Cortex

Private local memory for your AI tools.
Install once. Your tools stop starting from scratch.

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🔒 Private by default: localhost only, data never leaves your machine
🔗 One memory, every tool: HTTP and MCP, same brain, no per-tool silos
📊 Prove it works: token savings, recall quality, and Monte Carlo projections

❌ Without Cortex Session 1  →  explain preferences Session 2  →  explain them again Session 3  →  and again, new tool Session 14  →  still explaining ~15,000 tokens wasted

✅ With Cortex Session 1  →  store once Session 2  →  boot, already knows Session 3  →  boot, already knows Session 14  →  boot, still knows ~300 tokens per boot (97% less)

Memory tools are easy to pitch and hard to trust. Cortex starts to matter when the savings stop looking theoretical.

📊 Analytics Savings, compression, and activity heatmaps	📈 Monte Carlo 30-day projection with confidence bands
🤖 Agents Live sessions, inbox, deduped by identity	🎛️ Overview Memory counts, health, and navigation

Measured against a 20-query ground-truth dataset on every release via the cortex-http-base adapter. A fully helper-free cortex-http-pure adapter lands in v0.6.0 to establish the canonical core baseline.

_{Raw v0.5.0 JSON
Note: cortex-http-base ("raw") adapter retains partial adapter-layer helpers and is deprecated for new quality claims. The helper-free cortex-http-pure adapter ships in v0.6.0 as the canonical measurement floor -- every v0.6.0+ recall-quality claim is measured through it, enforced by 5 CI purity gates. See benchmarking/README.md. Reranking production-ships in v0.6.0 Phase 2; query expansion (HyDE) targeted for v0.7.0.}

349 commits since v0.4.1. Full details in CHANGELOG.md.

Retrieval

• Reciprocal rank fusion: query-adaptive keyword/semantic weighting
• Crystal family recall: collapsed members cut token cost, preserve context
• Synonym-expanded keywords across all retrieval paths
• FTS tokenizer upgrade and BM25 tuning
• Entity-alignment boost, co-occurrence expansion

Reliability

• Schema migration framework with upgrade regression tests
• DB integrity gate, rolling backups, crash-safe WAL
• Storage pressure governor with event-pressure controls
• Persistent savings rollups for long-window analytics
• DB footprint: 720 MB → 386 MB in a real install

Agent intelligence

• Feedback telemetry: record outcomes, track reliability over time
• Recall explainability: see why results ranked the way they did
• Conflict detection: AGREES / CONTRADICTS / REFINES / UNRELATED
• Client permissions: read / write / admin gates per agent

Security

• Localhost exempt from auth-failure lockout
• Non-loopback binds require TLS
• API key masking on non-interactive stdout
• Remote targets need explicit token (no silent auto-load)
• Team-mode destructive ops require admin + rated auth

Cortex tracks active agent sessions when clients identify themselves through cortex_boot or GET /boot?agent=NAME.

Full setup guide: Info/connecting.md

Desktop app (Control Center)
Download from the release page. The Control Center manages daemon lifecycle for you.

From source

git clone https://github.com/AdityaVG13/cortex.git
cd cortex/daemon-rs
cargo build --release

Claude Code plugin

claude plugin marketplace add AdityaVG13/cortex
claude plugin install cortex@cortex-marketplace

The plugin handles daemon startup, health checks, and MCP bridging automatically.

Cortex enforces a single-daemon invariant: only one daemon process runs at a time.

Default bind: 127.0.0.1:7437. Non-loopback binds require TLS. Auth token at ~/.cortex/cortex.token.
If using the Control Center, manage the daemon from there. Do not run a second cortex serve alongside it.

After installing, verify everything works:

# Start the daemon (skip if using Control Center)
cortex serve &

# Health check (no auth required)
curl http://localhost:7437/health

# Boot test
TOKEN=$(cat ~/.cortex/cortex.token)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
     -H "X-Cortex-Request: true" \
     "http://localhost:7437/boot?agent=smoke-test"

# Store and recall round-trip
curl -X POST http://localhost:7437/store \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
     -H "X-Cortex-Request: true" \
     -d '{"decision": "smoke test", "context": "verifying install"}'

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
     -H "X-Cortex-Request: true" \
     "http://localhost:7437/recall?q=smoke+test"

# Daemon unit tests
cargo test --manifest-path daemon-rs/Cargo.toml

# Desktop test suite
npm --prefix desktop/cortex-control-center test

# Lifecycle smoke test
npm --prefix desktop/cortex-control-center run verify:lifecycle:dev

# Security audit
npm audit --omit=dev --audit-level=high
cargo audit

Cortex defaults to localhost-only access with bearer-token auth.
Full threat model, auth rules, and vulnerability reporting: Info/security-rules.md

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