What it takes off you is the export step. What the agent writes down is markdown in a project directory from the start, so the same notes are searchable through the server, openable in Obsidian and diffable in git.
A knowledge base that stores notes as markdown on disk. Notes carry frontmatter, observations and relations, and a `memory://` URL walks from one note out to what it links to, so a later conversation can be grounded in the files rather than in the transcript. Every tool is annotated read-only, destructive, idempotent or open-world, so an agent can pick the right one without trying them.
- Notes written, read, viewed, moved and deleted, and edited by append, prepend, find-and-replace or section replacement rather than a full rewrite (`write_note`, `read_note`, `view_note`, `edit_note`, `move_note`, `delete_note`, `read_content`)
- Search across the base, a directory listed, and recent activity over a timeframe written in plain language — last week, yesterday, three weeks ago (`search_notes`, `list_directory`, `recent_activity`)
- Context assembled from a `memory://` URL, following related notes to a depth you set (`build_context`)
- Several projects and workspaces listed, created and removed, with local and cloud shown as one list (`list_memory_projects`, `list_workspaces`, `create_memory_project`, `delete_project`)
- Schema definitions inferred from existing notes, validated against them, and diffed to show where usage has drifted (`schema_infer`, `schema_validate`, `schema_diff`)
- Text output by default on every tool, with `output_format="json"` when you want it structured (`basic_memory_diagnostics`, `search`, `fetch`)
- Optional semantic search, and a second cross-encoder reranking pass over the results — both off by default because they add latency and a first-run model download
Uvx and a directory for the notes to live in — `uvx basic-memory mcp` is the whole local install, and it runs on SQLite with no Docker. Each project is a real folder, and deleting a project removes it from the configuration and database while leaving the files on disk. Semantic search and reranking are opt-in through `BASIC_MEMORY_SEMANTIC_SEARCH_ENABLED` and `BASIC_MEMORY_RERANKER_ENABLED`; the default local reranker downloads its model on first use. There is also a hosted version at $15.00 a month with a 7-day trial, which syncs the same markdown bidirectionally to your machine and can be exported and cancelled at any point.
One command — uv tool install basic-memory