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| __(____ /____(____ /__(____ /
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The Knowledge System for AI Agent Teams
Your agents forget. palaia doesn't.
What palaia Does
AI agents are stateless by default. Every session starts from scratch — no memory of past decisions, no shared knowledge between agents, no context that survives a restart.
palaia gives your agents a persistent, searchable knowledge store. They save what they learn. They find it again by meaning, not keyword. They share it across tools and sessions — automatically.
What palaia Is Not
- Not a chatbot or prompt manager
- Not a cloud service (everything runs locally)
- Not a vector database you manage yourself (it manages itself)
- Not limited to one tool — works across OpenClaw, Claude Code, and any MCP client
What You Get
| Capability | What it means |
|---|---|
| Agents remember across sessions | Knowledge survives restarts, tool switches, and team handoffs |
| Find anything by meaning | Hybrid BM25 + vector search across 6 embedding providers |
| Zero-config local setup | SQLite with native SIMD vector search — no separate database process |
| Works everywhere via MCP | OpenClaw and Claude Code: paste a prompt, done. Claude Desktop, Cursor, any MCP host: manual config. |
| Multi-agent ready | Private, team, and public scopes — agents see what they should |
| Agent isolation | --isolated mode for strict per-agent memory boundaries |
| Crash-safe by default | SQLite WAL mode survives power loss, kills, OOM |
| Fast | Embed server keeps model in RAM — CLI queries ~1.5s, MCP/Plugin <500ms |
| WebUI memory explorer | palaia ui — browse, search, create entries in the browser. Localhost only. |
| Scales when needed | Swap to PostgreSQL + pgvector for distributed teams, no code changes |
Comparison
| Feature | palaia | claude-mem | Mem0 | OpenClaw Built-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local-first | Yes | Yes | Yes (optional cloud) | Yes |
| Cross-tool (MCP) | Yes (any MCP client) | No (Claude Code only) | No | No (OpenClaw only) |
| Native Vector Search | sqlite-vec / pgvector | ChromaDB (separate) | FAISS (embedded) | No |
| Structured Types | memory/process/task | Yes (6 categories) | No | No |
| Multi-Agent Scopes | private/team/public | Partial (session isolation) | Yes (user/agent/run) | No |
| Smart Tiering | HOT/WARM/COLD | No | No | No |
| Embedding Providers | 6 (configurable) | 1 (fixed) | Cloud | External (5+) |
| Open Source | MIT | AGPL-3.0 | Apache 2.0 | MIT |
| Crash-safe (WAL) | Yes | Yes (WAL) | Partial (SQLite, not primary) | No |
Install
Recommended: Paste into your agent
Both OpenClaw and Claude Code support fully autonomous setup. Copy the prompt below and paste it directly into your agent's chat — the agent handles everything from there.
OpenClaw — copy this prompt into your OpenClaw agent:
Install or update the palaia memory skill from ClawHub to the latest version (even if already present). Read the SKILL.md completely and follow it step by step. Run palaia init, then palaia doctor --fix and resolve all warnings — don't stop until the doctor report is clean. Set up completely.
Claude Code — copy this prompt into Claude Code:
Install palaia for persistent memory in this Claude Code environment.
Run: pip install "palaia[mcp,fastembed]" && palaia init && palaia setup claude-code --global
Then tell me to restart Claude Code so the MCP tools become active.
After restart, read the CLAUDE.md and follow its instructions.
See Claude Code Integration for the full guide.
Manual Setup
OpenClaw:
pip install "palaia[fastembed]"
palaia init
openclaw plugins install @byte5ai/palaia
palaia doctor --fix
Then activate the memory slot in your OpenClaw config:
// openclaw.json
{
plugins: {
slots: { memory: "palaia" }
}
}
Restart the gateway: openclaw gateway restart
Claude Code:
pip install "palaia[mcp,fastembed]"
palaia init
palaia setup claude-code --global
Restart Claude Code after setup.
Other MCP Clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor)
pip install "palaia[mcp,fastembed]"
palaia init
Add to your MCP config:
- Claude Desktop:
~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json - Cursor:
.cursor/mcp.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"palaia": {
"command": "palaia-mcp"
}
}
}
Note: These clients require manual MCP configuration. palaia provides the memory tools, but you need to instruct the agent yourself.
Optional Extras
pip install "palaia[curate]" # Knowledge curation
pip install "palaia[postgres]" # PostgreSQL + pgvector backend
Note: palaia[fastembed] already includes sqlite-vec for native vector search and the embed-server auto-starts on first query. No manual optimization needed.
Upgrading? palaia upgrade — auto-detects install method, preserves extras, runs doctor.
Quick Start
palaia write "API rate limit is 100 req/min" \
--type memory --tags api,limits # Save knowledge
palaia query "what's the rate limit" # Find it by meaning
palaia status # Check health
Documentation
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | Installation, first steps, quick tour |
| Storage & Search | SQLite, PostgreSQL, sqlite-vec, pgvector, embedding providers |
| Claude Code | Claude Code integration, setup command, paste-this prompt |
| MCP Server | Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, tool reference, read-only mode |
| Embed Server | Performance optimization, socket transport, daemon mode |
| Multi-Agent | Scopes, agent identity, team setup, aliases |
| Configuration | All config keys, embedding chain, tuning |
| CLI Reference | All commands with flags and examples |
| Migration Guide | Import from other systems, flat-file migration |
| Architecture | Module map, data flows, design decisions |
| SKILL.md | Agent-facing documentation (what agents read) |
| Contributing | Versioning, release process, development setup |
| Changelog | Release history |
Development
git clone https://github.com/byte5ai/palaia.git
cd palaia
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
Links
- palaia.ai — Homepage
- PyPI — Package registry
- ClawHub — Install via agent skill
- OpenClaw — The agent platform palaia is built for
- CHANGELOG — Release history
MIT — (c) 2026 byte5 GmbH
1 maintainer
Metadata
1 maintainer
Release files for palaia 2.8.0
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| palaia-2.8.0.tar.gz | 331.6 kB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| palaia-2.8.0-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 558.8 kB
Release files / palaia-2.8.0.tar.gz
| Download URL | palaia-2.8.0.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 331.6 kB |
| Tags | Source |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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No |
| Uploaded via |
twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.11.15
|
Release files / palaia-2.8.0-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | palaia-2.8.0-py3-none-any.whl |
|---|---|
| Size | 227.2 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing? |
No |
| Uploaded via |
twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.11.15
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