total-recall

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  REKALL INC. -- MEMORY IMPLANT SYSTEM v2.84  ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║                                              ║
║  CLIENT: Quaid, Douglas                      ║
║  STATUS: MEMORY EXTRACTION IN PROGRESS       ║
║                                              ║
║  > Loading tier: HOT ............ [OK]       ║
║  > Loading tier: WARM ........... [OK]       ║
║  > Loading tier: COLD ........... [OK]       ║
║  > Semantic index: 384 dimensions  [OK]      ║
║  > Vector search: ONLINE                     ║
║                                              ║
║  ┌──────────────────────────────────┐        ║
║  │ SELECT PACKAGE:                  │        ║
║  │                                  │        ║
║  │  [x] Total Recall -- $899        │        ║
║  │  [ ] Blue Sky on Mars            │        ║
║  │  [ ] Secret Agent                │        ║
║  └──────────────────────────────────┘        ║
║                                              ║
║  "For the Memory of a Lifetime"              ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝

total-recall

Persistent, cross-tool memory for AI coding assistants.

Your AI forgets everything when the session ends. Preferences, decisions, project context, corrections — gone. total-recall fixes that: a shared memory layer that persists across sessions, tools, and devices.

The Problem

Every TUI coding assistant has the same gaps:

No memory between sessions — every new session starts from zero, repeating the same context
Siloed by tool — switching between Claude Code and Copilot CLI means starting from scratch
Single-machine — your context doesn't follow you across devices
Context bloat — stuffing everything into a CLAUDE.md wastes tokens every prompt
No token visibility — no way to know what your AI sessions actually cost

The Solution

Persistent memory — corrections, preferences, decisions, and project context survive sessions automatically
Cross-tool — one memory store shared across Claude Code, Copilot CLI, Cursor, Cline, OpenCode, and Hermes; existing memories auto-import on first run
Cross-device — point TOTAL_RECALL_DB_PATH at a cloud-synced folder and your memory follows you everywhere
Smarter context, lower token cost — a three-tier model (Hot / Warm / Cold) enforces a 4000-token budget per prompt, so you get relevant context without carrying everything
Token expenditure tracking — see exactly what each session costs, broken down by host, project, and time window
Knowledge base — ingest your docs, READMEs, API references, and architecture notes; retrieved semantically when relevant
Observability — measure retrieval quality, run benchmarks, and compare config changes with the built-in eval framework

By default, all state is local: SQLite + vector embeddings, no external services, no API keys. For teams, configure a shared Postgres/pgvector backend and remote embedder — same binary, just config.

Quick Start

Self-Install (Paste Into Any AI Coding Assistant)

Install the total-recall memory plugin: fetch and follow the instructions at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/strvmarv/total-recall/main/INSTALL.md

That's it. Your AI assistant will read the instructions and install total-recall for its platform.

Claude Code

/plugin install total-recall@strvmarv-total-recall-marketplace

Or if the marketplace isn't registered:

/plugin marketplace add strvmarv/total-recall-marketplace
/plugin install total-recall@strvmarv-total-recall-marketplace

npm (Any MCP-Compatible Tool)

npm install -g @strvmarv/total-recall

Then add to your tool's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "total-recall": {
      "command": "total-recall"
    }
  }
}

This works with Copilot CLI, OpenCode, Cline, Cursor, Hermes, and any other MCP-compatible tool.

Note: npx -y @strvmarv/total-recall does not work due to an npm bug with scoped package binaries. Use the global install (total-recall command) instead.

What Gets Remembered

Every memory has an entry type that tells total-recall what it is and how to treat it.

Entry Type	Stored When	Example
`Correction`	You fix a mistake the AI made	`"Use Array.from() not spread for NodeList — spread fails in our build target"`
`Preference`	You state a style or workflow preference	`"Always use const over let unless reassignment is needed"`
`Decision`	You make an architecture or design choice	`"Using Zustand for state — Redux was overkill for this app size"`
`Surfaced`	The AI captures context automatically	Key facts, constraints, or project-specific patterns noticed during work
`Imported`	First-run import from another tool	Your existing Claude Code memories, Copilot snippets, Cursor history
`Compacted`	Tier compaction generates a summary	Multiple related memories merged into a higher-signal entry
`Ingested`	You ingest a file or directory	Chunks from READMEs, API docs, architecture notes

Correction and Preference entries get priority treatment. They surface as actionable hints at every session start and carry higher decay scores — they stay in hot tier longer and are less likely to be evicted.

How It Works

Three-Tier Model

total-recall uses a three-tier memory model designed to balance signal density with token cost:

Hot (up to 50 entries, 4000-token budget) — auto-injected into every prompt. Your most important corrections, preferences, and recently promoted entries are always present without any query.
Warm (up to 10K entries) — retrieved semantically per query. When you ask about authentication, relevant auth memories surface automatically. Entries decay over time; unused ones migrate to cold.
Cold (unlimited, hierarchical) — your knowledge base. Ingest entire directories — source trees, documentation, design specs — and they're retrieved when relevant.

Hybrid Search

Retrieval combines BM25 full-text search and cosine vector similarity, merged by a pure F# ranking function. You get keyword precision when you search by exact terms and semantic recall when you describe what you need in natural language. The BM25/vector weight is tunable via [search] fts_weight.

Embeddings

All memories are embedded with all-MiniLM-L6-v2 (384 dimensions), running locally via ONNX — no API calls, no network dependency. The model ships bundled in the npm package. If it's missing (e.g., a git clone without LFS), the binary downloads it from HuggingFace automatically on first run.

For enterprise deployments, swap in a remote embedder (OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock) for higher-dimensional vectors and finer-grained retrieval across shared team knowledge.

Session Start

Every session_start call runs the same sequence:

Import sync — scans all installed host tools (Claude Code, Copilot CLI, Cursor, Cline, OpenCode, Hermes), deduplicates via content hash, and imports new entries.
Hot tier assembly — assembles current hot entries as injectable context for the session.
Hint generation — surfaces up to 5 high-value warm memories as actionable one-liners: Correction and Preference entries first, frequently accessed entries (3+ accesses) second, recently promoted entries third. No LLM calls — pure DB queries.
Tier summary — counts entries across hot, warm, cold, and all KB collections.
Session continuity — reports human-readable time since the last compaction event (proxy for last active session).

Every session_start also runs a skill scan: it reads ~/.claude/skills/ plus any directories listed in [skills] extra_dirs, and advertises discovered skills as an ## Available Skills block in the session context. In Cortex mode the scanned skills are also pushed to Cortex and the block is merged with any skills already stored there.

Supported Platforms

Platform	Support	Notes
Claude Code	Full	Native plugin, session hooks, auto-import
Copilot CLI	Full	Plugin wrapper, session hooks, auto-import from Copilot memory files
Cursor	Full	Plugin wrapper, SessionStart hook; run `/total-recall:commands compact` manually — no SessionEnd hook
OpenCode	Full	Plugin wrapper, auto-import from OpenCode project and agent files
Cline	Full	Auto-import from task history; MCP server config required
Hermes	Importer	Auto-import from SOUL.md and skills on first run; no session hooks

Commands

All commands are routed through the /total-recall:commands skill:

Command	Description
`/total-recall:commands help`	Show command reference table
`/total-recall:commands status`	Dashboard overview
`/total-recall:commands search <query>`	Semantic search across all tiers
`/total-recall:commands store <content>`	Manually store a memory
`/total-recall:commands forget <query>`	Find and delete entries
`/total-recall:commands inspect <id>`	Deep dive on single entry with compaction history
`/total-recall:commands promote <id>`	Move entry to higher tier
`/total-recall:commands demote <id>`	Move entry to lower tier
`/total-recall:commands history`	Show recent tier movements
`/total-recall:commands lineage <id>`	Show compaction ancestry
`/total-recall:commands export`	Export to portable JSON format
`/total-recall:commands import <file>`	Import from export file
`/total-recall:commands ingest <path>`	Add files or directories to knowledge base
`/total-recall:commands kb search <query>`	Search knowledge base
`/total-recall:commands kb list`	List KB collections
`/total-recall:commands kb refresh <id>`	Re-ingest a collection
`/total-recall:commands kb remove <id>`	Remove KB entry
`/total-recall:commands compact`	Force compaction
`/total-recall:commands eval`	Retrieval quality metrics
`/total-recall:commands eval --benchmark`	Run synthetic benchmark
`/total-recall:commands eval --compare <name>`	Compare metrics between two config snapshots
`/total-recall:commands eval --snapshot <name>`	Manually create a named config snapshot
`/total-recall:commands eval --grow`	Review and accept/reject benchmark candidates from retrieval misses
`/total-recall:commands config get <key>`	Read config value
`/total-recall:commands config set <key> <val>`	Update config
`/total-recall:commands import-host`	Re-run import sync from all host tools

Memory capture, retrieval, and compaction run automatically in the background — see the "Automatic Behavior" section of the /total-recall:commands skill.

Note: /total-recall:commands is implemented as a Claude Code skill (at skills/commands/SKILL.md), not as a slash-command file under commands/. The skill handles all <subcommand> arguments internally.

Configuration

The config file lives at ~/.total-recall/config.toml. All fields have defaults — you only need to override what you want to change.

# total-recall configuration

[tiers.hot]
max_entries = 50                  # Max entries auto-injected per prompt
token_budget = 4000               # Max tokens for hot tier injection
carry_forward_threshold = 0.7     # Score threshold to stay in hot

[tiers.warm]
max_entries = 10000               # Max entries in warm tier
retrieval_top_k = 5               # Results returned per search
similarity_threshold = 0.65       # Min cosine similarity for retrieval
cold_decay_days = 30              # Days before unused warm entries decay to cold

[tiers.cold]
chunk_max_tokens = 512            # Max tokens per knowledge base chunk
chunk_overlap_tokens = 50         # Overlap between adjacent chunks
lazy_summary_threshold = 5        # Accesses before generating summary

[compaction]
decay_half_life_hours = 168       # Score half-life (168h = 1 week)
warm_threshold = 0.3              # Score below which warm→cold
promote_threshold = 0.7           # Score above which cold→warm
warm_sweep_interval_days = 7      # How often to run warm sweep

[search]
fts_weight = 0.3                  # BM25 weight in hybrid ranking (0.0 = vector only, 1.0 = FTS only)

[scope]
default = "user"                  # Default scope for new entries (e.g., "user", "team")

[usage]
initial_backfill_days = 30        # Days of usage history to backfill on first sync

[regression]
miss_rate_delta = 0.1             # Alert if miss rate increased by this much vs. previous snapshot
latency_ratio = 2.0               # Alert if latency increased by this factor vs. previous snapshot
min_events = 20                   # Minimum retrieval events required before regression check runs

[embedding]
model = "all-MiniLM-L6-v2"       # Embedding model name
dimensions = 384                  # Embedding dimensions
# provider = "local"              # "local" (default) | "openai" | "bedrock"
# endpoint = "https://api.openai.com/v1"   # OpenAI-compatible base URL
# bedrock_region = "us-east-1"             # Bedrock only
# bedrock_model = "cohere.embed-v4:0"      # Bedrock model ID
# api_key = ""                             # or set TOTAL_RECALL_EMBEDDING_API_KEY env var

# --- Skills (optional) ---
# [skills]
# extra_dirs = [
#   "~/my-skills",
#   "/path/to/team-skills"
# ]

# --- Remote storage (optional) ---
# [storage]
# connection_string = "Host=localhost;Database=total_recall;Username=tr;Password=changeme"

# --- User identity (optional, Postgres only) ---
# [user]
# user_id = "alice"               # or set TOTAL_RECALL_USER_ID env var

Relocating the database: set TOTAL_RECALL_DB_PATH to an absolute path or ~/-prefixed path. See INSTALL.md for cloud-sync and shared-workspace guidance.

Switching to Postgres: uncomment the [storage] section with your connection string. The binary auto-detects the backend — no code changes, no flag. Pair with [embedding] provider = "bedrock" or "openai" for remote embeddings. Run migrate_to_remote to copy local memories to the shared database with re-embedding.

Connecting to Cortex

Total Recall Cortex is the shared backend platform that adds team knowledge bases, connectors (Jira, Confluence, GitHub), chat/RAG, and a React UI on top of the plugin's memory layer.

In Cortex mode, the plugin operates as a hybrid:

User memories are stored locally (fast reads/writes), synced bidirectionally to Cortex every 300 seconds and at session boundaries
Global knowledge (team KB, connector-ingested data) is queried remotely from Cortex
Telemetry (usage, retrieval events, compaction log) is pushed to Cortex for unified dashboards
Skills are synced to Cortex so team members share the same skill library

Configure in your config.toml:

[storage]
mode = "cortex"

[cortex]
url = "https://your-cortex-instance.example.com"
pat = "tr_your_personal_access_token"
sync_interval_seconds = 300       # Background sync interval (default: 300)

Or via environment variables:

export TOTAL_RECALL_CORTEX_URL="https://your-cortex-instance.example.com"
export TOTAL_RECALL_CORTEX_PAT="tr_your_personal_access_token"

Generate a PAT from the Cortex web UI under Settings → Personal Access Tokens.

Offline resilience: If Cortex is unreachable, the plugin continues working locally. A persistent sync queue buffers outbound changes and flushes automatically when connectivity is restored.

Skills

total-recall can advertise custom skills at every session_start so your AI assistant knows which workflows are available. Skills are discovered from two places:

~/.claude/skills/ — the standard Claude Code user skills directory (always scanned)
extra_dirs — additional directories you configure, scanned on every session start regardless of whether Cortex is available

Configure extra skill directories in ~/.total-recall/config.toml:

[skills]
extra_dirs = [
  "~/my-custom-skills",
  "/path/to/shared/team-skills"
]

Paths can be absolute or ~/-prefixed. Skills in extra_dirs are always advertised from disk — Cortex is not required.

Skill format: Each skill is either a single .md file or a directory containing a SKILL.md entry point. A minimal single-file skill:

---
name: my-skill
description: Does something useful
---

Full skill content here...

A bundle (directory with supporting files) uses the same frontmatter in its SKILL.md, and can include scripts, templates, or reference files alongside it.

Merge behavior: When Cortex is configured and reachable, the session context block merges cortex-stored skills with locally-scanned extra_dirs skills, deduplicating by name (Cortex entries take precedence). When Cortex is unavailable or not configured, only local skills appear.

Developer Reference

The MCP server exposes 33 tools in local/Postgres mode and 38 in Cortex mode (adds 5 skill tools). All tool names follow the pattern <domain>_<action>.

Category	Tools
Session	`session_start`, `session_end`, `session_context`
Memory	`memory_store`, `memory_get`, `memory_update`, `memory_delete`, `memory_inspect`, `memory_search`
Tier management	`memory_promote`, `memory_demote`, `memory_history`, `memory_lineage`
Import / Export	`memory_export`, `memory_import`, `import_host`
Knowledge base	`kb_ingest_file`, `kb_ingest_dir`, `kb_search`, `kb_list_collections`, `kb_refresh`, `kb_remove`, `kb_summarize`
Compaction	`compact_now`
Eval	`eval_report`, `eval_benchmark`, `eval_compare`, `eval_snapshot`, `eval_grow`
Config	`config_get`, `config_set`
Status & Usage	`status`, `usage_status`†
Migration	`migrate_to_remote`
Skills (Cortex mode)	`skill_search`, `skill_get`, `skill_list`, `skill_delete`, `skill_import_host`

†usage_status is unavailable in Postgres mode.

Handler implementations live in src/TotalRecall.Server/Handlers/<ToolName>Handler.cs. Tool wiring: src/TotalRecall.Server/ServerComposition.cs → BuildRegistry().

Architecture

MCP Server (.NET 8 NativeAOT — C# imperative shell + F# functional core)
├── TotalRecall.Core (F#)        — pure functions: tokenizer, decay, hybrid ranking, parsers, chunker
├── TotalRecall.Infrastructure   — SQLite/Postgres storage, ONNX/remote embedder, importers, migrations
├── TotalRecall.Server           — MCP JSON-RPC server, 33 tool handlers (38 in Cortex mode), lifecycle
├── TotalRecall.Cli              — CLI commands (status, eval, kb, memory, config, migrate)
└── TotalRecall.Host             — composition root, AOT entry point, migration guard

Tiers:
  Hot (50 entries)   → auto-injected every prompt
  Warm (10K entries) → BM25 + cosine hybrid search per query
  Cold (unlimited)   → hierarchical KB retrieval

Backends (selected by config):
  Local:    SQLite + sqlite-vec + bundled ONNX embedder (default, zero config)
  Postgres: Postgres/pgvector + HNSW indexes + tsvector FTS + per-user visibility
  Cortex:   Local SQLite + write-local-then-enqueue sync to Cortex; remote queries for global KB

Data flow:

store — write a memory, assign tier, embed, persist
search — embed query, BM25 + cosine vector search across all tiers, merge with F# ranking, return results
compact — decay scores, promote hot→warm, demote warm→cold
ingest — chunk files with heading-aware Markdown and regex-based code parsing, embed chunks, store in cold tier

Local mode: all state lives in ~/.total-recall/total-recall.db. The embedding model and the sqlite-vec native extension are bundled with the binary. No network calls required at runtime.

Cortex mode: user memories write locally first for low latency. A RoutingStore wraps every write: persist locally, enqueue to sync_queue. A background sync loop flushes the queue to Cortex every sync_interval_seconds (default: 300) and at session boundaries. Global knowledge (team KB, connectors) is read directly from Cortex.

Prerequisites

These apply only if you're building from source. The prebuilt binary is self-contained — no .NET runtime, no system SQLite, no Bun required.

.NET 10 SDK — pinned by global.json at the repo root; builds the net8.0 NativeAOT target
npm — for npm ci, which pulls sqlite-vec native libs needed by the csproj copy targets
Git LFS — run git lfs install before cloning; the ONNX embedding model is stored in LFS. If LFS fetch fails, the binary auto-downloads the model from HuggingFace on first run.

Installation from Source

git clone https://github.com/strvmarv/total-recall.git
cd total-recall
git lfs pull                               # fetch the ONNX model
npm ci                                     # pulls sqlite-vec native libs into node_modules/
dotnet build src/TotalRecall.sln
dotnet test src/TotalRecall.sln --filter "Category!=Integration"   # ~1000 tests
dotnet publish src/TotalRecall.Host/TotalRecall.Host.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 -p:PublishAot=true
# (swap win-x64 for your RID: linux-x64, linux-arm64, osx-arm64)

The publish output lands in src/TotalRecall.Host/bin/Release/net8.0/<rid>/publish/ with the binary plus all sibling native libs (libonnxruntime.*, libe_sqlite3.*, runtimes/vec0.*) ready to run.

Supported RIDs: linux-x64, linux-arm64, osx-arm64, win-x64. Intel Mac (osx-x64) is not shipped.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full contributor guide, including how to add a new host importer, extend the chunking pipeline, or add a new MCP tool handler.

Built With & Inspired By

superpowers by obra

total-recall's plugin architecture, skill format, hook system, multi-platform wrapper pattern, and development philosophy are directly inspired by and modeled after the superpowers plugin. superpowers demonstrated that a zero-dependency, markdown-driven skill system could fundamentally improve how AI coding assistants behave — total-recall extends that same philosophy to memory and knowledge management.

If you're building plugins for TUI coding assistants, start with superpowers. It's the foundation this ecosystem needs.

Core Technologies

.NET 8 / NativeAOT — single-binary deployment, no runtime dependency
F# Core — pure functional core: tokenizer, parsers, decay, hybrid ranking
Microsoft.Data.Sqlite — embedded SQLite with extension loading
sqlite-vec — vector similarity search in SQLite (loaded as a native extension via LoadExtension)
Microsoft.ML.OnnxRuntime — local ML inference, AOT-compatible
Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers — canonical BERT BasicTokenization + WordPiece
all-MiniLM-L6-v2 — sentence embeddings (384d)
Hand-rolled JSON-RPC stdio MCP server in TotalRecall.Server (no SDK dependency)
Spectre.Console — CLI rendering for total-recall status / eval / kb list

License

MIT — see LICENSE

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 538 Commits
.claude-plugin		.claude-plugin
.copilot-plugin		.copilot-plugin
.cursor-plugin		.cursor-plugin
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
.opencode		.opencode
agents		agents
bin		bin
docs		docs
eval		eval
git-hooks		git-hooks
hooks		hooks
models		models
scripts		scripts
skills		skills
src		src
tests		tests
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
.mcp.json		.mcp.json
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
INSTALL.md		INSTALL.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
PRIVACY.md		PRIVACY.md
README.md		README.md
global.json		global.json
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json

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total-recall

The Problem

The Solution

Quick Start

Self-Install (Paste Into Any AI Coding Assistant)

Claude Code

npm (Any MCP-Compatible Tool)

What Gets Remembered

How It Works

Three-Tier Model

Hybrid Search

Embeddings

Session Start

Supported Platforms

Commands

Configuration

Connecting to Cortex

Skills

Developer Reference

Architecture

Prerequisites

Installation from Source

Contributing

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total-recall

The Problem

The Solution

Quick Start

Self-Install (Paste Into Any AI Coding Assistant)

Claude Code

npm (Any MCP-Compatible Tool)

What Gets Remembered

How It Works

Three-Tier Model

Hybrid Search

Embeddings

Session Start

Supported Platforms

Commands

Configuration

Connecting to Cortex

Skills

Developer Reference

Architecture

Prerequisites

Installation from Source

Contributing

Built With & Inspired By

superpowers by obra

Core Technologies

License

About

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