by hand

engram mcp install claude           # registers engram with Claude Code (codex | cursor | hermes | --all); restart the host

engram mcp install <host> edits the host's own config for you — ~/.claude.json (--project: .mcp.json), ~/.codex/config.toml, ~/.cursor/mcp.json, or deploys the Hermes plugin — atomically, with the previous content kept in <file>.bak, never touching other servers, and re-running is a no-op. It prefers the HTTP daemon (http://127.0.0.1:9907/mcp) when GET /health answers and falls back to stdio (node …/dist/interfaces/cli/index.js mcp, which bridges to the daemon itself once one runs), printing which and why; --transport http|stdio overrides, --dry-run shows the path and diff. A daemon token is referenced as an environment variable (${ENGRAM_MCP_TOKEN} / bearer_token_env_var / ${env:ENGRAM_MCP_TOKEN}), never written; engram mcp status reports every host, whether it points at this install, whether its daemon answers and whether the variable resolves. See Registering hosts below.

From source

git clone https://github.com/devinmlowe/engram.git
cd engram
node scripts/preflight.cjs   # optional: the native-dependency verdict before anything is installed
npm install          # runs the same preflight as postinstall, then builds via the "prepare" script
npm link             # puts `engram` on your PATH (or run `node dist/interfaces/cli/index.js` directly)

Either way, continue with engram setup — or step by step:

engram preflight     # prebuilt / compiled locally / unsupported per native module, with the fix for this OS
engram doctor        # node, platform/arch, native modules, model cache, ollama tier, llm providers, data dir, env file, install path, mcp daemon, hosts, extraction smoke — all [ok]?
engram doctor --fix  # apply the known remediations (env file, durable model cache, ollama pull with confirmation, start a stopped daemon, register a host) and re-check
engram init          # creates engram.db in the data dir (default ~/.local/share/engram; see Configuration) and downloads the embedding model
engram sync          # index conversations from ~/.claude/projects (optional)
engram search "what did I decide about caching"
engram mcp install --all   # from a checkout: register every host present (~/.claude, ~/.codex, ~/.cursor, ~/.hermes)
scripts/install-mcp-daemon.sh install; scripts/install-daemon.sh install; scripts/install-visualizer.sh install   # the three services (what setup runs)

engram doctor ends with an extraction smoke line: one real extraction over your most recent conversation (or a bundled fixture when nothing is indexed yet) under a 60 s budget with a capped input, reporting tier=<ollama|openai|openrouter|anthropic> memories=N or every tier's reason when none answers. Memories it extracts from a real conversation are written like any other, stamped source=smoke (find them with engram memories list, remove them with forget); the fixture is never written. --no-smoke skips it; --strict exits 1 when any line is not [ok] (CI).

First run downloads models once. engram init (or the first search) pulls several hundred MB of model weights into ~/.local/share/engram/models (or $ENGRAM_MODEL_CACHE_DIR / $HF_HOME/hub), where they survive reinstalls and upgrades; see Model cache. Set ENGRAM_RERANK_ENABLED=false to skip the reranker model.

Install as a Claude Code plugin (recommended)

No clone, no absolute paths. In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add devinmlowe/engram
/plugin install engram@engram

This repo is its own marketplace (.claude-plugin/marketplace.json); the plugin (.claude-plugin/plugin.json) runs the published npm package as a stdio MCP server — npx -y @devinmlowe/engram@<version> mcp, version pinned to the release — and adds the /engram:recall, /engram:remember, /engram:explore-graph, /engram:reflect and /engram:engram-connect commands (bundled from commands/; their tools are mcp__plugin_engram_engram__<tool>). /mcp should list engram with 16 tools; the first recall downloads the embedding model once (see the note above). The plugin updates through the marketplace (/plugin update engram@engram after a release); engram update keeps handling the CLI, daemons and the Hermes plugin.

The very first start is slow. The first npx run installs the package and its prebuilt native modules into the npm cache — once per pinned version, then it is a cache hit. If Claude Code reports the server timed out during that install, raise its startup timeout (milliseconds): MCP_TIMEOUT=120000 claude. Two warm paths: npm install -g @devinmlowe/engram first, so the package (and engram doctor/engram init) is already on the machine; or run the HTTP daemon (scripts/install-mcp-daemon.sh install, below) — engram mcp then bridges to it and the host process never opens the database or loads the model (see Transports).

Registering hosts (engram mcp install)

engram mcp install claude            # ~/.claude.json  (--project: ./.mcp.json)
engram mcp install codex             # ~/.codex/config.toml  (--project: ./.codex/config.toml)
engram mcp install cursor            # ~/.cursor/mcp.json  (--project: ./.cursor/mcp.json)
engram mcp install hermes            # deploys interfaces/hermes-plugin to ~/.hermes (+ profiles that already have it)
engram mcp install --all --dry-run   # every host whose config dir exists; print path + unified diff, write nothing
engram mcp status                    # registered? this install? daemon answering? ENGRAM_MCP_TOKEN resolving?
engram mcp uninstall codex           # removes only the engram entry; <file>.bak keeps the previous content