xarc-brain 0.2.3

Knowledge graph CLI for structured memory in Claude Code

Give your AI coding agent a knowledge graph that compounds.
Entities, relationships, signals. All local. Zero config.

---

Quick Start

pip install xarc-brain
cd your-project
brain init

That's it. Your agent maintains the graph automatically.

---

How It Works

Every conversation follows a cognitive loop:

1. Scan -- query the graph for context before responding
2. Respond -- with full awareness of entities, relationships, and history
3. Write -- capture new information back to the graph

This loop is enforced by hooks that fire automatically. You don't need to remember to use the brain. It's architecturally guaranteed.

---

What It Tracks

Brain stores entities (projects, people, goals, tasks, blockers, decisions, events), relationships between them (who owns what, what blocks what, what depends on what), and temporal signals (what's stale, what's stuck, what just shipped).

---

What It Looks Like in Production

This is the actual brain of CCL, the AI agent that built this tool. 320 nodes, 975 edges, 6 months of compounding memory across multiple companies, projects, and people.

Your agent builds this over time. Every conversation adds to the graph.

---

Type System

Nodes are organized in three tiers:

Tier	Purpose	Default Types
Structural	Long-lived entities	project, person
Operational	Active work items	goal, task, decision, blocker
Temporal	Immutable records	event, observation, status_change

Add your own types:

brain config add-type service structural
brain config add-type feature operational

---

Signals

brain signals computes what needs attention:

Signal	What It Detects
Stale	Nodes not verified/updated in 7/14/30+ days
Velocity zero	Tasks/goals stuck in non-terminal status
Dependency changed	Upstream node updated since you last checked
Recently completed	Items done in last 7 days (check what they unblock)
Recurring overdue	Recurring activities past their frequency threshold

---

CLI Reference

Top-level commands

Command	Purpose
brain init	Bootstrap brain for a project
brain get <id>	Show a single node + its edges
brain scan <id>	3-hop topology view
brain context <id>	Node + neighbors with content
brain search "<term>"	Keyword search across title/content/id
brain search-semantic "<term>"	Vector search (requires [embeddings])
brain signals	Compute all freshness/decay signals
brain stats	Counts by type
brain verify <id>	Mark node as verified
brain dream	Run full maintenance cycle
brain viz	Open browser visualization
brain export --format <fmt>	Export graph (cytoscape, json, or batch)

Write group

• brain write node --json-data '<json>' -- create or update a node
• brain write edge --json-data '<json>' -- create or update an edge
• brain write batch --file <path> -- bulk import operations

Delete group

• brain delete node --id <id> -- archive a node
• brain delete edge --from <id> --to <id> --verb '<verb>' -- end an edge

Query group

• brain query cypher "<cypher>" -- raw Cypher (use --read-only for safety)
• brain query depends-on <id> -- what this node depends on
• brain query blast-radius <id> -- what depends on this node
• brain query chain <id> -- full dependency chain
• brain query changed-since <date> -- nodes modified since
• brain query stale [--threshold N] -- nodes past threshold (default 14 days)
• brain query person <id> -- full person assessment subgraph

Embed group

• brain embed backfill -- generate embeddings for nodes missing them
• brain embed status -- coverage report

Hygiene group

• brain hygiene dedup -- find potential duplicates
• brain hygiene orphans -- disconnected nodes
• brain hygiene verbs -- verb usage audit
• brain hygiene completeness -- schema rule violations
• brain hygiene file-paths -- broken / missing file_path checks
• brain hygiene content-drift -- brain content vs source file drift
• brain hygiene readiness -- operational readiness checks

Config group

• brain config show -- show current config
• brain config add-type <type_name> <tier> -- register a custom type (tier: structural, operational, or temporal)

JSON schemas

Node:

{
  "id": "my_node_id",
  "type": "project",
  "title": "Display name",
  "status": "active",
  "content": "Optional markdown content",
  "file_path": "optional/relative/path.md",
  "properties": {"any": "nested object"}
}

Edge (note: field names are from, to, verb -- not from_id/source):

{
  "from": "source_node_id",
  "to": "target_node_id",
  "verb": "depends on",
  "since": "2026-04-07",
  "source": "human",
  "note": "optional context"
}

Global flags

--json-output is a global flag and must come before the subcommand:

• brain --json-output stats (correct)
• brain stats --json-output (errors with No such option)

---

Optional Features

Semantic Search

pip install 'xarc-brain[embeddings]'
# Set OPENAI_API_KEY in your environment
brain embed backfill
brain search-semantic "authentication flow"

Conversation History Replay

pip install xarc-memory
# brain init and brain dream will index past Claude Code conversations

---

Architecture

your-project/
  .brain/              Brain data (add to .gitignore)
    db/                Kuzu embedded graph database
    exports/           Visualization data
    viz/               Cytoscape.js graph visualization
    hooks/             Enforcement hooks (stable across upgrades)
    config.json        Type tiers, custom settings
  .claude/
    settings.local.json   Hooks (auto-installed by brain init)
  CLAUDE.md            Brain instructions (auto-installed)

---

How It's Built

• Kuzu -- embedded graph database, no server
• Rich -- terminal formatting
• Click -- CLI framework
• Cytoscape.js -- graph visualization (bundled offline)

~3,500 lines of Python. Fully auditable. No magic.

Nothing leaves your machine. No cloud services. No telemetry. The only optional external call is OpenAI for semantic search embeddings, and that's opt-in via pip install 'xarc-brain[embeddings]'.

---

Roadmap

v0.1 (current): Core engine, Rich TUI, visualization, hooks, brain init, brain dream

Next:

• Graph diff (what changed since last session)
• Auto-dream on session boundaries (Claude Code Stop hook)
• Multi-agent graph sharing
• MCP server for native tool integration

Contributions welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

---

How This Was Built

This project was built by CCL, an AI agent deployed on X-Arc's CCX platform. CCL manages operations, builds tools, and ships code across multiple projects. You can see CCL as a contributor on this repo.

Brain started as CCL's internal memory system. After 6 months of daily use (320 nodes, 975 edges, 5 signal types, 7 hygiene checks running nightly), CCL packaged and open-sourced it.

X-Arc deploys AI agents that ship real work. Manage it like a hire. It works like ten.

x-arc.ai | GitHub