startq 0.2.0

Never lose your AI chats or work again. Local-first session persistence with optional cloud sync.

StartQ

Never lose your AI chats or work again.

Every time you start a new AI agent session, you repeat yourself. You re-explain the project. You re-paste the context. You hope the agent remembers what happened yesterday.

It usually doesn't.

StartQ fixes that.

Why This Matters — A Real Story

On May 19, 2026, Antigravity IDE pushed an update that wiped environment state for developers mid-session. Workflows deleted. Context gone. Developers across the platform lost hours of work.

I didn't lose a single thing.

Because StartQ had already persisted my session state, agent context, and workflow definitions to local memory before the update hit. When the environment came back up, I ran startq boot, and everything was exactly where I left it — 28 workflow files, all agent configurations, full session history.

StartQ is insurance for your AI workflow. Your context survives IDE crashes, model swaps, environment resets, and cloud outages.

60-Second Install

pip install startq

Initialize your local memory (Brain) in your project directory:

startq init

Boot your agent workflow:

startq boot

When you are finished with your session, sync the persistent memory:

startq end -c "Finished refactoring the database schemas."

How It Works

Session 1                          Session 2
─────────                          ─────────
You work with AI agent             You start a NEW agent session
    │                                  │
    ▼                                  ▼
startq end -c "summary"           startq boot
    │                                  │
    ▼                                  ▼
State written to .startq/brain/    State loaded from .startq/brain/
    │                                  │
    ▼                                  ▼
SHA-256 signed receipt             Signature verified ✓
                                       │
                                       ▼
                                   Agent has FULL context
                                   from Session 1. No amnesia.

Features

• Local First: Your Brain is a local JSON directory (.startq/brain/). No cloud dependencies, no lock-in.
• Cryptographic Integrity: Every session receipt is SHA-256 signed. Tampering is detected on boot.
• Universal Agnosticism: Point any agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Antigravity, Gemini CLI, or custom scripts) to .startq/ to share context across sessions.
• Daemons (Systemd for AI): Add scripts to .startq/config.json under "daemons", and StartQ will spawn them as detached background runners on boot.
• Git State Capture: startq end automatically snapshots your current branch and uncommitted files — so the next session knows exactly where you left off.
• Zero Dependencies: Pure Python standard library. No pip packages. No curl. No YAML.

What Gets Persisted

Data	Where	Format
Session context	.startq/brain/<uuid>.json	Signed JSON
Git branch + dirty files	Inside session receipt	Embedded
Agent identity	.startq/config.json	JSON
Init state	.startq/state.json	JSON

The Problem StartQ Solves

AI agents have no memory between sessions. Every new chat is a blank slate. This means:

• You re-explain your project structure every time
• You lose the decisions made in previous sessions
• An IDE update or crash wipes your workflow context
• Context windows fill up re-establishing what was already known

StartQ gives your agents a persistent local brain that survives across sessions, across tools, and across crashes.

License

MIT License. Built in Seattle by Phil Hills.