cobrain 0.1.4

Cobrain CLI helps AI agents gather, organize and visualize owner's knowledge locally on device. Use it to back up and organize your knowledge, help AI agents read your mind, or map and track your learning progress.

Cobrain

Cobrain CLI helps AI agents gather, organize and visualize owner's knowledge in a local vault: files (topics, sources) + graph (structured metadata).

• Vault locally stores and organizes knowledge, tracks learning, and creates persistent shared context between owner/user/agent for collaboration and decisions
• Agent manages vault autonomously
• Cobrain CLI performs deterministic tasks and helps AI agent perform vault-related tasks reliably and token-efficiently

Who Cobrain is for

Personal Use

• Heavy X users who want a context-rich backup of full conversations/articles/bookmarks/likes that's easy to digest and search
• People who want an effortless way to map out their knowledge and learning progress across multiple sources (ChatGPT, X, AI chats, internet, local files)
• Users of AI agents like Claude/Codex/OpenClaw/Hermes who want them to be more personalized and up to date with their constantly evolving needs and interests

Work & Projects

• People/agents collaborating on a project and needing shared, persistent, high-signal context
• Developers building AI agents who need simple plug-and-play knowledge management

Why Cobrain?

	Agent + Cobrain	Agent Alone	Agent + Obsidian
Token Efficiency	Best - CLI optimizes entire agent workflow	Worst - use only shell+files or code own tools	Worse - built for humans / MCP
Setup	Simplest - install skill	Simple - API key + custom AGENTS.md	From OK to Complex
Source Integrations	Best - ChatGPT + X built-in	Worst - custom code only	Worse - varies by solution
Visualization	Good - portable single-page vault.html (D3js)	Worst - optional external	Best - great plugins (excellent)
Ease of Use (Agent)	Best - agent-native design + skill	Worst - starts with no tools/guidelines	Worse - built for humans

Features

• Fully Agent-Managed - Human just talks to their agent (OpenClaw, Hermes, Claude Code, Codex etc.); agent autonomously ingests sources, creates/updates topics, finds info, maintains graph, runs health checks
• Built-in Source Integrations - X + ChatGPT ready to ingest with one command
• Context-Rich X Conversations - Pull full conversations up to original post/article
• Token-Efficient Agent Workflow - CLI/skill guide and optimize agent's work and token usage, health check tooling & guidelines
• Graph Visualization - vault.html for humans: interactive color-coded graph, instant search/filter, keyboard shortcuts, "copy selection (incl. hierarchy)" to refer/discuss with agent
• Local-First & Portable - On-device, portable and self-contained vault/ folder, multiple vaults supported (e.g. per project, personal/work), standalone sharable vault.html
• Light & Customizable - ~4.7K LOC, no dependencies/frameworks, easy customization by agent

Installation & Setup

Install agent skill in your harness: skills/cobrain-vault. Agent does the rest.

Alternative:

pip install cobrain
cd <vault-path>
brn init  #  creates vault structure below

Multiple vaults (per project, personal/work) supported with distinct vault-local config.

Vault

vault/
├── topics/               # topic files (.md), source of truth for CLI
├── sources/
│   ├── chats/            # ChatGPT conversations (.md)
│   ├── x/                # X conversations (.yaml)
│   └── ...               # add more for other sources
├── vault.html            # standalone shareable page with search/filters for human user
├── AGENTS.md             # custom instructions and persistent notes for agent
└── .cobrain/             # app internals, read but never edit directly
    ├── config            # used to detect vault
    ├── vault.yaml        # derived graph of topics, with metadata
    ├── categories.yaml   # customizable topic category colors / titles
    ├── backups/          # rolling backups
    ├── diffs/            # diffs from backups
    └── logs/             # ingest logs
        ├── chatgpt/
        └── x/

vault/ is self-contained and portable. vault/sources/: raw content ingested from external systems (ChatGPT, X, user-provided documents, your own chat with user), users never read this. vault/topics/: curated summaries users read, source of truth for everything.

CLI reference

brn version                        # show version
brn init                           # initialize vault in current directory
brn sync [--warnings]              # build graph from files + show warnings
brn show                           # build and open vault.html in browser
brn vault [--ids <ids>] [--minimal | --full | --full+] [--flow | --block]  # get graph as YAML (select ids, topic metadata fields, YAML format)
brn vault --ids <ids> --set field=value...  # update topic frontmatter + sync
brn vault --from <id> [--depth N]  # subtree
brn vault --from <id> --to <id2>   # shortest path (parent links only)
brn sources [--warnings]           # view source stats + warnings
brn sources --ingest chatgpt --paths <path...> [--since <dt>] [--until <dt>] [--titles <titles]>  # ingest ChatGPT conversations.json
brn sources --ingest x --ids <post_ids>  # ingest X posts by ID/URL/xurl
brn sources --ingest x --own [--count <N> | --new | --since-id <id> --until-id <id>]  # fetch own posts (default 10, count, all new until hit existing, or target range)
brn sources --ingest x --own --authorization-code <code>  # first-time X auth
brn sources --ingest x --likes [--count <N> | --new]  # ingest liked posts
brn sources --ingest x --bookmarks [--count <N> | --new]  # ingest bookmarked posts
brn backup                         # copy vault.yaml + categories.yaml (up to 20)

All --ingest x commands pull full conversation above the target post, and minimize API credits spent by always checking locally stored posts first.

Topics

Agent creates vault/topics/topic.md with YAML frontmatter, based on sources. Topics are source of truth for everything.

Sources

X and ChatGPT: integrated, agent ingests with CLI command. Other sources (webpage, file, chat): agent reads directly.

X

• Built with XDK (official X SDK), with their affordable pay-per-use pricing and 24h retrieved post caching to save your credits.
• Uses your own app's OAuth2.0 credentials.
• Ingest your bookmarks, likes, posts and replies, or any post by id/url. Official endpoint filters supported as flags.
• CLI automatically builds coherent conversations (one per file) from target post up to original (root) post. Locally stored posts are re-used whenever possible to save your credits. New posts from an existing conversation merge into the same file seamlessly.
• Output: vault/x/<conversation_author>_<conversation_id>.yaml.

ChatGPT

• Request data export from your ChatGPT app and run ingest command on conversations.json.
• Filter by dates and title supported as flags.
• Output: vault/chats/<title>.md.

License

MIT