LongMemory

Durable, temporal, governed memory for AI agents. Not just RAG. Not just a vector database. Local-first and self-hosted.

LongMemory is a cognitive memory engine for LLM applications and autonomous agents.

• Durable local-first storage with SQLite
• Immutable content, provenance, and temporal truth
• Strict, historical, associative, grounded, and multilingual recall
• Explainable evidence selection and token-bounded context
• Governed project memory, Skills, Chat Memory, LLM-Wiki, and CodeGraph
• One TypeScript engine across npm, CLI, HTTP, MCP, dashboard, and VS Code
• Native integrations for agent hosts, automation tools, and Python frameworks

Your model stays stateless. Your application stops being amnesiac.

---

1. Use It in 10 Seconds

Install as a library

npm install longmemory

import { createMemory } from 'longmemory';

const memory = await createMemory();
await memory.ingest({
    user_id: 'alice',
    text: 'I prefer TypeScript for backend services',
});

const result = await memory.recall({
    text: 'What language does Alice prefer?',
    mode: 'strict',
});

console.log(result);
await memory.close();

No service or external database is required for in-memory use.

For optional evidence-grounded answers with your own model, use the exported answer_from_evidence adapter. It accepts authorized evidence, validates cited excerpts, and makes at most one model call; ordinary recall is unchanged. See docs/answering.md for policies, limits, and integration.

Persist with SQLite

const memory = await createMemory({
    store: 'sqlite',
    db_path: './longmemory.db',
    tenant_id: 'acme',
    user_id: 'alice',
});

Reopening the same database restores nodes, worlds, entities, edges, temporal history, grounding, and lifecycle state.

Install the CLI

npm install --global longmemory
longmemory init
longmemory recall "current project priorities" --mode associative

Call a self-hosted server from Python

pip install longmemory-sdk

from longmemory import LongMemory

memory = LongMemory(
    "http://127.0.0.1:7331",
    api_key="change-me",
    user_id="alice",
)

memory.ingest("I prefer TypeScript")
result = memory.recall("What language do I prefer?", mode="strict")

The Python package is a zero-dependency HTTP client. The Hydrograph engine remains in the self-hosted TypeScript service. See docs/python-sdk.md.

---

2. Run as a Service

From source

git clone https://github.com/CaviraOSS/LongMemory.git
cd LongMemory
corepack enable
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm build
pnpm start

The API listens on http://127.0.0.1:7331 by default.

Docker

docker run --rm \
  -p 7331:7331 \
  -v longmemory-data:/data \
  -e LONGMEMORY_API_KEY=change-me \
  ghcr.io/caviraoss/longmemory:latest

Docker Compose

cp .env.example .env
docker compose up --build -d longmemory

Include the dashboard:

docker compose --profile ui up --build -d

• API and MCP: http://127.0.0.1:7331
• Dashboard: http://127.0.0.1:3000
• Health: http://127.0.0.1:7331/health

---

3. Why LongMemory

Most systems called memory are retrieval pipelines:

1. Split text into chunks.
2. Embed the chunks.
3. Return the nearest vectors.

That does not establish what was true at a particular time, whether a new fact superseded an old one, which source is authoritative, who may see it, or why a result belongs in context.

LongMemory models those concerns directly:

• Temporal truth: recorded time and valid time are separate.
• Immutable memory: content, vectors, hashes, and provenance are not rewritten by recall or decay.
• Executable graph: typed relationships participate in recall and explanation.
• Governance: project, tenant, user, team, role, agent, task, and framework scope are enforced.
• Lifecycle: deterministic decay, explicit reinforcement, consolidation, compression, and reconsolidation.
• Evidence: recall is bounded by relevance, contradictions, grounding, permissions, and token cost.

See Why.md for the design rationale.

---

4. Recall Modes

const strict = await memory.recall({
    text: 'What is the current deployment region?',
    mode: 'strict',
});

const historical = await memory.recall({
    text: 'What was the deployment region in January?',
    mode: 'historical',
    valid_time: Date.UTC(2026, 0, 15),
});

const associative = await memory.recall({
    text: 'Incidents related to the payment migration',
    mode: 'associative',
});

const grounded = await memory.recall({
    text: 'Which production endpoint is currently live?',
    mode: 'world_grounded',
});

Strict recall applies temporal, contradiction, contract, confidence, and grounding gates. Historical recall preserves superseded truth. Associative recall follows semantic, lexical, entity, activation, and graph signals. World-grounded recall requires current external evidence.

---

5. Features

• Hydrograph memory substrate with immutable nodes, executable edges, worlds, entities, facets, and traces.
• Temporal reasoning with point-in-time truth, event ordering, supersession, and stale-evidence controls.
• Multilingual memory with script detection, code switching, transliteration, and cross-language embeddings.
• Project memory for architecture, decisions, tasks, conventions, failures, handoffs, and code impact.
• Governed assets for Chat Memory, Skills, LLM-Wiki, and CodeGraph with lifecycle and ACL policy.
• Session porter for Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Copilot Chat, Cline, and raw harness logs.
• Connectors for repositories, local files, Markdown, web content, feeds, cloud documents, and provider APIs.
• Embeddings through OpenAI-compatible APIs, Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Ollama, Siray, and local HTTP models.
• Operational surfaces through HTTP, MCP, dashboard, VS Code, n8n, and framework-native MCP clients.
• Auditable benchmarks for LongMemEval, LoCoMo, BEAM, retrieval quality, temporal behavior, and latency.

---

6. MCP and Agent Integrations

Start local stdio MCP:

longmemory mcp --db .longmemory/project.db --project current

Expose authenticated Streamable HTTP MCP:

LONGMEMORY_API_KEY=change-me longmemory serve --mcp-http

LongMemory exposes 13 high-level governed tools plus readable resources and agent workflow prompts. Tool arguments cannot override server-bound runtime identity.

Installable integrations include:

• Claude Code plugin
• Codex and ChatGPT desktop plugin
• Gemini CLI extension
• Agent Plugins 1.0 bundle for OpenClaw and compatible hosts
• n8n community node usable as an AI Agent tool
• Cline, Continue, and LibreChat configuration packs
• Dify and Flowise native MCP setup
• CrewAI, AutoGen, LangGraph/LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, and PydanticAI examples

See integrations/README.md and docs/mcp.md.

---

7. Temporal and Project Memory

import { createProjectMemory } from 'longmemory';

const projects = await createProjectMemory({
    tenant_id: 'cavira',
    organization_id: 'CaviraOSS',
    project_id: 'longmemory',
    name: 'LongMemory',
    store: 'sqlite',
    db_path: './longmemory.db',
});

await projects.ingestProjectEvent('longmemory', {
    kind: 'decision',
    topic: 'persistence',
    text: 'Use SQLite for local-first persistence',
    source_type: 'architecture_note',
});

const context = await projects.getProjectContext('longmemory', 'prepare the next release');

Project context combines relevant architecture, current decisions, open tasks, failures, code facts, matched Skills, conflicts, and governed asset loadouts under one token budget.

---

8. CLI

longmemory init
longmemory tui
longmemory status --memories 20 --json
longmemory ingest "Remember the rollback procedure" --type procedure
longmemory recall "What is the rollback procedure?" --mode associative
longmemory memory list --limit 50
longmemory project context "prepare the next release"
longmemory maintenance decay --all
longmemory maintenance reinforce <memory-id>
longmemory skill match "run the release checklist" --agent reviewer
longmemory asset loadout "prepare the release" --agent reviewer --framework codex
longmemory code impact createMemory
longmemory detect
longmemory session discover --from claude-code
longmemory port --from claude-code --to longmemory --all
longmemory session wiki --from gemini-cli --all --name "Project knowledge"
longmemory serve --mcp-http

Finite commands emit stable JSON outside a TTY or when --json is supplied. The session porter reads supported coding-agent stores without modifying them. See docs/cli.md.

---

9. Dashboard and VS Code

The Next.js dashboard provides health, memory browsing, ingestion, search, project selection, activity, decay, settings, timelines, and memory-aware chat through a same-origin API proxy.

pnpm --dir dashboard build
pnpm --dir dashboard start

The VS Code extension provides an activity-bar browser, status bar, recall, project context, explanation, reinforcement, explicit decay, session import, and reviewed AI-change capture.

pnpm extension:package

The generated package is apps/vscode-extension/longmemory-vscode-0.2.0.vsix.

---

10. Architecture

graph TB
  INPUT[Events, documents, sessions] --> INGEST[Immutable ingest pipeline]
  INGEST --> GRAPH[(Hydrograph)]
  GRAPH --> STRICT[Strict and historical recall]
  GRAPH --> ASSOC[Associative recall]
  GRAPH --> GROUND[World-grounded recall]
  GRAPH --> PROJECT[Project memory and governed assets]
  GRAPH --> SQLITE[(SQLite)]
  STRICT --> CONTEXT[Explainable bounded context]
  ASSOC --> CONTEXT
  GROUND --> CONTEXT
  PROJECT --> MCP[MCP tools, resources, prompts]
  CONTEXT --> API[Library, CLI, HTTP]
  MCP --> AGENTS[Agents, IDEs, automation]
  API --> UI[Dashboard and VS Code]

Read ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/architecture.md for subsystem details.

---

11. Deployment Options

For hosted API deployments, set LONGMEMORY_API_KEY, mount persistent storage at /data, and terminate TLS at the platform edge. Vercel hosts only the stateless dashboard and requires a separately deployed LongMemory API.

---

12. Benchmarks

pnpm bench
pnpm bench:ci
pnpm bench:full

The benchmark harness publishes explicit manifests, dataset completion, evidence metrics, answer judgments, temporal categories, latency percentiles, and N/A reasons. Official scorecards fail closed on incomplete datasets or semantic embedding fallback. See benchmarks/README.md.

---

13. Migration

Import supported SQLite, JSON, or JSONL memory:

longmemory migrate \
  --from ./legacy.db \
  --to ./longmemory.db \
  --report ./migration-report.json

Import coding-agent conversations as governed Chat Memory:

longmemory port --from codex --to longmemory --all

See MIGRATION.md and docs/migration.md.

Legacy package migration:

npm uninstall openmemory-js && npm install longmemory
pip uninstall openmemory-py && pip install longmemory-sdk

openmemory-js@2 and openmemory-py@2 are forwarding bridges for existing installations. New applications should use longmemory and longmemory-sdk directly. PyPI's unrelated longmemory name is owned by another project, so the official distribution is longmemory-sdk while the import remains longmemory.

---

14. Release and Operations

corepack enable
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm release:check
pnpm pack
pnpm extension:package

release:check validates branding, types, integration manifests, the benchmark smoke gate, the root build, extension build, and dashboard production build.

Useful Make targets:

make install
make build
make check
make docker-up
make dashboard

---

15. Security

LongMemory is local-first, but network deployment still requires explicit controls:

• Protect API and MCP routes with LONGMEMORY_API_KEY.
• Restrict allowed origins and terminate TLS at the edge.
• Keep connector and embedding credentials outside repository files.
• Treat recalled content as untrusted evidence, not authorization.
• Preserve server-bound user, project, agent, and framework identity.

Report vulnerabilities privately as described in SECURITY.md.

---

16. Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md, GOVERNANCE.md, and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md before contributing.

• Issues: https://github.com/CaviraOSS/LongMemory/issues
• Discussions: https://github.com/CaviraOSS/LongMemory/discussions
• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md

---

17. License

LongMemory is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The separately published n8n community node uses MIT as required by n8n's strict package validator.

Contributors