crbro-memory

🧠 CRBRO — Persistent Neural Memory for AI

CRBRO is a local MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives your AI assistant persistent long-term memory across sessions. It uses a biological neural architecture — cortex, synapses, hippocampus — to store, connect, and retrieve knowledge automatically.

Free and open source (MIT). All 16 tools included — no license, no account, no tiers.

⭐ If CRBRO gives your AI a memory worth keeping, a star on GitHub is the best way to support it.

Features

• 🧬 Biological Architecture — Knowledge organized as neurons (cortex), connections (synapses), and session memory (hippocampus)
• 🔍 Fact-Level Search — Powered by Orama. Every fact is indexed on its own, so a topic with hundreds of facts stays as findable as one with three, and each result comes back with the exact fact that matched and the date it was recorded
• 🔥 Heat Scores — Automatic relevance tracking based on frequency, recency, and connectivity
• ✏️ Correctable — Knowledge can be superseded or retracted, not just piled up. A memory that only appends keeps serving yesterday's answer with today's confidence
• 🗺️ Global Map — Cluster detection and cross-domain bridge identification
• ⛏️ Knowledge Miner — Optionally scans your local .md/.txt notes and feeds them into the brain
• 🔒 Fully Local — Runs on Node.js alone: no Python, no Docker, no databases, no external services. Your memory never leaves your machine
• 💾 File-Based — All data stored as readable JSON files in ~/.crbro/ — inspectable, diffable, and versionable with git
• 🔌 MCP Native — Works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client

Quick Start

1. Initialize

npx crbro-memory init

2. Add to your MCP config

Register CRBRO at the user level, not per-project. Your brain lives in ~/.crbro/ and is shared across every folder — but if you register the server inside a single project, other folders won't have the tools and it will look like the memory is gone. User-level registration makes it available everywhere, which is the whole point.

Claude Code (one command, available in every folder):

claude mcp add --scope user crbro -- npx -y crbro-memory

Claude Desktop (~/AppData/Roaming/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "crbro": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "crbro-memory"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json — the one in your home folder, not a project's .cursor/):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "crbro": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "crbro-memory"]
    }
  }
}

3. Start using it

Your AI will now have access to 16 memory tools. Start any session with crbro_boot.

Tools

Tool	Description
crbro_boot	Boot the brain at session start — loads hot topics and context
crbro_status	Brain status — neurons, synapses, sessions count
crbro_learn	Store a fact, decision, pattern, or preference
crbro_neuron	Read a specific neuron (topic) with all its knowledge
crbro_neurons	List neurons with optional filters (domain, type, heat)
crbro_recall	Search every stored fact, not just topic names — returns the fact that matched
crbro_connect	Create or strengthen a connection between neurons
crbro_connections	Get all connections for a neuron
crbro_session_log	Log a session summary
crbro_sessions	List recent sessions
crbro_context	Read/update active working context
crbro_hot_topics	Get the most active topics by heat score
crbro_global_map	View the neural network — clusters and cross-domain bridges
crbro_revise	Mark facts as superseded or retracted when they stop being true
crbro_maintenance	Brain maintenance — heat, pruning, integrity, index rebuild
crbro_consolidate	End-of-session consolidation

Architecture

~/.crbro/
├── manifest.json           ← Brain metadata
├── cortex/                 ← One JSON per neuron (topic)
│   ├── project_octochat.json
│   └── tech_firebase.json
├── synapses/               ← One JSON per connection
│   └── syn_octochat__firebase.json
├── hippocampus/            ← One JSON per session
│   └── session_2026-05-06.json
├── prefrontal/             ← Working memory
│   ├── active_context.json
│   ├── hot_topics.json
│   └── global_map.json
├── archives/               ← Cold neurons (opt-in; nothing is archived unless you ask)
└── .search/                ← Orama search index
    └── chunks.index.json   ← one document per fact

Heat Score Algorithm

Each neuron has a heat score (0.0 - 1.0) calculated from:

• Frequency (35%) — How often the neuron is accessed
• Recency (40%) — When it was last accessed (today = 1.0, >3 months = 0.05)
• Connectivity (25%) — How many synapses connect to it

Knowledge Miner

The miner is an optional, fully local helper that scans a directory for .md and .txt files (notes, docs, journals) and extracts knowledge into the brain — so CRBRO can learn from what you already wrote, not just from conversations. It never touches the network and never leaves your machine.

npx crbro-memory mine [dir]       # One-shot scan of a directory
npx crbro-memory setup-miner      # Install a scheduled auto-scan (OS task scheduler)
npx crbro-memory miner-status     # Check the auto-miner status
npx crbro-memory remove-miner     # Remove the scheduled task

Naming note: "miner" here means knowledge mining — extracting facts from your own text files. Nothing to do with cryptocurrency.

CLI Commands

npx crbro-memory          # Start MCP server (stdio)
npx crbro-memory init     # Initialize brain + detect IDEs
npx crbro-memory status   # Show brain status
npx crbro-memory reindex  # Rebuild the search index
npx crbro-memory eval     # Measure retrieval quality against your own query set
npx crbro-memory --help   # Help

Measuring retrieval

eval is there so you can tell a fix from a feeling. Write ~/.crbro/.eval/queries.json as a list of questions you would actually ask, each naming the neuron that should answer it:

[
  { "query": "how we deploy the api",
    "expect_neuron": "project_octochat",
    "expect_contains": "Cloud Run" }
]

Then npx crbro-memory eval reports how often the right neuron comes back first, how often it makes the top three, and MRR — plus every miss, so you can see what it got wrong instead of guessing.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Built by Octonove.