About memex
memex is a local session-memory MCP server for Claude Code. It stores structured work logs in SQLite per project and provides recent and relevant entries at the start of a new session, without cloud storage or LLM-based extraction.
Key features
- 01Structured, per-project session logs
- 02Automatic loading of recent and matching entries
- 03Full-text search and tag filters
- 04Markdown export with linked entries
Use cases
- 01Restore prior work context in a new session
- 02Find history by file or topic
- 03Export project memory as browsable notes
MCP support
It provides six tools—`mem_load`, `mem_save`, `mem_update`, `mem_search`, `mem_list`, and `mem_delete`—for Claude Code to load and manage project session memory.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
Tools
Local servers expose tools only once running on your machine, and the maintainer has not provided a tool list.
Details
From the project READMEmemex
Every Claude Code session starts without knowing what you built last time - which files you changed, what decisions you made, what broke. You re-explain. Claude re-reads. You start over.
memex keeps a structured log of every session. Claude reads it at the start of the next one.
No cloud. No LLM extraction. No cost per save. Just local SQLite and one command to install.
Install
# with uv
uvx mcp-memex install
# with pip
pip install mcp-memex
memex install
Restart Claude Code. That's it.
What gets saved
Each entry has structure - not a blob of text:
mem_save(
task="Replaced JWT auth with session cookies",
files=["src/auth.py", "src/middleware.py"],
decisions=["Session cookies over JWT - simpler, no token refresh needed"],
warnings=["Redis required - app won't start without REDIS_URL set"],
tags=["auth", "sessions"]
)
Claude calls mem_save when it finishes something meaningful. You can also just tell it: "save what we just did."
What Claude sees at session start
=== memex: session context (db: my_project.db) ===
--- Recent (2) ---
[1] #4 - 2026-06-14T10:32
Task : Replaced JWT auth with session cookies
Files : src/auth.py, src/middleware.py
Decision : Session cookies over JWT - simpler, no token refresh needed
Warning : Redis required - app won't start without REDIS_URL set
Tags : auth, sessions
[2] #3 - 2026-06-13T15:10
Task : Added rate limiting to /api/login
Files : src/middleware.py
Warning : Rate limiter is in-memory per process - resets on restart
Tags : auth, rate-limiting
Claude calls mem_load automatically at the start of every session. It returns the most recent entries plus any entries that match what you're working on - by keyword and by file path.
Browse from the terminal
You don't need to be inside Claude to look at your history:
memex status # entry count, DB size, top tags
memex list # recent entries for this project
memex list --tag auth # filter by tag
memex list --since 7d # entries from the last 7 days
memex list --since 2026-06-01 --until 2026-06-15 # date range
memex search "rate limit" # full-text search
memex version # print installed version
Export to markdown
Turn your history into portable, human-browsable notes - one .md file per
entry, with [[wikilinks]] connecting related entries and files, plus tags as
#hashtags. Works in Obsidian or any tool that understands [[links]]:
memex export ./my-project-notes/
Entries that share a tag or a touched file are cross-linked under a Related section, so you can navigate your project history as a graph.
Six MCP tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
mem_load | Called at session start - returns recent + relevant entries |
mem_save | Saves a structured entry after meaningful work |
mem_update | Patches specific fields of an existing entry (keeps id and timestamp) |
mem_search | Full-text search across all entries |
mem_list | Lists entries, optionally filtered by tag |
mem_delete | Removes a stale entry by id |
Why not just CLAUDE.md?
CLAUDE.md is for static project documentation - architecture, conventions, how to run tests. It doesn't change much and it isn't session-aware.
memex captures what's changing session to session: what you built yesterday, the decision you made this morning, the warning you discovered an hour ago. It's the difference between "here's the project" and "here's what happened last time."
memex install writes Claude's instructions into .claude/CLAUDE.local.md - a file Claude Code loads automatically without touching your project's own CLAUDE.md.
Memory is scoped per project
Each project gets its own SQLite database at ~/.memex/<project>.db based on the working directory. Sessions from different projects never mix.
Configuration
Set these in the MCP env block in ~/.claude.json if you need to override defaults:
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
MEMEX_DIR | ~/.memex | Where DBs are stored |
MEMEX_GLOBAL | 0 | Set to 1 to share one DB across all projects |
MEMEX_RECENT | 5 | Max recent entries loaded per session |
MEMEX_MATCHED | 5 | Max FTS-matched entries loaded per session |
Uninstall
memex remove
pip uninstall mcp-memex
Memory DBs are kept at ~/.memex/ - delete that directory manually if you want to wipe everything.
Requirements
- Python 3.10+
mcppackage (installed automatically)- SQLite with FTS5 (standard since Python 3.8)
- Claude Code CLI
License
MIT
Comments
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