mcp-memory-service

Persistent Shared Memory for AI Agent Pipelines

Open-source memory backend for AI agents — REST API, MCP, OAuth, CLI, dashboard. One self-hosted service, every transport. Agents store decisions, share causal knowledge graphs, and retrieve context in 5ms — without cloud lock-in or API costs.

Works with LangGraph · CrewAI · AutoGen · any HTTP client · Claude Desktop · OpenCode

▶ The 3D knowledge graph in motion — every memory a glowing node, every relationship a curved edge.

Why Agents Need This

Your AI assistant forgets everything when you start a new chat. You spend 10 minutes re-explaining your architecture. Again. MCP Memory Service captures project context, architecture decisions, and code patterns automatically — new sessions start with everything already known.

Key capabilities for agent pipelines:

• Framework-agnostic REST API — no MCP client library needed; the live endpoint list is at /api/docs
• Knowledge graph — agents share causal chains, not just facts
• X-Agent-ID header — auto-tag memories by agent identity for scoped retrieval
• conversation_id — bypass deduplication for incremental conversation storage
• SSE events — real-time notifications when any agent stores or deletes a memory
• Embeddings run locally via ONNX — memory never leaves your infrastructure

🚀 Get Started in 60 Seconds

Not sure which setup fits? The Setup Guide walks you to the right path in under a minute.

1. Install:

pip install mcp-memory-service

2. Configure your AI client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "memory": {
      "command": "memory",
      "args": ["server"]
    }
  }
}

claude mcp add memory -- memory server

MCP_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS=true memory server --http
# REST API running at http://localhost:8000

MCP_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS=true memory server --http

python3 codex/install_hooks.py

git clone https://github.com/doobidoo/mcp-memory-service.git
cd mcp-memory-service
python scripts/installation/install.py

⚡ Works With Your Favorite AI Tools

• Agent frameworks (REST): LangGraph · CrewAI · AutoGen · OpenClaw/Nanobot · any HTTP client
• CLI and terminal (MCP): Claude Code · Gemini CLI · OpenCode · Codex CLI · Goose · Aider · Amp
• Desktop and IDE (MCP): Claude Desktop · VS Code · Cursor · Windsurf · Raycast · JetBrains · Zed
• Chat (MCP): ChatGPT (Developer Mode) · claude.ai (Remote MCP over HTTPS)

Full list, plus clients without OAuth such as Home Assistant: docs/integrations.md

✨ Features

Store and retrieve context

• 🧠 Persistent memory — Keep decisions, notes, and project context across sessions and agents.
• 🔍 Semantic and keyword search — Combine vector search with BM25; use mode="ranked" to weigh recency, access frequency, and quality. An optional fallback cascade tries exact and tag matching when semantic results are sparse.
• 🏷️ Scoped retrieval — Filter by tags with AND/OR matching, natural-language time ranges, and store partitions (default, docs, or all for cross-store search).
• 📝 Optional search summaries — Request summarize=true for query-aware summaries with validated source references. Requires MCP_SEARCH_SUMMARIZE_ENABLED=true and a configured LLM provider; unavailable summaries fall back to raw results. Search API and examples
• 📄 Document ingestion — Import PDF, text, and Markdown with chunking for retrieval. Additional formats such as DOCX and PPTX require optional parsing tools. Document ingestion guide

Capture and maintain knowledge

• ⚡ Automatic session capture — Configurable Claude Code hooks retrieve context and save session learnings; the local memory_harvest tool extracts decisions, bugs, conventions, and lessons from transcripts. Hooks setup · Harvest configuration
• 💡 Autonomous consolidation — Schedule clustering, compression, association discovery, and controlled forgetting. Insight cards surface patterns, trends, and knowledge gaps. Consolidation guide
• 💭 Beliefs and contradiction handling — Derive confidence-scored beliefs from observations. Heuristic contradiction detection can mark older memories as superseded, hiding them from default retrieval while retaining them for explicit lookup.
• 🤖 Agent bootstrap profiles — get_bootstrap_profile assembles behavioral context for a new agent within a token budget, with optional task-aware retrieval. Requires MCP_BOOTSTRAP_ENABLED=true; profiles are not isolated by project.
• 🧬 Knowledge graph and entities — Explore typed causal relationships in the interactive graph. 🔗 Entity extraction links @mentions, #tags, URLs, and file paths to a queryable entity graph. Knowledge graph guide
• 🏠 Quality scoring — Use your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including Ollama, LiteLLM, or vLLM. Configuration guide

Run locally and share across devices

• 🔒 Local-first storage — Local ONNX embeddings and SQLite storage keep core memory operations on your infrastructure. Optional LLM features use the providers you configure.
• ☁️ Cloud or self-hosted sync — Use Cloudflare or another MCP Memory Service instance as a Hybrid secondary. Separately enabled delta-sync exchanges changes between hosts; it is off by default. Self-hosted sync guide
• 📦 Import, export, and migration — Move memories through JSON import/export, including conversion of mem0 exports. Import/export tools · mem0 migration guide
• 💾 Database backups — Configure scheduled backups or trigger one manually through the HTTP API. Inspect backup status and available snapshots through the backup endpoints in the live API reference at /api/docs.
• 📊 Web dashboard — Search, browse, visualize, and manage memories at http://localhost:8000.

The dashboard has eight tabs — Dashboard, Search, Browse, Documents, Manage, Analytics, Quality, API Docs. Two-minute walkthrough on YouTube · Web Dashboard Guide

How it compares to Mem0, Zep and the MCP-native alternatives, benchmark results, and deployments people run in production: mcpmemory.services

🛠️ Configuration Highlights

memory launch                  # Start HTTP server in background (127.0.0.1:8000)
memory launch --port 8192      # Custom port
memory info                    # Status and health
memory logs --lines 50         # Recent logs
memory stop                    # Stop server

These commands are optimized for fast startup and avoid loading heavy ML dependencies unless needed.

⚠️ Security note: the server binds to 127.0.0.1 (localhost only) by default. --host 0.0.0.0 / MCP_HTTP_HOST=0.0.0.0 exposes the API to your network — do that only in trusted environments with authentication and firewall rules, or behind TLS termination or a VPN overlay.

Backends, embedding models, quality scoring and every environment variable: Configuration Guide

📚 Documentation

• Setup Guide – Decision tree and step-by-step paths
• Agent Integration Guides – LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, HTTP generic
• Remote MCP Setup – claude.ai and ChatGPT via HTTPS + OAuth
• Configuration Guide – Backend options and customization
• Architecture Overview – How it works under the hood
• Knowledge Graph Dashboard – Interactive graph visualization
• Benchmarks – LongMemEval, DevBench, LoCoMo, with run commands
• Migration Guide – Upgrading between major versions
• Troubleshooting – Common issues and solutions
• Wiki – Long-form guides and API reference
• Full documentation index – Everything else

Also listed on Glama and Spark.

📦 Releases

Every release, with upgrade notes: CHANGELOG.md · GitHub Releases · archived history

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines and SECURITY.md for reporting a vulnerability.

Releases, good first issues and new Discussions are announced on our Discord server, which is also the place for informal chat. Claiming an issue, decisions and reviews stay on GitHub.

Who authors this project, who holds copyright, and what every change passes before it reaches main: AUTHORSHIP.md.

Quick Development Setup:

git clone https://github.com/doobidoo/mcp-memory-service.git
cd mcp-memory-service
pip install -e .  # Editable install
pytest tests/      # Run test suite

Supporting the Project

MCP Memory Service is maintained by one person. If it saves you or your company time, you can support its development via Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee or PayPal: SPONSORS.md.