About bm-status
A diagnostic skill for reporting the current Basic Memory setup in a project. It checks CLI and configuration state, hook health, recent checkpoints, and the count of active tasks.
Key features
- 01CLI availability checks
- 02Configuration source and value reporting
- 03Hook health and inbox status
- 04Recent checkpoint listing
- 05Active task count
Use cases
- 01Checking whether Basic Memory is configured
- 02Diagnosing hook or event-capture backlogs
- 03Reviewing recent session checkpoints
- 04Counting active tasks in the primary project
MCP support
Uses Basic Memory MCP tools to search for recent session and coding-session notes and count active tasks.
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
npx skills add https:/ / github.com/ basicmachines-co/ basic-memory --skill bm-statusAfter installing, type/bm-statusin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Details
From the project READMEBasic Memory status
Report the plugin's current state for this project, then present a concise summary. This is a quick diagnostic — gather the facts and lay them out; don't over-investigate.
Gather
-
CLI reachable? Run
basic-memory --version, thenbm --version, thenuvx --prerelease=allow basic-memory --version. If no launcher resolves, report the CLI status as unavailable and continue with MCP/config checks. The plugin hooks can still use their uv-managed environment. -
Configuration. Read the
basicMemoryblock with the hooks' precedence. For the user-level base, appendsettings.jsonto the literal value ofCLAUDE_CONFIG_DIRwhen that environment variable is present; do not trim it, expand~, or treat an empty value as unset. Use~/.claude/settings.jsononly when the variable is absent. Then the project's.claude/settings.jsonand.claude/settings.local.jsonoverride per key. Report the result, noting when a value comes from the user-level block versus the project:- From the
basicMemoryblock:primaryProject(or note none is pinned — the default project is used),secondaryProjects(team/shared read sources),teamProjects(share targets for/basic-memory:bm-share),captureFolder(defaultsessions),rememberFolder(defaultbm-remember),preCompactCapturemode (defaultextractive),sessionProfile(defaultgeneral),repository(coding profile only),captureEvents(defaulttrue). - From the root settings object (not
basicMemory): whetheroutputStyleisbasic-memory— i.e. whether the capture reflexes are on.
- From the
-
Core hook health. With the first available launcher, run
basic-memory hook status --harness claude --project-dir <project-root>. Report its shared inbox path, pending envelopes, archived envelopes, pending checkpoint requests, last flush, settings state, resolved primary project, capture state, capture folder, Basic Memory version, and uv version. Inbox counts are global across supported harnesses; do not attribute a backlog solely to Claude. Treat this command's settings resolution as canonical for hook behavior; if it disagrees with the manually merged config, show the mismatch. If no launcher resolves, mark these fields unavailable and continue. -
Recent checkpoints.
search_noteswithmetadata_filters={"type": "session"},page_size5, scoped toprimaryProjectif one is set. WhensessionProfileiscoding, also querymetadata_filters={"type": "coding_session", "repository": "<configured repository>"}, then merge, deduplicate, sort newest first, and keep the newest five. List them by title + permalink. -
Active tasks.
search_noteswithmetadata_filters={"type": "task", "status": "active"}— report just the count.
When scoping these queries to primaryProject, pass it as project, or as
project_id if it's an external_id UUID (a bare UUID in project won't route).
Present
Lay it out like this (fill in real values; write "—" or a short note for anything you couldn't determine, rather than failing the whole report):
## Basic Memory status
- CLI: basic-memory <version>
- Project: <primaryProject, or "default project (not pinned)">
- Reads from (team): <secondaryProjects joined, or "none">
- Share targets: <teamProjects keys joined, or "none">
- Capture folder: <captureFolder>
- Remember folder: <rememberFolder>
- Output style: <enabled | not enabled>
- PreCompact: <mode>
- Session profile: <general | coding>
- Repository: <owner/name or none>
- Event capture: <enabled | disabled>
- Shared hook inbox: <path or unavailable>
- Shared pending envelopes: <count or unavailable>
- Shared archived envelopes: <count or unavailable>
- Pending checkpoint requests: <count or unavailable>
- Last flush: <timestamp, never, or unavailable>
- Hook runtime: basic-memory <version>; uv <version or missing>
- Recent checkpoints: <n across session and coding_session>
- <title> — <permalink>
...
- Active tasks: <n>
If there are no checkpoints yet, say "none yet" and remind the user that checkpoints
are written automatically before context compaction (and that a primaryProject must
be set for them to be written).
Warn when event capture is enabled and pending envelopes are accumulating or the
last flush is never, while noting that another harness may contribute to the
shared counts. Do not warn about an empty inbox when capture is disabled.