WhiteMagic

A local-first memory layer for MCP agents.

WhiteMagic gives an AI agent durable project memory over MCP: record important context, find it after restart, and carry useful decisions into the next session — without sending your memory store to any hosted service.

You are an agent reading this repo? Start with skill.md (five-minute operational onboarding) and llms.txt (machine-readable index).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "whitemagic": {
      "command": "wm",
      "args": ["serve", "--profile", "curated"]
    }
  }
}

Hosted lanes (read-only beta)

• Remote MCP — https://mcp.whitemagic.dev/mcp (streamable-http): read-only recall over a curated public corpus, keyless discovery, free evaluation keys, no SLA. Your local store is never uploaded.
• Receipt verification API — https://api.whitemagic.dev: stateless POST /verify for continuity-receipt bundles (/health and /info keyless).

Status

WhiteMagic v9. Release channel: open alpha — public alpha for MCP agents. The version number is a compatibility signal; the channel is an evidence claim (beta and stable each require their own exit conditions, not a version milestone).

• Install path: Linux x86-64, Linux arm64, and macOS arm64 — install-gated. Linux ships fully static (musl) builds with no glibc or distribution requirements, selected automatically by the installer; dynamically linked builds remain available for glibc 2.39+ hosts, and releases also publish gzipped distributables (~58% smaller) that the installer prefers on slow links. macOS arm64 installs through the same checksum-verified installer (hardware smoke evidence in issue #2). macOS x86_64 and Windows x86_64 binaries are published in every release but their install paths are not gated yet.
• Support window: the current minor and the previous minor on the install-gated lines (Linux x86-64, Linux arm64, macOS arm64) receive fixes; older minors are archival. macOS x86_64 and Windows remain published but unsupported — see SECURITY.md.
• Trusted, local-first, single-user operation with Landlock containment and firebreak guards.

What it does

The supported alpha contract:

• trusted, local, single-user operation;
• explicit MCP routes for dependable behavior;
• durable memory creation and lexical search without an external model;
• session record, replay, and cross-session continuity;
• a complete backup, verification, and restore path;
• no telemetry by default and no required WhiteMagic cloud service;
• truthful degradation when optional models or embeddings are unavailable.

Install

Download the binary and its checksum from the latest release, then (substituting your platform's artifact name — for example wm-linux-x86_64-musl, wm-linux-aarch64-musl, or wm-macos-aarch64; the .gz variants decompress with gunzip -c <file>.gz > <file>):

sha256sum -c wm-linux-x86_64-musl.sha256
chmod +x wm-linux-x86_64-musl
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin && mv wm-linux-x86_64-musl ~/.local/bin/wm

If ~/.local/bin is not on your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Or use the install script (resolves the latest release, picks the right artifact for your platform, and verifies the checksum automatically):

curl -fsSL https://www.whitemagic.dev/install.sh?ref=readme | sh

Other channels

npx whitemagic-mcp serve                     # npm (no global install)
cargo install whitemagic                     # crates.io
docker run -i lbailey94/whitemagic:9 serve   # Docker Hub

Adoption snapshot (2026-09-13): 759 npm downloads/30d · 1,846 Docker pulls · 67 crates.io downloads. Package installs are independent of the installer and grew without any website CTA — the memory layer chooses its own doors.

Verify the installation, activate it, and see the product work end to end:

wm --version    # wm 9.2.9
wm grimoire     # guided first-run: host, memory layer, agent wiring, vocabulary, continuity
wm connect      # dry run: list detected MCP clients and the exact change
wm connect --write  # apply, with timestamped backups

wm grimoire proves the environment and previews client wiring; it ends by telling you activation itself needs wm connect --write. wm quickstart is the optional 30-second two-process continuity demo on an isolated store, and wm doctor is a troubleshooting tool, not a setup step — run wm doctor --deep when something looks wrong.

Everyday commands

wm status         # is WhiteMagic ready? (store, counts, index, last backup)
wm selftest       # ~1-second end-to-end invariant check (throwaway store)
wm connect        # wire every detected MCP client (dry run first; add --write)
wm setup          # list clients / per-client setup (wm setup <client> --write)
wm update check   # is a newer signed release available? (notify-only)

Connect an MCP client

Point any MCP client at:

wm serve --profile curated

The server communicates over stdio and exposes the wm meta-tool plus a discrete lifecycle catalog — 30 MCP tools in the curated profile: the 15 CRUD/lifecycle aliases (memory.create/search/read/list/hybrid_recall/update/ revisions/ingest, session.start/record/checkpoint/continuity, receipts.emit/verify) and 15 read-only handles (memory.count/stats/tags/aggregate/associations/batch_read/query/filter/ nearby/vector.search, session.list/recall/replay, gnosis.status/explain). Read-only servers (--readonly) advertise the 23 read-only entries only — write routes are refused there anyway. The wm meta-tool provides explicit access to the full curated route catalog (69 routes) without expanding the client's schema. Direct handles for the common lifecycle calls, with NLU routing still available. Explicit routing is the dependable contract:

• wm(route="memory.create", args={...})
• wm(route="session.start", args={...})
• wm(route="tools.list", args={})

--profile curated selects the supported memory/session surface and is the default when no profile is specified. Pass --profile full for the research archive surface (see below).

Privacy and data

• Your store lives locally at ~/.local/share/whitemagic. Nothing is sent to WhiteMagic-operated services; there is no telemetry by default (any future sharing is opt-in, previewable, and schema-bound).
• Privacy flags exclude memories from responses and reasoning. They are access controls, not encryption — anyone who can read the store files can read the contents. Do not store credentials in memories.
• Conversation capture happens through explicit tool calls, not automatically.

Backup and restore

Back up the whole store root (LMDB database, search indexes, and all session/state files — not just the lmdb/ subdirectory):

# Stop the server first, then:
wm backup                                  # writes ~/whitemagic-backups/<timestamp>/
wm backup --out /path/to/external/disk     # keep copies OFF the live machine

Each backup contains the full store plus a SHA256SUMS manifest. Restore after a failure (this replaces the target store):

wm restore --backup ~/whitemagic-backups/whitemagic-backup-<timestamp> --force
wm doctor                                  # confirm health after restore

Restore verifies every file against the manifest before touching anything, and refuses tampered or incomplete backups. Notes:

• wm seal / wm verify detect integrity drift; they do not recover data. Only a backup recovers data.
• Transaction rollback (transaction.rollback) is an in-store, short-lived undo — not a substitute for backups.
• Keep at least one backup on a different disk or machine.

Research surface (not part of the alpha contract)

The codebase contains a larger research system beyond the product boundary: autonomous cycles, dream consolidation, bicameral reasoning, an imagination engine, self-play training loops, polyglot sidecars (Julia/Haskell/Zig/Koka), a signed multi-agent mesh, holographic memory coordinates, and the full research archive (~300 routes; the generated docs/contract/route-schema-manifest.json is the authority) reachable via wm serve without a profile restriction. These are research surfaces without product acceptance evidence; they may change or be removed. Only surfaces documented in this README are part of the product contract.

Building from source

Requires Rust 1.85+:

cargo build --release
cargo test          # full test suite
cargo clippy --all-targets

Documentation

• docs/QUICKSTART.md — the two-process continuity demo
• docs/QUICKSTART.es.md — guía rápida (Español)
• docs/QUICKSTART.pt-BR.md — guia rápido (Português BR)
• docs/QUICKSTART.fr.md — guide de démarrage (Français)
• docs/TRANSLATIONS.md — translation index and help-wanted languages
• docs/MCP_CONFIG_GUIDE.md — client configuration
• docs/MULTI_LAPTOP.md — moving between machines (backup/restore, session carry)
• continuity-receipt — signed, offline-verifiable records of governed tasks (separate spec repo, Apache-2.0)
• CHANGELOG.md — release notes
• SECURITY.md — reporting vulnerabilities

Migrating from v26 (legacy Python)

If you ran the retired Python version:

wm migrate --v2-dir ~/.whitemagic/users/local/galaxies --dry-run   # preview
wm migrate --v2-dir ~/.whitemagic/users/local/galaxies              # migrate

The stack

Local memory → governed execution → verifiable continuity