openreflex 0.2.0

OpenReflex: muscle memory for AI coding agents

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What is OpenReflex

OpenReflex gives AI coding agents muscle memory. It plugs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode through lifecycle hooks and MCP, quietly records how each task actually went, and hands the next similar task what worked before: the approach, the files that mattered, and the fix for the error you hit last time.

You install it once and keep working normally. Everything stays on your machine in a local SQLite database. There is no account, no service, and no telemetry.

Why OpenReflex

• It remembers what worked. Before a substantial task, OpenReflex retrieves similar past tasks and injects a compact Execution Context: a suggested approach with alternatives, the files that were changed, and lessons such as which edit resolved a recurring error.
• It catches loops while they happen. Repeated failing commands, identical retries, stalled progress, and runaway context growth raise a single, specific alert with an alternative path, never a stream of nags.
• It learns after every task. OpenReflex infers the outcome from real verification (a test or build that passed or failed after the last edit), estimates Execution Regret against the alternatives, and extracts lessons.
• It is private by design. Only coarse, project-relative metadata is stored. File contents, commands, tool output, and transcripts never are, and capture is off until you approve a project.

        before a task                  during a task                 after a task
  ┌──────────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────┐    ┌───────────────────────┐
  │ retrieve experience  │    │ watch tool calls         │    │ infer outcome         │
  │ score candidate paths│ →  │ flag loops and stalls    │ →  │ estimate regret       │
  │ inject context       │    │ suggest an alternative   │    │ extract lessons       │
  └──────────────────────┘    └──────────────────────────┘    └───────────────────────┘
                 ▲                                                        │
                 └──────────────────── Experience Graph ◄─────────────────┘

Quick start

Requires Python 3.11 or newer.

pipx install openreflex            # or: uv tool install openreflex
cd your-project
openreflex install claude-code     # writes hooks + MCP config and enables this project

Then work as usual. After a few tasks:

openreflex context "fix the login redirect bug"   # preview the context a task would receive
openreflex status                                 # what has been captured and learned
openreflex doctor                                 # installation checks and recent hook errors

Use it with your agent

OpenReflex installs per project with openreflex install <agent>, or as a plugin.

With a plugin install, enable each project with openreflex approve. Claude Code and Codex are verified in live sessions; the Cursor and OpenCode integrations follow each agent's documented hook protocol.

How it works

Hooks send lifecycle events (prompt, tool start, tool end, compaction, stop) to the OpenReflex engine, which stores them in an Experience Graph:

Task -caused-> Execution -used-> Context -used-> Experience
CandidatePath -recommended_for-> Task            Lesson -recommended_for-> Task
Execution -failed_with-> ToolCall -resolved_by-> ToolCall
Execution -caused-> Outcome -caused-> Experience -caused-> Lesson

• Before a task: similar experiences are retrieved and three strategies (inspect-first, test-first, incremental) are estimated on success probability, time, tool calls, context cost, risk, uncertainty, reversibility, and expected regret. Strategies that another one beats on every measure are dropped as dominated (Pareto efficiency), the rest are ranked by utility within any limits you set, and the chosen path gets an execution budget for time, tool calls, and context. A context of at most 1,400 characters is injected; nothing is injected without relevant experience.
• During a task: when a detector finds a failure loop, repeated calls, stalled progress, context growth, or work past the budget, OpenReflex estimates the marginal value of more work. The current path's success estimate is updated with each call that makes no progress or fails, and compared with the cost of the work left and with the best untried alternative. The alert ends with a recommendation to continue, pivot to another strategy, or stop and ask the user. Each problem, pivot, or stop is raised once, with a cooldown between messages.
• After a task: outcome and chosen path come from the agent's record_outcome / choose_path MCP calls when available, and are otherwise inferred from tool activity. Execution Regret compares the path taken with the best plausible alternative; it is withheld when the outcome is unknown, and feeds back into how strategies are ranked next time, along with success, cost, and how often a strategy ran into trouble.

Set optional limits for every task with OPENREFLEX_BUDGET, for example calls=40,minutes=20,tokens=60000.

Agents can also query OpenReflex directly through its MCP server: get_execution_context (optionally with max_tool_calls, max_minutes, max_context_tokens), choose_path, check_progress, record_outcome, search_experience, explain_node, project_insights, and approve_project.

CLI

Privacy

• Stored per tool call: tool name, a coarse category (read, edit, search, test, ...), a fingerprint of the arguments, project-relative file paths, status, duration, output size, and a masked one-line error signature.
• Never stored: file contents, command text, tool output, transcripts, or paths outside the project.
• Prompts are kept as task descriptions (up to 1,000 characters) with secrets such as API keys and tokens redacted.
• Data lives in ~/.openreflex/projects/<hash>/experience.sqlite3. Set OPENREFLEX_HOME to move it, OPENREFLEX_DISABLE=1 to turn capture off everywhere, or run openreflex forget --yes to delete a project's data.

Community & Contributing

• Issues and ideas: GitHub Issues

• Support the project: Buy me a coffee

• Develop locally:

  git clone https://github.com/vishnu-77/openreflex && cd openreflex
  pip install -e ".[dev]"
  pytest && ruff check src tests scripts
  

License

OpenReflex is released under the MIT License.