hive-vault 1.9.1

Unified MCP server for AI-assisted development — on-demand Obsidian vault access + worker delegation

hive-vault

Your AI coding assistant forgets everything between sessions. Hive fixes that.

Every session, your assistant loads 800+ lines of static context. Most of it is irrelevant. You pay the full token cost every time. And next session? It starts from zero again.

Hive is an MCP server that connects your AI assistant to an Obsidian vault. Instead of loading everything upfront, it queries only what's needed — architecture decisions, lessons learned, project context — all on demand via MCP.

The numbers:

Metric	Without Hive	With Hive
Context loaded per session	~800 lines (static)	~50 lines (on demand)
Token cost for context	100% every session	6% average per query
Knowledge retained between sessions	0%	100% (in vault)
Time to find past decisions	Manual search	vault_search in seconds

Measured on a real vault with 19 projects, 200+ files. See benchmarks.

Install (30 seconds)

One command. No cloning, no venv, no config files. Use user scope (-s user) so Hive works across all your projects — that's where cross-project knowledge shines.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add -s user hive -- uvx --upgrade hive-vault

Gemini CLI:

gemini mcp add -s user hive-vault uvx -- --upgrade hive-vault

OpenAI Codex CLI — add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.hive-vault]
command = "uvx"
args = ["--upgrade", "hive-vault"]

GitHub Copilot (VS Code) — add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "hive-vault": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--upgrade", "hive-vault"]
    }
  }
}

Other MCP clients (Cursor, Windsurf, etc.): point your client at uvx --upgrade hive-vault via stdio transport.

Then ask your assistant:

"Use vault_list to see my vault"

That's it. You're running.

What You Get

10 Tools — your knowledge, on demand

Tool	What it does
vault_query	Load project context, tasks, roadmap, lessons — or any file by path
vault_search	Full-text search with metadata filters, regex, ranked results, and recent changes
vault_list	List projects (no args) or browse files within a project with glob filtering
vault_health	Health metrics, drift detection (frontmatter, stale, wikilinks), and usage stats
vault_write	Create, append, or replace vault files with YAML validation + auto git commit
vault_patch	Surgical find-and-replace with ambiguity rejection + auto git commit
capture_lesson	Capture lessons inline (structured) or batch-extract from text via worker
session_briefing	One call = tasks + lessons + git log + health. Start every session here
delegate_task	Route tasks to cheaper models, or summarize vault files automatically
worker_status	Budget remaining, connectivity, available models, usage stats

Worker routing: Ollama first (free) → OpenRouter free tier → OpenRouter paid ($1/mo cap) → reject.

Your primary model handles architecture. Cheaper models handle boilerplate. capture_lesson(text=...) uses workers to batch-extract lessons from session notes — saving your primary model's tokens.

Before / After

Before Hive — static CLAUDE.md:

# My Project
## Architecture
[200 lines of decisions you made 3 months ago]
## Standards
[150 lines of coding patterns]
## Lessons
[100 lines of past bugs]
## Tasks
[50 lines of backlog]
# ...loaded every single session, whether relevant or not

With Hive — dynamic, on demand:

# Only when the assistant needs architecture context:
vault_query(project="my-project", section="context")

# Only when searching for a past decision:
vault_search(query="database migration strategy")

# Start of session — just the essentials:
session_briefing(project="my-project")

Configure Your Vault

Default vault path: ~/Projects/knowledge. To change it:

# Claude Code
claude mcp add -s user hive -e VAULT_PATH=/path/to/vault -- uvx --upgrade hive-vault

# Gemini CLI
gemini mcp add -s user -e VAULT_PATH=/path/to/vault hive-vault uvx -- --upgrade hive-vault

Enable Worker Delegation (optional)

claude mcp add -s user hive \
  -e VAULT_PATH=/path/to/vault \
  -e HIVE_OLLAMA_ENDPOINT=http://your-ollama:11434 \
  -e OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-... \
  -- uvx --upgrade hive-vault

All Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
VAULT_PATH	~/Projects/knowledge	Path to your Obsidian vault
HIVE_OLLAMA_ENDPOINT	http://localhost:11434	Ollama API endpoint
HIVE_OLLAMA_MODEL	qwen2.5-coder:7b	Default Ollama model
HIVE_OPENROUTER_API_KEY	—	OpenRouter API key (also reads OPENROUTER_API_KEY)
HIVE_OPENROUTER_MODEL	qwen/qwen3-coder:free	Default free tier model
HIVE_OPENROUTER_PAID_MODEL	qwen/qwen3-coder	Paid tier model
HIVE_OPENROUTER_BUDGET	1.0	Monthly budget cap (USD)
HIVE_VAULT_SCOPES	{"projects": "10_projects", "meta": "00_meta"}	JSON mapping of scope names to vault subdirectories
HIVE_LOG_PATH	~/.local/share/hive/hive.log	Persistent debug log (1MB rotating, 1 backup)

See full configuration reference for all 16 environment variables including advanced tuning.

Debug Logging

Hive writes warnings and errors to a persistent log file for post-mortem debugging:

~/.local/share/hive/hive.log

Check this file when tools return unexpected results or the server fails silently. The log rotates at 1MB with one backup file. Override the path with HIVE_LOG_PATH.

Recommended Workflow

The highest-value setup combines three tools:

1. Obsidian — local-first knowledge base with 1M+ community, Markdown native, no lock-in
2. Obsidian Git — auto-commits your vault changes on a schedule (version history for free)
3. Hive — bridges your vault to any AI coding assistant via MCP

Your assistant writes lessons and decisions to the vault → Obsidian Git auto-commits → next session, everything is there. No manual sync. No context lost.

Hive works with any directory of Markdown files — Obsidian is recommended, not required.

Vault Structure

For best results, follow this layout:

~/Projects/knowledge/
├── 00_meta/patterns/          # cross-project patterns
├── 10_projects/
│   ├── my-project/
│   │   ├── 00-context.md      # vault_query section="context"
│   │   ├── 10-roadmap.md      # vault_query section="roadmap"
│   │   ├── 11-tasks.md        # vault_query section="tasks"
│   │   ├── 90-lessons.md      # vault_query section="lessons"
│   │   └── 30-architecture/   # any path works with vault_query path="..."
│   └── another-project/
└── ...

Make Your Assistant Use Hive Consistently

MCP tools don't activate on their own. Add this to your project's CLAUDE.md (or equivalent):

## Vault & Knowledge (Hive MCP)

When hive-vault MCP is available:
- `session_briefing(project="myproject")` — start every session here
- `vault_query(project="myproject", section="context")` — project overview
- `vault_search(query="...")` — find past decisions
- `capture_lesson(...)` — capture insights inline, don't wait until session end

Without these instructions, your assistant uses Hive inconsistently. With them, it uses Hive every session, predictably.

Resources & Prompts

5 MCP Resources for auto-discoverable data:

URI	Description
hive://projects	All vault projects with file counts
hive://health	Vault health metrics
hive://projects/{project}/context	Project context
hive://projects/{project}/tasks	Project backlog
hive://projects/{project}/lessons	Lessons learned

4 MCP Prompts for guided workflows:

Prompt	Description
retrospective	End-of-session review → extract lessons to vault
delegate	Structured protocol for worker delegation
vault_sync	Post-sprint vault sync — reconcile docs with shipped code
benchmark	Estimate token savings from Hive in the current session

Architecture

MCP Host (Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex CLI, Cursor, ...)
    └── hive-vault (MCP server, stdio)
            ├── Vault Tools (7) ── Obsidian vault (Markdown + YAML frontmatter)
            │     query, search, list, health, write, patch,
            │     capture_lesson
            │
            ├── Session Tools (1) ── Adaptive context assembly
            │     session_briefing
            │
            └── Worker Tools (2) ── Task delegation + routing:
                  delegate_task        1. Ollama (local, free)
                  worker_status        2. OpenRouter free tier
                                       3. OpenRouter paid ($1/mo cap)
                                       4. Reject → host handles it

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, code standards, and PR workflow.

git clone https://github.com/mlorentedev/hive.git
cd hive
make install   # create venv + install deps
make check     # lint + typecheck + test (324 tests, 91% coverage)

License

MIT