name: agent-recall description: >- Persistent compounding memory for AI agents. 5 default MCP tools: session_start, session_end, remember, recall, check. Full surface (18 tools) available with --full flag. Two-verb model: inhale (session_start) and exhale (session_end). Correction-first memory with decision trail tracking, watch_for warnings, palace rooms with salience scoring, cross-project insight matching, same-day journal merging, ambient recall hooks. Local markdown only. Zero cloud, zero telemetry, Obsidian-compatible. Optional Supabase backend: when configured via ar setup supabase, recall() uses pgvector cosine similarity on OpenAI/Voyage embeddings instead of keyword search — same API, semantic understanding. Gracefully degrades to local search if not configured. origin: community version: 3.4.30 author: Goldentrii platform: clawhub install: mcp: command: npx args: ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] transport: stdio env: {} security: network: none credentials: none filesystem: read-write ~/.agent-recall/ only telemetry: none cloud: none tags:

• memory
• persistence
• multi-session
• mcp
• cross-project
• feedback-loop
• intelligent-distance
• auto-naming
• knowledge-graph
• obsidian trigger:
• "save"
• "save session"
• "/arsave"
• "/arstart"
• "remember this"
• "recall"
• "what did we do last time"
• "load context"
• "start session"
• "end session"
• "checkpoint"
• "保存"
• "记住"
• "上次做了什么"
• "加载上下文" skip:
• "don't save"
• "skip memory"
• "no need"
• "不用记"
• "算了"

AgentRecall v3.4.30 — Usage Guide

AgentRecall is a persistent memory system. Default surface: 5 tools (two verbs + three essentials). Full surface: 18 tools via npx agent-recall-mcp --full. This guide describes how and when to use them.

Two-verb model: session_start (inhale — load context) and session_end (exhale — save and compound). Everything else is available but secondary; most agents never need more than the default 5. See Automaticity Law below.

Setup

AgentRecall requires the MCP server to be running. If tool calls fail with "unknown tool", the human needs to install it first.

Visual setup guide (all 13 clients, copy-paste prompts): open warroom/install.html from the repo, or the GitHub raw link in a browser.

Installation (human runs once)

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --scope user agent-recall -- npx -y agent-recall-mcp

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

VS Code / GitHub Copilot (.vscode/mcp.json):

{ "servers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

Windsurf (~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

Codex:

codex mcp add agent-recall -- npx -y agent-recall-mcp

Hermes Agent (~/.hermes/config.yaml):

mcp_servers:
  agent-recall:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"]

Roo Code (.roo/mcp.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

Any MCP-compatible agent:

command: npx
args: ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"]
transport: stdio

Tools

AgentRecall's default surface provides 5 tools. Start the server with --full to enable the complete 18-tool surface.

Default tools (always available): session_start, session_end, remember, recall, check

Full-mode only (--full): memory_query, check_action, register_rule, pipeline_open, pipeline_close, pipeline_list, pipeline_current, pipeline_show, skill_write, skill_recall, skill_list, dashboard_export, session_end_reflect, project_board, project_status, digest, bootstrap_scan, bootstrap_import

Default tools

session_start

When: Beginning of a session, to load prior context.

What it returns:

• project — detected project name
• identity — who the user is (1-2 lines)
• insights — top 5 awareness insights (title + confirmation count + severity)
• active_rooms — top 5 palace rooms by salience (with staleness flag + last_updated) (Palace = your project's long-term knowledge store, organized into topic rooms like "architecture", "goals", "blockers". Salience = relevance score 0-1 based on recency, access frequency, and connections. Rooms with stale=true haven't been updated in 7+ days.)
• cross_project — insights from other projects matching current context
• recent — today/yesterday journal briefs
• watch_for — predictive warnings from past correction patterns + decision calibration
• corrections — P0 behavioral rules (max 10, always loaded, never expire)
• resume — structured re-entry briefing: last_date, last_trajectory, sessions_count

How to use the response:

1. Read identity to calibrate your tone and approach
2. Read insights — these are battle-tested lessons. Follow them.
3. Read watch_for — these are patterns where you've been wrong before on this project. Adjust your approach.
4. Read recent to understand where the last session left off
5. Present a brief to the human: project name, last session summary, relevant insights

Example call:

session_start({ project: "auto" })

remember

When: You learn something worth keeping. A decision, a bug fix, an insight, a session note.

What it does: Auto-classifies your content and routes it to the right store:

• Bug fix / lesson → knowledge store
• Architecture / decision → palace room
• Cross-project pattern → awareness system
• Session activity → journal

You do NOT need to decide where it goes. Just describe what to remember.

How to use:

remember({
  content: "We decided to use GraphQL instead of REST because the frontend needs flexible queries",
  context: "architecture decision"    // optional hint, improves routing
})

Returns: routed_to (which store), classification (content type), auto_name (semantic slug generated)

recall

When: You need to find something from past sessions. A decision, a pattern, a lesson.

What it does: Searches ALL stores at once using Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF) — each source (palace, journal, insights) ranks internally, then positions merge so no single source dominates. Journal entries decay fast via Ebbinghaus curve (S=2 days); palace entries are near-permanent (S=9999). Returns ranked results with stable IDs.

How to use:

recall({ query: "authentication design", limit: 5 })

Feedback: After using results, rate them. Ratings use a Bayesian Beta model — the mathematically optimal estimate of true usefulness:

recall({
  query: "auth patterns",
  feedback: [
    { id: "abc123", useful: true },   // Beta(2,1) → ×1.33 next time
    { id: "def456", useful: false }   // Beta(1,2) → ×0.67 next time
  ]
})

Feedback is query-aware — rating something "useless" for one query doesn't penalize it for unrelated queries.

session_end

When: End of session, after work is done.

What it does in one call:

• Writes daily journal entry
• Updates awareness with new insights (merge or add)
• Consolidates decisions/goals into palace rooms
• Archives demoted insights (preserved, not deleted)

How to use:

session_end({
  summary: "Built auth module with JWT refresh rotation. Fixed CORS bug.",
  insights: [
    {
      title: "JWT refresh tokens need httpOnly cookies — localStorage is vulnerable",
      evidence: "XSS attack vector discovered during security review",
      applies_when: ["auth", "jwt", "security", "cookies"],
      severity: "critical"
    }
  ],
  trajectory: "Next: add rate limiting to API endpoints"
})

Rules for insights:

• 1-3 per session. Quality over quantity.
• Must be reusable. "Fixed a bug" is NOT an insight. "API returns null when session expires — always null-check auth responses" IS an insight.
• applies_when keywords determine when this insight surfaces in future sessions across ALL projects.

Return fields:

• journal_written — boolean, true if journal entry was saved
• awareness_updated — boolean, true if any insight was stored
• palace_consolidated — boolean, true if palace rooms were updated
• insights_processed — number of insights accepted
• quality_warnings — advisory warnings if insights are too short, lack evidence, or use event-verb phrasing (never blocks saves)
• card — formatted save summary (box-drawing card)
• merge_suggestions — array of similar recent entries (optional)

check

When: Before executing a complex task where you might misunderstand the human's intent. Also for tracking decision quality over time.

What it does:

• Records your understanding of the goal
• Returns watch_for — patterns from past corrections on this project
• Returns similar_past_deltas — times you misunderstood similar goals before
• After human responds, record the correction for future agents
• Optionally tracks decision trails with prior/posterior/evidence for calibrated judgment

Two-call pattern (correction tracking):

Call 1 — before work:

check({
  goal: "Build REST API for user management",
  confidence: "medium",
  assumptions: ["User wants REST, not GraphQL", "CRUD endpoints", "PostgreSQL backend"]
})

Read the watch_for response. If it says "You've been corrected on API style 3 times", ASK the human before proceeding.

Call 2 — after human corrects (if they do):

check({
  goal: "Build REST API for user management",
  confidence: "high",
  human_correction: "Actually wants GraphQL, not REST",
  delta: "API style preference — assumed REST, human prefers GraphQL"
})

This feeds the predictive system. Future agents on this project will get warnings.

Decision trail (Bayesian-inspired calibration):

For major decisions, track confidence and outcome to calibrate judgment over time:

check({
  goal: "Use GraphQL instead of REST",
  confidence: "medium",
  prior: 0.7,                    // initial confidence (0-1)
  evidence: [
    { factor: "Frontend needs flexible queries", direction: "supports", weight: 0.2 },
    { factor: "No GraphQL experience on team", direction: "weakens", weight: 0.3 }
  ],
  posterior: 0.55,               // updated confidence after evidence
  outcome: "rejected"            // final result: "confirmed", "rejected", "partial", or free text
})

When outcome is provided, the decision trail is persisted to the palace decisions room. After 3+ closed decisions, session_start surfaces calibration warnings: "Your priors average 0.8 but outcomes average 0.5 — you're overconfident."

Returns: recorded, watch_for, similar_past_deltas, decision_id (when outcome provided), decision_trail_saved, calibration_note

Full-mode tools (npx agent-recall-mcp --full)

These tools are available when the server is started with --full. Most agents never need them — the default 5 tools carry all compounding memory value. Enable --full for project narrative tracking (pipeline), procedural rules (skills), status dashboards, context caching, or first-time bootstrap.

project_board

When: Start of a new session when you don't know which project to work on.

What it does: Scans all projects and returns a status board — last activity date, pending work, active blockers. Use this before session_start to pick which project to load.

project_board()

project_status

When: Quick check on a specific project's health without loading full context.

What it returns: Last trajectory, active blockers, palace room freshness (stale flag), next steps, summary line. Lighter than session_start — no awareness or cross-project loading.

project_status({ project: "auto" })

bootstrap_scan

When: First time using AgentRecall, or when /arstatus shows an empty board.

What it does: Scans your machine for existing projects — git repos, Claude AutoMemory (~/.claude/projects/), and CLAUDE.md files. Returns a structured report of what CAN be imported. Read-only, no writes.

What it scans:

• ~/Projects/, ~/work/, ~/code/, ~/dev/, ~/src/, ~/repos/, ~/github/ for git repos
• ~/.claude/projects/ for Claude AutoMemory (user profile, project memories, feedback)
• CLAUDE.md files in project roots

How to use:

bootstrap_scan()

Returns: projects (array of discovered projects with importable items), global_items (user profile), stats (totals + scan duration)

bootstrap_import

When: After reviewing bootstrap_scan results, to import selected projects.

What it does: Creates AgentRecall entries for discovered projects — palace rooms, identity.md, knowledge entries from Claude memory, initial journal from git history.

How to use:

bootstrap_import({
  scan_result: "<JSON from bootstrap_scan>",
  project_slugs: ["my-app", "api-server"],    // optional: import only these
  item_types: ["identity", "architecture"]     // optional: import only these types
})

CLI equivalent:

ar bootstrap                    # scan and show what's available
ar bootstrap --dry-run          # preview what would be imported
ar bootstrap --import           # import all new projects
ar bootstrap --import --project my-app  # import one project

What gets imported per project:

• identity — palace identity.md from project name + description + language
• memory — Claude AutoMemory .md files → palace knowledge room
• architecture — CLAUDE.md content → palace architecture room
• trajectory — git log → initial journal entry with recent activity

Safety:

• Scan is read-only — never writes to your machine or to AgentRecall
• Import only writes to ~/.agent-recall/, never modifies source files
• Skips .env, credentials, .pem, .key files — never reads secrets
• Projects already in AgentRecall are skipped (no double-import)

Session Flow

Start of session

1. session_start()           → load context, read insights and warnings
2. Present brief to human    → "Last session: X. Insights: Y. Ready."
3. check() if task is complex → verify understanding before work

During work

4. remember() when you learn something   → auto-routes to right store
                                           (stores: journal for daily activity, palace rooms for persistent decisions, awareness for cross-project insights)
5. recall() when you need past context   → searches everything
6. check() before major decisions        → verify understanding

End of session

7. check() with corrections if any       → record what human corrected
8. session_end()                          → save journal + insights + consolidation
9. Done — all data saved locally (only push to git if user explicitly asks)

How Memory Compounds

Each layer feeds the next. The system gets better the more you use it.

SAVE: remember("JWT needs httpOnly cookies")
  → Auto-named: "lesson-jwt-httponly-cookies-security"
  → Indexed in palace + insights
  → Auto-linked to "architecture" room (keyword overlap)
  → Salience scored: recency(0.30) + access(0.25) + connections(0.20) + ...

RECALL: recall("cookie security") — 3 sessions later, different project
  → Finds the JWT insight via keyword match + graph edge traversal
  → Agent rates it useful → feedback boosts future ranking
  → Next recall on similar query → this result surfaces higher

COMPOUND: After 10 sessions
  → 200-line awareness contains cross-validated insights
  → watch_for warns about past mistakes before they repeat
  → Corrections auto-promote to awareness at 3+ occurrences
  → Graph connects related memories across rooms automatically

Best Practices

1. Call session_start at the beginning. Insights from past sessions prevent repeated mistakes.
2. Call session_end when done. If the session produced decisions, insights, or corrections, save them.
3. Insights should be reusable. Write them for a future agent who has never seen this project.
4. Match the human's language. If they write in Chinese, save in Chinese.
5. Don't over-save. 1-3 insights per session. 1-2 remember calls during work. More is noise.
6. Rate your recall results. Feedback makes future retrievals better.
7. Use check for ambiguous tasks. 5 seconds of verification beats 30 minutes of wrong work.
8. Read watch_for warnings. If session_start or check returns warnings, adjust your approach.
9. Run bootstrap on first install. If /arstatus shows no projects, bootstrap_scan discovers what's already on your machine and imports it in seconds.
10. Check active_rooms in session_start. Palace rooms with high salience contain your project's most important decisions and patterns. Rooms marked stale may need updating.

Storage

All data is local markdown + JSON at ~/.agent-recall/. No cloud, no telemetry, no API keys.

~/.agent-recall/
  awareness.md                              # 200-line compounding document (global)
  awareness-state.json                      # Structured awareness data
  awareness-archive.json                    # Demoted insights (preserved, not deleted)
  insights-index.json                       # Cross-project insight matching
  feedback-log.json                         # Retrieval quality ratings
  projects/<name>/
    journal/YYYY-MM-DD.md                   # Daily journals (legacy)
    journal/YYYY-MM-DD--arsave--NL--slug.md # Smart-named journals (auto-save)
    palace/rooms/<room>/                    # Persistent knowledge rooms
    palace/rooms/decisions/                 # Decision trail records (prior/posterior/outcome)
    palace/identity.md                      # Project intention + goals
    palace/graph.json                       # Memory connection edges
    alignment-log.json                      # Correction history for watch_for
    digest/                                 # Pre-digested context summaries

Obsidian-compatible. Open palace/ as a vault to see the knowledge graph.

Platform Compatibility

All platforms use the same tools. No platform-specific behavior.

Why 5 Default Tools

The Automaticity Law (measured on the live corpus — 44 projects, 221 journals, 81 corrections, 2026-06-12): push channels (session_start, session_end, correction hooks, ambient recall) showed repeated behavior-changing usage across weeks of real agent sessions. Pull channels — check_action, skill_recall, pipeline_*, memory_query — had zero organic calls, including from the agent that built them.

Every extra tool in the default surface burns tool-definition tokens every session for zero behavioral return. The two-verb model (inhale = session_start, exhale = session_end) carries all compounding memory value. Everything else is available via --full for agents and workflows that explicitly need it.

Corollary: wire before write — a primitive without an automatic trigger will not be used.

Security & Privacy

• Zero network: No outbound HTTP requests, no telemetry, no analytics, no cloud sync. All operations are local filesystem reads/writes.
• Zero credentials: No API keys, tokens, or environment variables required.
• Scoped filesystem access: Reads/writes only to ~/.agent-recall/ (configurable via --root flag). Does not access files outside this directory unless the agent explicitly passes project-specific paths.
• No code execution: The MCP server does not execute arbitrary code, run shell commands, or spawn child processes.
• Transparent storage: All data is human-readable markdown and JSON. Inspect it anytime: ls ~/.agent-recall/ or open it as an Obsidian vault.
• Open source: Full source at github.com/Goldentrii/AgentRecall. MIT license.

English · 中文

1. Install the MCP server (Claude Code):

claude mcp add --scope user agent-recall -- npx -y agent-recall-mcp

Generic MCP JSON for other clients:

{ "mcpServers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

2. First message of every new session, run the loop:

At the start of a session, call session_start to load context.
When the human corrects you, call remember with type "correction".
At the end of a session, call session_end to compound what you learned.

What it does

AgentRecall is two things:

1. A governed corrections ledger — every time you correct your agent ("no, not that version", "put this section first", "ask me before you assume"), that correction is stored as a structured record with severity, evidence, and outcome tracking. It persists across sessions, projects, and agent restarts.

2. A measurement instrument — the only open-source system that tracks whether a correction actually changed what the agent does in a later session. Every correction accumulates retrieved_count, and every time the agent encounters the same situation, the outcome is recorded (heeded or recurred).

No other agent memory tool measures that second step. Every benchmark in the field tests retrieval; none tests behavioral change across sessions. We built the measurement harness first — and we publish what we found, including the unflattering numbers.

Measured, not promised

Most agent memory tools claim "never repeats the same mistake." None of them publish a number for it.

Here is what our own instrument found on our own live corpus (2026-07-03):

The heed instrument defaulted to "heeded" absent evidence before 2026-07-03; the reset default is "unknown" — the honest 0/3 is the correct starting point, not a regression. Transfer recall cannot support a point-estimate claim below 39 classes (claim-gate ledger, benchmark spec §2.6).

Verify it yourself: every number above regenerates from the committed artifacts — see docs/eval/REPRODUCE.md.

What this means: we captured 35% of real corrections in our own live use. The heed instrument was biased and we reset it. The offline transfer benchmark scores 0 on our own corpus — which is a density problem (32 active corrections across 19 projects is too sparse to front-run mistakes), not a retrieval architecture problem (confirmed 5× by internal experiments).

The learning loop framing is correct — the system is designed to track whether corrections change behavior — but the data we have so far is insufficient to quantify the uplift. We are publishing the measurement harness and running the experiment.

Why this is different from every other memory tool

In mid-2026, the agent-memory field is crowded (Mem0 ~60K stars, Graphiti/Zep ~28K, Supermemory ~28K, Letta ~24K). Most published benchmark numbers in this space are self-reported on the same 2–3 retrieval benchmarks and are hard to reproduce independently.

The confirmed gap (from our research report docs/research/agent-memory-landscape-2026-07.md §2): no public benchmark measures whether a captured correction changes what a fresh agent does in a new session. LongMemEval, LoCoMo, MemoryAgentBench, Letta Leaderboard — all test retrieval or within-session updates.

AgentRecall owns two pieces of the unclaimed ground:

• The corrections ledger — a governed data model (corrections-export/v1, scrubbed egress, retraction, severity, proof-confidence) that any engine can integrate against.
• The measurement harness — predict-loo (leave-one-out, anti-self-confirming, dual denominators) and the correction-transfer benchmark spec (HeedBench v1 — provisional name), which implements the missing pipeline: capture → persist → fresh session → measure recurrence.

Benchmark numbers in agent memory are typically self-reported and hard to reproduce. Ours regenerate from a fixed, hash-locked corpus with one command (npm run bench) — including the scores that make us look bad.

Quick Start

Visual setup guide — all 13 clients, copy-paste prompts: open warroom/install.html from the repo (or after unzipping the War Room release) in any browser. No server needed.

MCP Server — for AI agents

# Claude Code
claude mcp add --scope user agent-recall -- npx -y agent-recall-mcp

# Cursor — .cursor/mcp.json
{ "mcpServers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

# VS Code — .vscode/mcp.json
{ "servers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

# Windsurf — ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json
{ "mcpServers": { "agent-recall": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "agent-recall-mcp"] } } }

# Codex
codex mcp add agent-recall -- npx -y agent-recall-mcp

Skill (Claude Code only):

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/agent-recall
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/agent-recall/SKILL.md \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Goldentrii/AgentRecall/main/SKILL.md

SDK & CLI

npm install agent-recall-sdk        # JS/TS apps
npx agent-recall-cli recall "topic" # terminal & CI

import { AgentRecall } from "agent-recall-sdk";
const memory = new AgentRecall({ project: "my-app" });
await memory.capture("What stack?", "Next.js + Postgres");
const ctx = await memory.recall("rate limiting");

5 Memory Layers

The canonical cognitive-psychology taxonomy mapped to your agent's filesystem:

All layers share one canonical naming grammar so any agent can compose retrieval paths from intent. Existing files keep working via a legacy_path view — no migration needed.

The Session Loop

flowchart LR
    A([session start]) --> B["/arstart — open<br/>board → pick → load context"]
    B --> C{work}
    C -->|