SuperLocalMemory

Agents forget everything between sessions. The usual fix — a vector store with a save button — makes it worse: it always returns something, even when nothing it holds answers the question, and your agent builds on it. This is a memory brain, not a bucket: it understands what was saved (who, what, when, which project), keeps it true over time, governs who may see it, and refuses to bluff. Four arXiv papers describe how it works.

In Mode A, core remember and recall make no model-provider call: no API key, no cloud account, no Docker. Anything that sends data out is a choice you make, and the docs say exactly what goes.

Install

The easiest way: let your AI agent install it. Copy the block below into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or any agent that can run commands. It reads the setup guide, asks you one question, sets everything up and tells you what works. No terminal commands for you to learn.

Install SuperLocalMemory on this computer for me. Followhttps://github.com/qualixar/superlocalmemory/blob/main/SETUP_FOR_AGENTS.mdstep by step and show me what each step printed. Ask me only one question,before turning on anything optional: whether I also want to find my pictures,screenshots and PDFs by describing them. Connect SuperLocalMemory to the agentI am using. When you finish, run slm doctor and tell me in plain words what works.

No AI agent? One line in Terminal (macOS and Linux). It brings its own Python, sets everything up, connects the AI tools it finds and opens the dashboard; no Python or npm needed beforehand:

curl -fsSLo get-slm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/qualixar/superlocalmemory/main/scripts/get-slm.sh && sh get-slm.sh

Add pictures and documents from the start with sh get-slm.sh --media at the end. It downloads the script first, so you can read it before it runs. Windows: use the agent prompt above, or npm or pip below.

Prefer the terminal? Both routes end in the same setup: your text memory on this machine, and, if you say yes, your pictures and documents too.

npm, the primary route (Node 18+). It installs SLM into a package-owned virtual environment:

npm install -g superlocalmemory   # add --media to also turn on pictures and documentsslm setup                         # pick Mode A to keep everything on this machineslm connect claude-code           # or codex, cursor, windsurf, zed, claude-desktop, jetbrains, opencode ...

pip, the other primary route (Python 3.12 to 3.14), in a Python virtual environment you activate:

python3 -m venv .venvsource .venv/bin/activate         # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activatepython -m pip install superlocalmemory   # or, without a venv: pipx install superlocalmemoryslm setupslm connect claude-codeslm media enable                  # optional: pictures and documents (about 1.5 GB; needs 16 GB of memory)

uv: uv tool install --python 3.12 superlocalmemory installs slm as an isolated tool, with nothing to activate; see Linux install.

Claude Code plugin: claude plugin marketplace add qualixar/superlocalmemory, then claude plugin install superlocalmemory@qualixar. Codex: slm connect codex, then slm codex install.

Two models, one memory. Text is searched with a small local text model (nomic). If you turn on pictures and documents, a second local model (Google's EmbeddingGemma 2) reads them, and one recall returns both. The picture model unloads after 30 minutes without use, so it holds no memory while you only work with text. Details: pictures and documents, getting started, agent setup steps.

Repository clone: ./scripts/install.sh install (macOS, Linux) or .\scripts\install.ps1 -Action Install (Windows). Runs on Windows, Linux and Apple Silicon macOS (platforms).

30-second example

$ slm remember "We deploy the API blue-green; rollback is a DNS flip." --kind decisionQueryable ✓ 1 facts$ slm remember "Staging DB is Postgres 16 on port 5433."
$ slm recall "how do we roll back the API"  1. [0.67] We deploy the API blue-green; rollback is a DNS flip.
$ slm recall "zxqv plorth wimble"  That isn't in SuperLocalMemory.
$ slm remember "Staging DB moved to Postgres 17 on port 5434." --replaces <id>Replaced ✓ 1 fact(s). To undo: slm review-correction ... rollback 1$ slm recall "which port does staging postgres use"  1. [0.68] Staging DB moved to Postgres 17 on port 5434.

Real output from a fresh Mode A install, trimmed. Scores rank memories; they are not probabilities.

Why SuperLocalMemory: twelve superpowers

1. It knows when it doesn't know. Every recall comes back in one of three tiers: a supported answer; the closest memories, labelled "I don't have this exactly — here are the closest memories"; or "That isn't in SuperLocalMemory." for nonsense. Just after a start it says it is still warming up and shows what it has found, so you never hear "empty" when the truth is "not ready yet". Your agent stops building on the wrong memory.

2. A second opinion that never leaves your Mac. On Apple Silicon, SLM installs Laya, a small on-device model that judges whether the memories found actually answer the question. Prefer the cloud, or not on a Mac? Jev does the same check online, only after you tick its consent.

3. Your documents and screenshots become a knowledge base you can ask. Save a photo, a screenshot or a PDF and find it weeks later by describing it — "the slide with the quarterly numbers". The picture model is [Google] Google's EmbeddingGemma 2, running on your computer: one model reads both your words and your pictures, so a description finds the image. OCR runs locally too, every PDF page is indexed by its picture and its text, and every answer cites its file and page. No generative model ever looks at your files.

4. Karpathy's LLM-wiki idea, built in — with search kept. Andrej Karpathy's LLM-wiki pattern turns raw documents into an organised knowledge base with an index and a health check. SLM does that from the data it already stores — a document index of every file with its people, projects and dates, and a document health check that finds empty pages, unlinked documents, duplicate pages and contradicted facts — while keeping real hybrid search for the moment you need to find something.

5. It looks after itself. Memory health describes your older memories in the background — dates, names, projects, kinds — only ever by adding, never touching what you wrote. Anything that moves or deletes waits for your Fix, and Undo puts it back.

6. Governed, not just stored. Every save passes an admission check and gets a receipt. Every read respects roles, workspaces and scopes. Every erasure reaches every copy — summaries, caches, indexes, picture mirrors — and comes with a verifiable receipt. Every action lands in a hash-chained audit trail. Built for teams and for GDPR, not bolted on.

7. Memory with a sense of time. Every fact knows when it happened and when SLM learned it. Ask what was true last month, or what SLM knew before a date. Corrections replace a fact and stay undoable; unused memories fade the way human memory does.

8. It never floods your context window. Layered recall gives an agent a one-line glance, the facts, or the full surrounding context — under a hard token budget it sets. The agent digs deeper with expand only when it needs to, and cache and reversible compression stop you paying for the same output twice.

9. Many agents, one brain. Every write records which agent made it, with trust scores against memory poisoning, so ten agents can share one memory without poisoning it.

10. Your agents talk to each other — even across the internet. Through SLM-Mesh, the agents on your computer and the bots on the web finally share one conversation. Claude Code, Codex and Hermes sessions exchange messages, waits, locks and shared state, on one machine or several, so one agent can hand work to another and two never edit the same file at once. And the bots you allow — ChatGPT, Claude on the web, Grok Bot, Muse — join the same mesh: a bot in your browser can message the agent on your laptop by name and read its reply. Every message arrives labelled as data, never as instructions; a web bot reads new messages when its next turn starts.

11. It learns every day, and it can't quietly get worse. Every reported outcome teaches it: ranking learns which memories actually helped, stable habits become soft prompts for new sessions, and agent skills are measured and revised. A new ranker is promoted only on a statistically valid win and rolled back automatically if it slips. Work runs as bounded loops that end only when an independent gate passes — never on an agent's word — and multi-step pipelines run as bounded graphs with Bounded Loops, whose finished runs SLM keeps as read-only evidence.

12. Science, not vibes. Four arXiv papers back every layer: information-geometric retrieval, biologically inspired forgetting, Bayesian trust against memory poisoning, and governed memory with measured costs. The core math runs without a language model, and the published benchmarks state exactly how they were measured.

SuperLocalMemory is part of Qualixar's AI Reliability Engineering work: agent memory that is observable, bounded and honest about what it doesn't know.

Watch it work

Add SuperLocalMemory to your app

You do not need to wait for an app store. Every app below can take SuperLocalMemory straight from this GitHub repository, qualixar/superlocalmemory, in two steps.

Step 1, once per computer. Install SuperLocalMemory: npm install -g superlocalmemory (or pipx install superlocalmemory). Your memory lives on this computer from then on.

Step 2, in each app you use:

Restart the app after adding SuperLocalMemory. Then ask it something like "What do you remember about this project?" The plugin guide has the details for each app, and slm doctor checks your setup.

Works with your agents

Every harness, every bot, one memory. Any harness that speaks MCP (slm mcp, or http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp/) or can run a command (slm remember, slm recall) can use SuperLocalMemory. The packaged plugins are ready-made examples, not a limit.

What the plugins teach your agent. Every plugin is built from one source, so every host gets the same 16 skills (recall, remember, sessions, governance, scopes and profiles, the knowledge graph, mesh, bounded loops, cache, compression, Web access, pictures, and two for bot computers) and 4 agents (a memory advisor, an optimize advisor, a governance advisor and a loop runner). Hooks run at session start, after tool use and at the end of a session, and every hook fails open: a hook problem never blocks your agent. Plugins, skills and hooks

Everything SLM does

Recall that knows when it doesn't know

The answer check: Laya and Jev

The verdict is one input to the support decision, with its own time budget, and the Answer Check tab shows verdicts, timing and how often memory had no answer — without storing your questions. Answer check

Documents, pictures and your notes

Memory health

The living brain

Governance and compliance

Engineering controls that support a compliance program, not a certification.

Many agents, one memory

Context savings

Modes, dashboard and scale

MCP memory server: tool profiles

Every app, plugin and extension gets full (58 tools: all of memory, SLM-Mesh, optimize, loops; 5 more while images are on) unless you choose otherwise. That fits hosts that cap the total number of MCP tools at about 100, with room for your other servers. To change it for every app at once, run one command and restart your apps:

slm tools                # current set, and how many tools each set hasslm tools set power      # any name below; `slm tools set default` goes back to full

To change one app only, set SLM_MCP_PROFILE in that app's MCP config (slm connect <app> --profile <name> writes it); it wins over the saved choice for that app. Per-app details

stdio: {"command": "slm", "args": ["mcp"]} · HTTP: http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp/ · MCP tools

See it

Recorded on a test install with fictional memories. The eight-minute full demo walks through every pane.

Architecture

The free local core is complete on its own; Web access is optional. Architecture in detail

Privacy

Nothing leaves your computer unless you turn on a feature that sends it, and each one says exactly what goes:

Pictures, documents, Laya and Mode A never send anything. Secrets in memory text are redacted on every outbound path. Security policy

Benchmarks

These numbers come from the published architecture paper (arXiv:2603.14588), whose retrieval core SLM still runs. They are not a fresh run of the current package.

A LoCoMo score is comparable only when the subset, answer model and judge match. Method and ablations

Research

Four arXiv preprints by Varun Pratap Bhardwaj describe SLM:

1. SuperLocalMemory 4.0: The Governed Memory Operating System for AI Agents, with Garima Singh and Arun Pratap Bhardwaj. arXiv:2608.08253
2. SuperLocalMemory V3.3: The Living Brain, arXiv:2604.04514
3. SuperLocalMemory V3: Information-Geometric Foundations for Zero-LLM Enterprise Agent Memory, arXiv:2603.14588
4. Privacy-Preserving Multi-Agent Memory with Bayesian Trust Defense Against Memory Poisoning, arXiv:2603.02240

Cite with CITATION.cff or GitHub's "Cite this repository".

Documentation

Start: Getting started · IDE setup · Plugins · Quick proof Use: Recall · Memory health · Answer check · Pictures and documents · Auto-memory · Web access · Optimize Reference: CLI · MCP tools · Configuration · Troubleshooting · Compliance · Wiki · Release notes

Upgrade

npm update -g superlocalmemory    # or: pipx upgrade superlocalmemory, uv tool upgrade superlocalmemoryslm restart && slm doctorslm upgrade-hosts                 # preview plugin and IDE updates; nothing changes until you --apply

Upgrades never move or delete memory, and a store update takes a restore point first. Host upgrades

Platform support

Python 3.12+, Node 18+ for npm. Pictures and documents need 16 GB of memory.

Star history

[SuperLocalMemory GitHub star history]

Contributing and license

Issues and pull requests are welcome: CONTRIBUTING.md. Security reports: SECURITY.md. Licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later; for a commercial license see COMMERCIAL-LICENSE.md.