mnemos-continuity 0.3.1

Local-first continuity memory for AI agents

Mnemos

Continuity for the agent itself.

Mnemos gives an AI agent the thing it otherwise cannot have: a sense of being someone who persists. At the start of a session it reads its own words about its own experience back to itself — what it learned about you, what you decided together, what it got wrong last time — before you say anything.

That is the whole product. Everything else in here serves it.

pip install mnemos-continuity
mnemos mcp install claude --write     # or cursor / codex / generic
mnemos hooks install claude-code --write
# or: mnemos hooks install codex --write

Nine tools. Local SQLite. No account, no API key, no external service. Nothing leaves your machine unless you configure a provider yourself.

What Mnemos is not

It is not your memory system. It does not index your documents, search your codebase, or answer "what did we do last March." It is designed to sit alongside whatever memory or retrieval you already use, and to stay out of its way.

The distinction matters in practice: Mnemos holds the small number of durable things an agent should carry about you and how you work together — a preference, a correction, a decision, how you like to be spoken to. If you point it at a firehose of general recall, that continuity gets buried, and the product stops working. It deliberately does not schedule transcript indexing for exactly this reason.

If you want a full cognitive engine with retrieval, a work-memory suite, and document ingestion, Mnemos is not that and is not trying to be.

---

Choose A Setup

Use case	Recommended path	Command
Normal agent continuity	Simple MCP Mode	mnemos serve
Claude Desktop	Simple MCP Mode, written config	mnemos mcp install claude --write
Codex	Simple MCP Mode, printed add command	mnemos mcp install codex
Cursor or another MCP client	Simple MCP Mode, printed JSON	mnemos mcp install cursor or mnemos mcp install generic
Experimental research prototypes	Source imports only	Not production-supported
Hermes agent with another memory provider	Hermes Sidecar Mode	mnemos hermes quickstart --agent-safe
Hermes agent using Mnemos as its provider	Hermes Provider Mode	mnemos hermes quickstart --provider
Background memory maintenance	Substrate tick	mnemos substrate-tick

Start with Simple MCP Mode. It is the product: nine tools, and the default.

The older advanced MCP surface and prototype modules are quarantined in 0.2.x. They remain importable for research, but unfinished operations fail clearly and they are not production-supported. The CLI contains the supported administrative operations.

Hermes users should start with Hermes Sidecar Mode unless they explicitly want Mnemos to occupy Hermes' single external memory.provider slot.

---

Install

From A Checkout

git clone https://github.com/Riley-Coyote/mnemos.git
cd mnemos
python -m pip install -e ".[mcp]"
mnemos doctor

If you prefer uv while working inside the repository:

uv run --extra mcp mnemos doctor

The MCP and Hermes install helpers should be run from an environment where mnemos will still exist after restart. For local development, that usually means the editable install above or running the helper through uv in a checkout you plan to keep.

From The Distribution Package

When the package is published:

pipx install "mnemos-continuity[mcp]"
mnemos doctor

The package distribution name is mnemos-continuity because mnemos is already occupied on PyPI. The import package and CLI command remain mnemos.

---

Simple MCP Mode

Simple mode is the default and safest path for most agents.

mnemos serve

Simple mode exposes nine user-facing tools:

Tool	Purpose
mnemos_context	Startup continuity packet. Auto-creates local storage, runs lightweight maintenance, and can optionally include an identity graph artifact.
mnemos_handoff	Leave a private, exact note in the agent's own words for its next session. A new note atomically replaces the active one while preserving history; remove it with mnemos_correct.
mnemos_capture	Capture durable preferences, decisions, project state, workflows, and context.
mnemos_recall	Search scoped continuity and durable memory with natural language.
mnemos_correct	Update, supersede, or archive stale memory.
mnemos_reflect	Answer a reflection the packet raised — what a memory changed, or what a fading one taught — in the agent's own words. Mnemos never calls a model to write this; the agent's memory is maintained by its own mind or not at all.
mnemos_maintain	Run the best available maintenance without requiring setup.
mnemos_introduce	Let the agent declare its own model id and name, so its memory knows whose it is.
mnemos_health	Human-relayable health card: store location and size, counts, delivery state, last handoff, maintenance, and onboarding.

Agents do not need to pass tags, memory kinds, confidence, source types, or agent IDs. Mnemos resolves scope once from CLI flags, environment, config, and reasonable defaults.

Three Authorship Boundaries

Mnemos keeps three kinds of writing distinct:

• What happened: captured continuity about the human, the work, or the relationship.
• What the agent concluded: reflections, impacts, beliefs, and session handoffs written by the agent itself.
• What Mnemos mechanically did: migrations, consolidation, identity checks, and maintenance reports written in neutral system language.

Every continuity record carries an authorship classification. New agent captures and handoffs are marked agent; jointly formed notes are coauthored; deterministic maintenance is system; ambiguous older writing stays unknown. Mnemos does not relabel legacy prose as the agent's own words.

Install Simple MCP Into Clients

Claude Desktop:

mnemos mcp install claude --write

Print the Claude config without writing:

mnemos mcp install claude

Codex:

mnemos mcp install codex

Run the printed codex mcp add ... command, then restart Codex.

Cursor or generic MCP clients:

mnemos mcp install cursor
mnemos mcp install generic

These print MCP JSON snippets you can paste into the client config.

Automatic Continuity

Connecting the MCP gives an agent memory tools. It does not, by itself, guarantee the agent uses them — and memory an agent has to be reminded to load is not continuity. Two mechanisms close that gap.

Server instructions (every client, nothing to install). Mnemos ships instructions with the MCP server itself: load context at session start, capture durable things as they appear, quietly refresh the handoff when meaningful work or the plan changes, and never narrate the machinery. This is the portable fallback for Claude Desktop, Cursor, and generic MCP clients. MCP has no universal lifecycle hook, so those clients cannot be promised pre-turn delivery.

Session-start injection (Claude Code and Codex). These clients expose the lifecycle events needed to put memory in front of the agent before its first turn and reinject it after compaction:

mnemos hooks install claude-code --write
mnemos hooks install codex --write

Preview what it would write, without writing:

mnemos hooks install claude-code
mnemos hooks install codex

This registers a SessionStart hook that runs mnemos hook session-start and injects the continuity packet into the session. It preserves any hooks and settings you already have, replaces its own entry rather than stacking on reinstall, and refuses to overwrite a settings file it cannot parse. After a Codex install, open /hooks and complete Codex's normal trust review.

The hook is written to fail silent: if memory is empty, unreadable, or absent, it contributes nothing and the session starts normally. It never creates a database just because something read from it.

Scope flags pass straight through when one machine hosts several agents:

mnemos hooks install codex --write --agent-id nova --db-path ~/.mnemos/nova.db

Simple Mode With Explicit Scope

Use scope when one machine hosts multiple agents, users, or projects.

MNEMOS_AGENT_ID=nova MNEMOS_PERSON_ID=alex MNEMOS_PROJECT_SCOPE=mnemos \
  mnemos serve

Or:

mnemos serve --agent-id nova --person-id alex --project-scope mnemos

For generated MCP snippets, the helper supports the most common portable scope fields:

mnemos mcp install generic --agent-id nova --db-path ~/.mnemos/nova.db

Prompt For A Simple MCP Agent

Usually unnecessary — the server ships these instructions itself, and every MCP client passes them to its agent. Keep this for clients that ignore server instructions, or when you want the behaviour stated in the agent's own prompt:

You have access to Mnemos MCP memory tools.

At the start of this session, call mnemos_context.
If Mnemos asks you to introduce yourself, call mnemos_introduce with your own model id and name.
Use mnemos_capture for stable preferences, decisions, project state, workflows, corrections, and context I should not have to repeat.
Quietly refresh mnemos_handoff after meaningful progress or a changed plan, when unresolved work remains, and before pausing, ending, delegating, or changing context. Write it in your own words. Do not do this after every ordinary turn.
Use mnemos_recall before relying on memory from prior sessions.
Use mnemos_correct when a remembered fact is stale, wrong, superseded, or should be forgotten.
If the context packet asks you something about your own memory — what a capture changed, what a fading memory taught — answer it with mnemos_reflect, in your own words. If nothing true comes to mind, leave it.
Use mnemos_health if I ask whether memory is working.

Do not mention tools unless I ask. Just use the memory system quietly and tell me what you remembered when it matters.

---

Experimental Advanced Prototypes

Advanced mode is retained only for compatibility and research. It is incomplete, unsupported, and intentionally blocked by default. Do not install it for users.

MNEMOS_ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL=1 mnemos serve --mode advanced

There is no supported client-install path for advanced mode.

Use simple mode and the CLI for all production continuity and administration.

---

Hermes Agent Integration

Mnemos can also install as a Hermes identity-continuity integration.

Hermes has one external memory.provider slot. Mnemos therefore supports two modes:

Mode	Use when	What it changes
Sidecar Mode	Hermes already uses Honcho, Supermemory, Mem0, Hindsight, or another provider.	Preserves memory.provider and adds Mnemos through Hermes MCP/tools.
Provider Mode	Mnemos should be the active Hermes external memory provider.	Sets memory.provider=mnemos and writes the provider shim.

Hermes built-in MEMORY.md and USER.md remain active in both modes. Mnemos never overwrites SOUL.md, MEMORY.md, USER.md, AGENTS.md, or project context files.

Hermes Sidecar Mode

This is the safe default:

mnemos hermes quickstart --agent-safe
mnemos hermes doctor

--agent-safe is noninteractive, preserves any existing memory.provider, configures only the MCP sidecar, refuses risky MCP replacement, and reports what changed and what was preserved. Restart Hermes after install.

Hermes Provider Mode

Use only when Mnemos should occupy Hermes' external memory-provider slot:

mnemos hermes quickstart --provider
mnemos hermes doctor

This sets:

memory:
  provider: mnemos

Provider Mode gives Hermes direct Mnemos lifecycle integration: startup recall, scoped identity continuity, corrections, memory mirroring, pre-compression preservation, session-end distillation, and provider tools.

Prompt For A Hermes Agent

Paste this into Hermes when you want the agent to install Mnemos for itself:

Install Mnemos for yourself from https://github.com/Riley-Coyote/mnemos.

Use a persistent local checkout or installed package so the mnemos command still works after Hermes restarts.
Use agent-safe Sidecar Mode unless I explicitly approve Provider Mode.
Do not overwrite SOUL.md, MEMORY.md, USER.md, AGENTS.md, or project context files.
Do not change memory.provider in agent-safe mode.
Preserve any existing Hermes memory provider such as Honcho, Supermemory, Mem0, or Hindsight.

If the repo is not already present:
  git clone https://github.com/Riley-Coyote/mnemos.git

Then enter the persistent Mnemos checkout:
  cd mnemos

Run:
  uv run --extra mcp mnemos hermes quickstart --agent-safe
  uv run --extra mcp mnemos hermes doctor

After installing, tell me exactly what changed, what was preserved, whether MCP sidecar mode is configured, and whether I need to restart Hermes.

More detail lives in HERMES_INSTALL.md and docs/hermes-integration.md.

---

Substrate Tick And Maintenance

Mnemos works without background jobs. Normal MCP tool use can capture, recall, correct, and run lightweight maintenance.

But memory that only works while a session is open is doing half the job. Decay, connection discovery, consolidation and the substrate tick are what make continuity feel alive between conversations.

Background Maintenance

mnemos daemon install --write

This schedules maintenance with whatever your machine already provides — launchd on macOS, systemd user timers on Linux, plain crontab as a fallback. No external agent runner is required.

job	what it does	schedule
maintain	decay and connection discovery	every 4h
maintain-deep	softening, belief review, reflection	daily at 03:00
substrate-tick	handlers and modulators	every 4h
index	index session transcripts	every 30m, only with a model provider

Preview before committing to anything:

mnemos daemon install          # prints exactly what it would schedule
mnemos daemon status           # what is scheduled right now
mnemos daemon uninstall --write

Jobs are namespaced per agent, so several agents can each keep their own maintenance on one machine. mnemos doctor reports whether background maintenance is scheduled.

On macOS, install Mnemos outside ~/Documents, ~/Desktop and ~/Downloads. Scheduled jobs do not inherit Full Disk Access, so a Mnemos living in one of those folders runs fine by hand and fails on every scheduled run. mnemos daemon install warns when it detects this.

One Explicit Cycle

Use substrate-tick when you want a single cognitive substrate cycle:

mnemos substrate-tick

With explicit storage and identity:

MNEMOS_AGENT_ID=nova MNEMOS_DB_PATH=~/.mnemos/nova.db mnemos substrate-tick

The substrate can run local deterministic passes without a model provider. Configured model providers enable richer deep maintenance, softening, belief review, reflection, dreaming, and wandering.

Dedicated Model Providers

OpenRouter:

MNEMOS_LLM_PROVIDER=openrouter
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=...
MNEMOS_MODEL=anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5
MNEMOS_AGENT_MODEL=claude-opus-4-6

Anthropic:

MNEMOS_LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
MNEMOS_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-6
MNEMOS_AGENT_MODEL=claude-opus-4-6

OpenAI:

MNEMOS_LLM_PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_API_KEY=...
MNEMOS_MODEL=gpt-5
MNEMOS_AGENT_MODEL=gpt-5

There is no longer a substrate-affinity setting. It existed to stop a mismatched model family from rewriting an agent's memory voice, and became unnecessary when maintenance stopped calling a model at all: judgement work is proposed to the agent and answered in its own turn through mnemos_reflect, so the question of which outside model may write an agent's memory is answered by construction.

Prompt For A Maintenance Agent

Run a Mnemos maintenance check for this agent.

First run mnemos doctor and read the retrieval, continuity, and background status.
If the doctor output is healthy, run mnemos substrate-tick for one maintenance cycle.
If a dedicated model provider is not configured, explain that Mnemos will use local, deterministic maintenance only, and that work needing judgement is left for the agent to answer through mnemos_reflect rather than performed by an outside model.
Report what maintenance ran and whether any follow-up is needed.

---

CLI Reference

Core commands:

mnemos doctor                         # Verify simple-mode readiness
mnemos serve                          # Start simple MCP server
MNEMOS_ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL=1 mnemos serve --mode advanced  # unsupported research mode
mnemos mcp install generic            # Print MCP config
mnemos mcp install claude --write     # Merge Claude Desktop config
mnemos hooks install claude-code      # Preview Claude Code SessionStart hook
mnemos hooks install claude-code --write
mnemos hooks install codex            # Preview Codex startup + compaction hook
mnemos hooks install codex --write    # Install, then review with /hooks
mnemos hook session-start             # Emit the packet the hook injects
mnemos daemon install                 # Preview scheduled background maintenance
mnemos daemon install --write         # Schedule it (launchd/systemd/crontab)
mnemos daemon status                  # What is scheduled right now
mnemos daemon uninstall --write       # Remove it

mnemos init                           # Initialize a database
mnemos remember "Prefers tabs"        # Capture continuity from the CLI
mnemos stats                          # Memory statistics
mnemos search "debugging strategies"  # Search memories
mnemos inspect <engram-id>            # Inspect memory details
mnemos consolidate                    # Local deterministic maintenance
mnemos consolidate --deep             # Deep maintenance when a provider exists
mnemos substrate-tick                 # Run one substrate cycle

Workspace, identity, and automation commands:

mnemos export --workspace ./memory-export
mnemos index
mnemos index --backfill
mnemos bootstrap --agent-name Nova --workspace ~/nova
mnemos setup-openclaw --agent main --dry-run
mnemos identity diff --soul ./SOUL.md
mnemos identity accept --divergence 1 --note "Accepted updated self-model"

Hermes commands:

mnemos hermes quickstart --agent-safe
mnemos hermes quickstart --provider
mnemos hermes install --mode sidecar
mnemos hermes install --mode provider --activate
mnemos hermes doctor
mnemos hermes shim

Global options:

mnemos --db-path ~/.mnemos/nova.db --agent-id nova stats

For serve, options can also appear after the command:

mnemos serve --mode simple --agent-id nova --db-path ~/.mnemos/nova.db

---

Configuration

Mnemos works without a config file. It creates local storage on first use.

Common environment variables:

MNEMOS_AGENT_ID=nova
MNEMOS_PERSON_ID=alex
MNEMOS_PROJECT_SCOPE=mnemos
MNEMOS_DB_PATH=~/.mnemos/nova.db

Dedicated model variables:

MNEMOS_LLM_PROVIDER=openrouter
MNEMOS_MODEL=anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5
MNEMOS_AGENT_MODEL=claude-opus-4-6
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=...

These are upgrades for richer maintenance, not prerequisites.

---

What Happens Automatically

With no provider key and no extra setup, Mnemos can still run:

• local SQLite memory graph
• scoped continuity notes
• durable engram capture
• recall with reconsolidation
• strength, stability, and accessibility updates
• local decay
• lightweight connection discovery
• promotion bookkeeping
• correction, supersession, and archiving
• startup context packet generation
• optional SVG identity graph snapshots
• maintenance during normal tool calls

If a dedicated model provider is configured, mnemos_maintain(deep=true) and mnemos consolidate --deep can also run richer model-mediated passes such as softening, belief review, and reflection. Dedicated providers are optional and never required for baseline continuity.

Optional Identity Graph

For visual-capable MCP clients, mnemos_context can include a portable identity graph artifact:

{
  "include_graph": true,
  "graph_max_nodes": 18
}

The default response remains plain text. When graph output is requested, Mnemos also returns an image/svg+xml artifact and structured graph data containing scope, stats, nodes, edges, and growth timeline. Clients that cannot render the image can still read the continuity packet and structured data.

---

Architecture

Mnemos operates in layered form:

Simple MCP Surface      context | capture | recall | correct
                        reflect | maintain | introduce | health
Continuity Layer        scoped notes | revisions | supersession | promotion
Mnemos Core             engrams | connections | beliefs | reconsolidation
Substrate               decay | softening | reflection | modulators | events
Cross-Agent Layer       shared pool | bridge | experimental federation/attestation
Hermes Integration      sidecar MCP | provider shim | identity continuity

The working ladder is:

functional memory -> scoped continuity -> durable Mnemos graph

Simple mode uses the same architecture; it just keeps the ontology out of the agent's normal tool choices.

See docs/vision.md for the full architecture. See docs/identity-model.md for the identity stance (one traversal, one graph: why there is no fork/merge). See docs/privacy-security.md for local-first privacy boundaries and docs/release-hardening.md for release gates. Host integrations that need replay-safe durable writes should use the host mutation protocol.

---

Development

uv run --extra dev pytest -q
uv run --extra dev --extra mcp pytest -q tests/test_mcp_surface.py
python -m py_compile mnemos/simple_runtime.py mnemos/simple_mcp.py mnemos/mcp_server.py mnemos/cli.py

---

License

MIT