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

Morven	Chis	Hossein Amirkhalili	DKB	Stephen Adebayo	mrlonely
Sense_wang	Elvoro	Clio	suyua9	Vincenzo Palazzo	Sriram M
Felipe Parra	DoKoB0512	MistrHyde	Octopus	Ayush Singh	Kishan Lal
Peter Chung	Muhammad Fiaz	Jason Kneen	shan	Naabakk	mikemikimike
Maciej Gajewski	Matija Urh	machj8968-lab	buyua9	Hamza	Oleksandr Antoshchenko
Lawrence Sinclair	jungdaesuh	Joseph Goksu	EikoocS	Dhravya Shah	Danil Flores
DAESA24	Brett Ammeson	auto-pr-bot	Anush	Annel Chavez	Anna Tao