Memex

Persistent, agent-agnostic memory for AI coding tools — now inside your IDE.

Memex gives your AI coding agents a long-term memory that persists across sessions, projects, and tools. This extension brings that memory directly into VS Code and Cursor — no terminal required.

Start a feature with Claude CLI. Continue it in Cursor. Hand it off to a teammate on Copilot. The context follows the project, not the agent.

Features

Memory Sidebar Panel

A sidebar panel showing what Memex knows about your project — current focus, pending tasks, gotchas, and your last session summary. Auto-refreshes whenever memory is updated.

MCP Auto-Setup

On activation, the extension automatically writes .cursor/mcp.json and .vscode/mcp.json so Cursor Agent and GitHub Copilot can call Memex memory tools natively — no manual configuration needed.

Available tools inside any MCP-compatible agent:

• get_context() — project summary, stack, current focus
• get_tasks() — pending tasks
• get_decisions() — key architectural decisions
• get_gotchas() — pitfalls to avoid
• search_sessions("query") — search past session history
• save_observation(type, content) — save a note, task, decision, or gotcha

Save to Memex

Right-click any selected text in the editor → Save to Memex → classify it as a task, decision, gotcha, or note. Saved instantly to memory via MCP.

Also available via Cmd+Shift+P → Save to Memex to type content manually.

Requirements

The Memex CLI npm package must be installed globally for this extension to work. The extension is a UI layer — it relies on the CLI for all memory operations, MCP serving, and database access.

1. Install the Memex CLI (required):

   npm install -g @patravishek/memex
   

   Verify it's installed:

   memex --version
   

2. Add an AI API key (required for session compression when using CLI agents):

   # Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc, then reload your shell
   export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
   # or
   export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
   

3. Initialize Memex for your project (required once per project):

   cd your-project
   memex init
   

   Or click the "Initialize Project" button in the Memex sidebar panel — no terminal needed.

Getting Started

1. Install the Memex CLI: npm install -g @patravishek/memex
2. Open your project in VS Code / Cursor
3. In the terminal: memex start claude (exits after first run — just initializes memory)
4. Reload the window — the Memex sidebar panel will appear
5. Open a new Cursor Agent chat and ask: "Use get_context to show me the project memory"

How It Works

Claude CLI session          Cursor Agent chat
      ↓ compresses into           ↑ reads via MCP
    .memex/memex.db  ←── shared local SQLite database
                                  ↑ reads via MCP
                          GitHub Copilot chat

Memory is project-scoped and fully local — no cloud, no account, no data leaving your machine. The only external call is the AI compression step at the end of a CLI session.

Commands

Links

• npm package
• GitHub
• Roadmap
• Issues

License

MIT