codemem

Persistent memory for OpenCode and Claude Code. codemem captures what you work on across sessions, retrieves relevant context using hybrid search, and injects relevant context automatically in OpenCode.

• Local-first — everything lives in SQLite on your machine
• Hybrid retrieval — FTS5 BM25 lexical search + sqlite-vec semantic search, merged and re-ranked
• Automatic injection — the OpenCode plugin injects context into every prompt, no manual steps
• Claude Code plugin support — install from the codemem marketplace source
• Built-in viewer — browse memories, sessions, and observer output in a local web UI
• Peer-to-peer sync — replicate memories across machines without a central service

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Quick start

Prerequisites: Node.js 22+ and npm (or pnpm)

1. Add the plugin to your OpenCode config (~/.config/opencode/opencode.jsonc):

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "plugin": ["@codemem/opencode-plugin"]
}

1. Restart OpenCode.

The OpenCode plugin manages backend execution automatically — no separate global install is required.

1. Verify:

# Works on fresh installs (no global codemem needed)
npx -y codemem stats
npx -y codemem db raw-events-status

That's it. The plugin captures activity, builds memories, and injects context from here on.

If you want codemem available directly on your PATH for manual commands, install the CLI globally:

npm install -g codemem

OpenCode plugin and CLI are now split intentionally:

• @codemem/opencode-plugin — OpenCode plugin package
• codemem — CLI and MCP commands

Claude Code (marketplace install)

In Claude Code, add the codemem marketplace source and install the plugin:

/plugin marketplace add kunickiaj/codemem
/plugin install codemem

The Claude plugin starts MCP with the TS CLI (codemem mcp).

Claude hook ingestion is HTTP enqueue-first (POST /api/claude-hooks) and falls back to direct local DB enqueue via codemem claude-hook-ingest when the local server path is unavailable.

Claude hook events share the same raw-event queue pipeline used by OpenCode. UserPromptSubmit runs
capture ingest in the background and injects memory context via Claude additionalContext using
local CLI/store pack generation by default, with optional HTTP /api/pack fallback.

The packaged Claude hook shell scripts are thin wrappers over TS CLI commands:
codemem claude-hook-ingest and codemem claude-hook-inject.

Migrating from opencode-mem? See docs/rename-migration.md.

How it works

Adapters hook into runtime event systems (OpenCode plugin and Claude hooks). They capture tool calls and conversation messages, flush them through an observer pipeline that produces typed memories, and surface retrieval context for future prompts.

sequenceDiagram
participant OC as OpenCode
participant PL as codemem plugin
participant ST as MemoryStore
participant DB as SQLite

OC->>PL: tool.execute.after events
OC->>PL: experimental.chat.system.transform
PL->>ST: build_memory_pack with shaped query
ST->>DB: FTS5 BM25 lexical search
ST->>DB: sqlite vec semantic search
ST->>ST: merge rerank and section assembly
ST-->>PL: pack text
PL->>OC: inject codemem context

Retrieval combines two strategies: keyword search via SQLite FTS5 with BM25 scoring and semantic similarity via sqlite-vec embeddings. In the pack-building path, results from both are merged, deduplicated, and re-ranked using recency and memory-kind boosts.

Injection happens automatically. The plugin builds a query from the current session context (first prompt, latest prompt, project, recently modified files), calls build_memory_pack, and appends the result to the system prompt via experimental.chat.system.transform.

Memories are typed — bugfix, feature, refactor, change, discovery, decision, exploration — with structured fields like facts, concepts, files_read, and files_modified that improve retrieval relevance. Low-signal events are filtered at multiple layers before persistence.

For architecture details, see docs/architecture.md.

CLI

Command	Description
codemem stats	Database statistics
codemem recent	Recent memories
codemem search <query>	Search memories
codemem embed	Backfill semantic embeddings
codemem serve	Launch the web viewer
codemem db backfill-tags	Populate missing tags_text values
codemem db prune-observations	Deactivate low-signal observations
codemem db prune-memories	Deactivate low-signal memories (--dry-run to preview)
codemem export-memories	Export memories by project
codemem import-memories	Import memories (idempotent)
codemem sync	Peer-to-peer sync commands

Run codemem --help for the full list.

Note: in the TypeScript CLI, codemem memory inject <context> prints raw pack_text
for manual prompt injection. codemem memory compact remains deferred.

MCP tools

To give the LLM direct access to memory tools (search, timeline, pack, remember, forget):

codemem install-mcp

This updates your OpenCode config to register the MCP server. Restart OpenCode to activate.

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/codemem/config.json (override with CODEMEM_CONFIG). Environment variables take precedence over file settings.

Common overrides:

Variable	Purpose
CODEMEM_DB	SQLite database path
CODEMEM_INJECT_CONTEXT	0 to disable automatic context injection
CODEMEM_VIEWER_AUTO	0 to disable auto-starting the viewer

The viewer includes a grouped Settings modal (Connection, Processing, Device Sync) with shell-agnostic labels and an advanced-controls toggle for technical fields.

• Settings show effective values (configured or default) and only persist changed fields on save.

Observer runtime/auth in 0.16:

• Runtime options: api_http and claude_sidecar.
• api_http defaults to gpt-5.1-codex-mini (OpenAI path) unless you set observer_model.
• Anthropic direct API calls accept Anthropic model IDs/aliases. codemem maps the common Claude shorthand claude-4.5-haiku to Anthropic's direct API alias claude-haiku-4-5; you can also set a pinned snapshot like claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 explicitly.
• claude_sidecar defaults to claude-4.5-haiku; if the selected observer_model is unsupported by Claude CLI, codemem retries once with Claude's CLI default model.
• claude_sidecar command is configurable with claude_command (CODEMEM_CLAUDE_COMMAND) as a JSON argv array.
  • Config file example: "claude_command": ["wrapper", "claude", "--"]
  • Env var example: CODEMEM_CLAUDE_COMMAND='["wrapper","claude","--"]'
• Auth sources: auto, env, file, command, none.
• observer_auth_command must be a JSON string array (argv), not a space-separated string.
  • Config file example: "observer_auth_command": ["iap-auth", "--audience", "example"]
  • Env var example: CODEMEM_OBSERVER_AUTH_COMMAND='["iap-auth","--audience","example"]'
• Header templates support ${auth.token}, ${auth.type}, and ${auth.source} (for example Authorization: Bearer ${auth.token}).
• Queue cadence is configurable with raw_events_sweeper_interval_s (seconds) in Settings/config.

Export and import

Share project knowledge with teammates or back up memories across machines.

# Export current project
codemem export-memories project.json

# Import on another machine (idempotent, safe to re-run)
codemem import-memories project.json --remap-project ~/workspace/myproject

# Import from claude-mem
codemem import-from-claude-mem ~/.claude-mem/claude-mem.db

See codemem export-memories --help and codemem import-memories --help for full options.

Peer-to-peer sync

Replicate memories across devices without a central server.

codemem sync enable        # generate device keys
codemem sync pair          # generate pairing payload
codemem sync start         # start sync daemon
codemem sync once          # run one immediate sync pass

The viewer now includes actor management for mapping multiple peers to one logical person, plus owned-memory visibility controls so project-filtered memories share by default while Only me stays a per-memory local override.

Project filters, peer-to-actor assignment, visibility controls, and config keys are documented in docs/user-guide.md.

For cross-network setups where peer addresses change frequently or mDNS does not cross VPN/network boundaries, codemem also supports optional coordinator-backed discovery with a self-hosted coordinator. The preferred deployment path is the built-in codemem sync coordinator service; see docs/coordinator-discovery.md.

Semantic recall

Embeddings are stored in sqlite-vec and written automatically when memories are created. Use codemem embed to backfill existing memories. If sqlite-vec cannot load, keyword search still works.

Alternative install methods

Local development, npx, git install

Local development

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm run codemem --help

Via npx (no install)

npx -y codemem stats

Plugin for development

Start OpenCode inside the codemem repo directory — the plugin auto-loads from .opencode/plugin/.

Documentation

• Architecture — data flow, retrieval, observer pipeline, design tradeoffs
• Coordinator-backed discovery — self-hosted cross-network peer discovery
• User guide — viewer usage, sync setup, troubleshooting
• Plugin reference — plugin behavior, env vars, stream reliability
• Migration guide — migrating from opencode-mem
• Contributing — development setup, tests, linting, releases