CortexDB
AI memory and a knowledge graph in one SQLite file. Pure Go, no service to run, works without an embedding model.
Install
| |
|---|
| Go library | go get github.com/liliang-cn/cortexdb/v2 |
| Claude Code | /plugin marketplace add liliang-cn/cortexdb, then /plugin install cortexdb@cortexdb |
| Codex | codex plugin marketplace add liliang-cn/cortexdb && codex plugin add cortexdb@cortexdb |
| Claude Code mod (optional) | /plugin install cortexdb-live@cortexdb |
| DeepSeek Harness | dsh plugin --profile web add "github:liliang-cn/cortexdb#semver:^2&path:/plugins/dsh-cortexdb-memory" (guide) |
| Obsidian | unzip a release's cortexdb-obsidian.zip into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/ (guide) |
| Shared-brain server | go install github.com/liliang-cn/cortexdb/v2/cmd/cortexdb-grpc@latest |
| Clients | cargo add cortexdb-client · pip install cortexdb-client · npm install cortexdb-client |
Use
db, _ := cortexdb.Open(cortexdb.DefaultConfig("brain.db"))
defer db.Close()
brain := db.KnowledgeMemory()
_, _ = brain.Remember(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeMemoryRememberRequest{MemoryID: "alice-tabs", UserID: "alice", Scope: "user", Content: "Alice prefers tabs."})
rec, _ := brain.Recall(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeMemoryRecallRequest{Query: "what does Alice prefer?", UserID: "alice"})
fmt.Println(rec.ContextPack.Text)
The plugin gives Claude Code and Codex one global brain at ~/.cortexdb/cortexdb.db, /remember, /recall and an auto-recall hook. A session starts with an index of what the brain knows about its project, an agent about to open a file is told what happened to it before, and a session's durable facts are captured with <private> text and credentials kept out. Point several agents or machines at one cortexdb-grpc and they share the same memory and graph.
In Codex, review and trust the plugin hooks in /hooks to activate automatic
recall. See the plugin guide for setup and
cortexdb-mcp --doctor --self-test diagnostics (v2.119.0+).
Claude Code mod
cortexdb-live is an optional mod that runs inside Claude Code on top of the cortexdb plugin. Install it after the plugin:
/plugin install cortexdb-live@cortexdb
The mod calls three of the plugin's tools itself, and a hook gets no permission prompt, so allow them once in ~/.claude/settings.json (not needed in bypass mode):
"permissions": {
"allow": [
"mcp__plugin_cortexdb_cortexdb__knowledge_memory_recall",
"mcp__plugin_cortexdb_cortexdb__graph_statistics",
"mcp__plugin_cortexdb_cortexdb__memory_save"
]
}
Without them the status line names the missing rules.
- Planned recall. Before the brain is searched, haiku turns each prompt into keywords in Chinese and English, aliases, entity names and a retrieval mode. A bare "ok" or "go ahead" searches nothing. The band above the prompt shows what was recalled; expand it to see the plan and every hit. Hide lasts until the next recall;
/cortexdb-show brings the hidden one back.
- Status line. Which brain the session uses, its node count and how long the last recall took, or why the brain can't be reached.
- Capture. 90 seconds after a session goes idle, haiku distils the new part of the conversation into durable memories (
auto:<session>:<slug>). Each later pass replaces a memory under the same slug rather than adding a copy. Older memories a new one makes untrue (a host moved, a decision reversed) are marked superseded: kept, but no longer recalled as current.
Haiku runs on Claude Code's own model access, so no API key is needed. Language: /config → cortexdb-live → language (auto, zh, en). The mod honours the plugin's own switches: cortexdb-recall --disable and cortexdb-session-end --disable turn recall and capture off for both. While the mod runs, the plugin's shell recall and capture hooks stand down, so nothing is done twice. Codex keeps those hooks. Mods are an early-access Claude Code feature.
What's inside
- Vectors (HNSW, IVF, flat, binary codes), FTS5 full-text search, hybrid and graph retrieval
EmbeddedConfig for small devices: an SQ8 index, bounded SQLite caches, snapshots that survive a power cut — 100k 768-d vectors open in 0.28 s with a 193 MB heap- RAG knowledge, scoped agent memory, context packs with sources — memories say whether they were verified or are a guess, and recall keeps the two apart
- RDF 1.2 knowledge graph: SPARQL 1.1/1.2, RDFS + OWL 2 RL inference, SHACL Core + SHACL-SPARQL, RDF/XML import — passing the W3C SPARQL 1.1/1.2, RDF 1.2 (Turtle, TriG, N-Triples, N-Quads, RDF/XML) and SHACL test suites; RDFS and OWL 2 RL are covered by the repo's own tests — and read-only Cypher
- Palantir-style ontology with governed actions
- 100+ tools, in-process or over MCP
serve_graph_3d: a live 3D view to find, ask, query and expand, on desktop or phone — or the same brain as a library, each memory a book on its project's shelfimport_agent_memory: bring in what Claude Code, Codex and DeepSeek Harness already remember — memory notes, CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md, Codex's memories, and optionally past sessions distilled into memories — into a local or shared brain- Change feed: every committed write, in order, exactly once
- Observability: a request id and a W3C trace (
traceparent) from MCP through gRPC to the trace and the recall log, recalls that explain themselves and say when they were degraded, embedder health in /metrics and /healthz, and an opt-in recall log with a /recalls page
- SQLite by default, PostgreSQL + pgvector with a
postgres:// DSN
Environment
| Variable | Meaning |
|---|
CORTEXDB_PATH | Database file (default ~/.cortexdb/cortexdb.db) |
CORTEXDB_REMOTE | Use a shared cortexdb-grpc at host:port (plaintext) or https://host (TLS, behind a proxy) instead of a local file |
CORTEXDB_GRPC_TOKEN | Bearer token for that server |
CORTEXDB_GRPC_ADDR | Server listen address (default 127.0.0.1:47821) |
CORTEXDB_EMBED_BASE_URL / CORTEXDB_EMBED_API_KEY | cortexdb-mcp-stdio: OpenAI-compatible embeddings endpoint and its key (fall back to OPENAI_BASE_URL / OPENAI_API_KEY); unset = lexical mode |
OPENAI_BASE_URL / OPENAI_API_KEY | Server: the embeddings endpoint and key (cortexdb-grpc reads only these, not CORTEXDB_EMBED_BASE_URL); unset = lexical mode |
CORTEXDB_EMBED_MODEL / CORTEXDB_EMBED_DIM | Embedding model and dimension, for both (default text-embedding-3-small / 1536) |
CORTEXDB_VECTOR_INDEX / CORTEXDB_BINARY_OVERSAMPLE | Server: hnsw (default) or, on a SQLite store, binary (1-bit codes in memory, 1/32 of the vectors, each search rescored from the stored vectors, no snapshot); the oversample is the binary shortlist multiplier, from 1 to 1000 (default 8) |
CORTEXDB_REVIEW_GATE | Server and cortexdb-mcp-stdio: 1 leaves proposed and rejected documents and memories out of search and recall (default off; a curation filter, not access control) |
CORTEXDB_SLOW_MS | Server: log calls slower than this, with the time each stage took (default 1000, 0 = none) |
CORTEXDB_TRACE / CORTEXDB_TRACE_FILE | Server: log every call; also append the records to a JSON-lines file |
CORTEXDB_LOG_FORMAT / CORTEXDB_LOG_LEVEL | Server: text (logfmt, default) or ; , (default), , |
Docs
Website · Guide (full feature reference) · Examples · Changelog · 中文
License
MIT
