catfish-1234/sessionmem

**85.6% fewer tokens. Every session starts knowing your codebase. Stored entirely on your machine.**
sessionmem is an MCP server that stores decisions, warnings, and project context across sessions. Claude Code hooks capture supported tool events and inject prior memories automatically. Other hosts use its MCP tools and guidance, with lifecycle automation depending on the host. It works with Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Codex, Windsurf, and anything that speaks MCP.
Everything stays on your machine. No account, no cloud, no data leaving your computer unless you explicitly turn that on.
---
Quickstart
No programming experience needed. You just need a terminal (Command Prompt, Terminal, or PowerShell) and Node.js installed (20.19+ on the Node 20 line, or 22.13+; Node 22 LTS is recommended).
1. Install sessionmem
2. Register it with your AI tool
Run this inside the project folder you're working on, with your AI tool (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) configured:
This does three things:
- Tells your AI tool's MCP host about sessionmem so it can be launched automatically.
- Creates a config file at ~/.sessionmem/config.json with safe, privacy-respecting defaults, but only if one doesn't already exist.
- Injects instructions into the selected host's guidance file (for example ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, or ~/.codex/AGENTS.md for Codex; idempotent, so safe to re-run).
3. Start using your AI tool as normal
(Most of the time you won't run this yourself. Your AI tool's host starts it automatically once it's registered.)
That's it. From here:
- In Claude Code, installed PostToolUse, SessionEnd, and SessionStart hooks capture supported tool events, summarize them, and inject prior memories automatically.
- Other MCP hosts use sessionmem's tools and installed guidance. Automatic capture and lifecycle calls depend on that host or agent; MCP registration alone does not install Claude Code hooks there.
You can verify everything is working with:
---
Table of Contents
- What problem does this solve?
- How is sessionmem different?
- Benchmark results
- How it works (in plain English)
- CLI command reference
- Privacy, secrets, and your data
- Memory rot: keeping memory accurate over time
- Team mode (optional)
- Cloud summarization (optional, off by default)
- Supported tools
- Further documentation
- Troubleshooting
- FAQ
- Security
- Contributing
- License
---
What problem does this solve?
If you've used an AI coding assistant for more than a day, you've probably hit this:
> You spend twenty minutes explaining your project's setup, the libraries you use, a tricky bug you already fixed, and a decision you made about how authentication should work. The assistant nods along, helps you out... and then in your **next session**, it has forgotten all of it. You explain everything again.
This happens because most AI assistants only "know" what's inside the current conversation. Once that conversation ends, the context is gone.
sessionmem fixes this by sitting quietly between your assistant and your project:
1. While you work, it **captures** what happens in the session.
2. When the session ends, it **summarizes** the important parts (decisions made, warnings, useful facts) into short, durable notes.
3. The next time you start a session, it **reminds** the assistant of the most relevant notes, automatically, in a small amount of text.
You don't run any of these steps yourself. Once installed, it just works in the background.
---
How is sessionmem different?
There are other "memory for Claude" projects out there (for example, tools like *claude-mem* and similar community projects). Here's what sets sessionmem apart:
| | **sessionmem** | Typical cloud/Claude-only memory tools |
|---|---|---|
| **Where is data stored?** | A single SQLite file on your computer (~/.sessionmem/memories.db) | Often a hosted service, a cloud vector database, or a separate server process you have to run |
| **Account / sign-up required?** | No, never | Sometimes |
| **Which AI tools does it work with?** | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Cline, Windsurf, Antigravity, QCoder, and any other MCP-compatible host | Usually just one specific tool (commonly Claude Code only) |