ZenAI

The AI OS that remembers. Self-hosted. Open source.

60 AI tools. 12,000+ tests. 440K+ LOC. 7-layer neuroscience-inspired memory. Built on ZenBrain.

📌 This repository is a snapshot, not the living tree

The application code here was synced from the development tree on 8 May 2026; only
documentation and CLI packaging changed after that, up to 25 May 2026. It is a
faithful copy of what ZenAI was on that date — readable, citable and runnable — but it
is not the current state of development, and it does not receive fixes.

The CI pipeline is set to manual dispatch for the same reason: it tests files that the
development tree has since removed, so an automatic run reported a failure that nobody
here could act on. That says nothing about the snapshot itself.

What is current: the memory library ZenBrain
is actively developed and released to npm, and the research record behind both is kept
up to date at zensation.ai/en/publikationen.

Questions about the state of ZenAI: [email protected]

What is ZenAI?

ZenAI is a self-hosted AI platform with neuroscience-inspired memory. Unlike ChatGPT or Claude, ZenAI remembers your conversations, learns from your preferences, and improves over time — using the same mechanisms your brain uses.

Key Features

• 60 AI Tools across 14 categories (memory, web search, code execution, GitHub, maps, email, documents, and more)
• 7-Layer Memory (Working, Short-Term, Episodic, Semantic, Procedural, Core, Cross-Context) powered by ZenBrain
• FSRS Spaced Repetition — your AI never forgets what matters
• 4 Context Isolation — separate memory for personal, work, learning, and creative
• Multi-Agent System — researcher, writer, reviewer, coder agents with debate protocol
• RAG Pipeline — HyDE + Cross-Encoder reranking + GraphRAG hybrid retrieval
• Real-Time Voice — WebSocket STT/TTS pipeline with turn-taking
• Extended Thinking — visible AI reasoning with budget management
• Sleep-Time Compute — background memory consolidation and contradiction detection
• MCP Ecosystem — connect external tools via Model Context Protocol

Architecture

Frontend: React + TypeScript (Vite)
Backend:  Express.js + TypeScript
AI:       Claude API (primary), Mistral (fallback), Ollama (local)
Database: PostgreSQL + pgvector (4 isolated schemas)
Memory:   ZenBrain 7-layer architecture
Cache:    Redis (optional)

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 (this snapshot declares "node": "20.x")
• PostgreSQL 15+ with pgvector extension
• Anthropic API key

Setup

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/zensation-ai/zenai.git
cd zenai

# Backend
cd backend
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your DATABASE_URL and ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
npm install
npm run build
npm run dev

# Frontend (new terminal)
cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser.

Docker Compose

Two compose files ship with this snapshot.

# Self-hosting: Postgres (pgvector) + Redis + backend on :3000
cp .env.docker .env
docker compose up -d

# Infrastructure only — Postgres + Redis, run backend and frontend locally
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d

The frontend is not part of the compose stack; run it as shown under
Setup.

API

ZenAI exposes 250+ API endpoints. Key areas:

Full API documentation: /api-docs (Swagger UI when running)

Testing

# Backend (~11,500+ tests)
cd backend && npm test

# Frontend (~1,400+ tests)
cd frontend && npx vitest run

# CLI (108 tests)
cd cli && npm test

Memory System

ZenAI's memory is powered by ZenBrain — the neuroscience-inspired memory system:

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

Apache 2.0

Built by ZenSation in Kiel, Germany.