GreatScottyMac/context-portal

(It's a memory bank!)
   
   
   
A database-backed Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for managing structured project context, designed to be used by AI assistants and developer tools within IDEs and other interfaces.
What is Context Portal MCP server (ConPort)?
Context Portal (ConPort) is your project's **memory bank**. It's a tool that helps AI assistants understand your specific software project better by storing important information like decisions, tasks, and architectural patterns in a structured way. Think of it as building a project-specific knowledge base that the AI can easily access and use to give you more accurate and helpful responses.
**What it does:**
- Keeps track of project decisions, progress, and system designs.
- Stores custom project data (like glossaries or specs).
- Helps AI find relevant project information quickly (like a smart search).
- Enables AI to use project context for better responses (RAG).
- More efficient for managing, searching, and updating context compared to simple text file-based memory banks.
ConPort provides a robust and structured way for AI assistants to store, retrieve, and manage various types of project context. It effectively builds a **project-specific knowledge graph**, capturing entities like decisions, progress, and architecture, along with their relationships. This structured knowledge base, enhanced by **vector embeddings** for semantic search, then serves as a powerful backend for **Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)**, enabling AI assistants to access precise, up-to-date information for more context-aware and accurate responses.
It replaces older file-based context management systems by offering a more reliable and queryable database backend (SQLite per workspace). ConPort is designed to be a generic context backend, compatible with various IDEs and client interfaces that support MCP.
Key features include:
- Structured context storage using SQLite (one DB per workspace, automatically created).
- MCP server (context_portal_mcp) built with Python/FastAPI.
- A comprehensive suite of defined MCP tools for interaction (see "Available ConPort Tools" below).
- Multi-workspace support via workspace_id.
- Primary deployment mode: STDIO for tight IDE integration.
- Enables building a dynamic **project knowledge graph** with explicit relationships between context items.
- Includes **vector data storage** and **semantic search** capabilities to power advanced RAG.
- Serves as an ideal backend for **Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)**, providing AI with precise, queryable project memory.
- Provides structured context that AI assistants can leverage for **prompt caching** with compatible LLM providers.
- Manages database schema evolution using **Alembic migrations**, ensuring seamless updates and data integrity.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed:
- **Python:** Version 3.8 or higher is recommended.
- Download Python
- Ensure Python is added to your system's PATH during installation (especially on Windows).
- **uv:** (Highly Recommended) A fast Python environment and package manager. Using uv significantly simplifies virtual environment creation and dependency installation.
- Install uv
Installation and Configuration (Recommended)
The recommended way to install and run ConPort is by using uvx to execute the package directly from PyPI. This method avoids the need to manually create and manage virtual environments.
uvx Configuration (Recommended for most IDEs)
In your MCP client settings (e.g., mcp_settings.json), use the following configuration:
- **command**: uvx handles the environment for you.
- **args**: Contains the arguments to run the ConPort server.
- ${workspaceFolder}: This IDE variable is used to automatically provide the absolute path of the current project workspace.
- --log-file: Optional: Path to a file where server logs will be written. If not provided, logs are directed to stderr (console). Useful for persistent logging and debugging server behavior.
- --log-level: Optional: Sets the minimum logging level for the server. Valid choices are DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL. Defaults to INFO. Set to DEBUG for verbose output during development or troubleshooting.
> Important: Many IDEs do not expand ${workspaceFolder} when launching MCP servers. Use one of these safe options: