codemem

codemem is a free, open-source (MIT) persistent memory companion for AI coding agents, built by Adam Kunicki. It captures the reasoning behind code changes — decisions, dead ends, and repo-specific traps — and automatically surfaces that context in later OpenCode, Claude Code, and Codex sessions. Memories live in a local SQLite database the user controls, with optional peer-to-peer sync across machines and selective sharing with teammates.

What It Is

codemem solves a specific problem in AI-assisted development: the code survives the session, but the reasoning behind it usually doesn't. When a fresh agent session starts, it has no memory of why a fallback was kept, which edge case caused a three-run debugging session, or what compromise was intentional. codemem stores those typed memories — bugfix, feature, refactor, change, discovery, decision, exploration — and retrieves them automatically before the agent needs to re-derive them.

The tool is local-first by design. No hosted memory account is required. The observer model (which turns captured activity into structured memories) uses the user's own configured model provider, which may incur charges or consume plan usage depending on the provider.

How Capture and Recall Work

codemem hooks into agent runtime event systems through plugins for OpenCode, Claude Code, and Codex. The workflow follows four stages:

• Capture — a configured observer model turns session activity (tool calls, conversation messages, session lifecycle events) into typed memories with structured fields like facts, concepts, files_read, and files_modified.
• Structure — memories are stored in local SQLite with file references inspectable in a built-in web viewer at http://localhost:38888.
• Recall — retrieval combines SQLite FTS5 BM25 lexical search and sqlite-vec semantic similarity search, merged and re-ranked using recency and memory-kind boosts.
• Injection — relevant context is automatically appended to the latest user message before the agent sees it, without requiring a manual search step.

Unchanged memories already in context are not repeated across turns, and exact continuation prompts can skip new injection when working context and retrieved facts are unchanged.

Agent Integrations and Platform Support

codemem supports three coding agents through dedicated plugin surfaces:

• OpenCode — requires OpenCode 1.18.29+; one @codemem/opencode-plugin package serves both OpenCode 1 and OpenCode 2 (beta). Automatic recall runs through session.context on OpenCode 2.
• Claude Code — installed via the Claude Code marketplace (/plugin marketplace add kunickiaj/codemem); bundles its own MCP configuration and hooks.
• Codex — installed via the Codex plugin marketplace; also supports API-key Desktop users via npx -y codemem setup --codex-only.

Agent integrations use local MCP over stdio. An advanced single-user self-hosting path can expose an OAuth-protected Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint to remote clients.

Sync and Sharing Model

Peer-to-peer sync carries project memory across machines without requiring hosted infrastructure. Key behaviors:

• Memories stay in local SQLite; sync is opt-in via codemem sync enable.
• A memory marked Only me stays local even when its project is shared.
• Teammates receive copies of shared memories; changing visibility later cannot remotely erase copies already synced.
• Team sharing assigns projects to a Team and invites members; new members inherit current and future project access.
• A self-hosted coordinator service (codemem coordinator) supports cross-network setups where mDNS does not cross VPN or network boundaries.

Update: v0.45.0

The latest release is v0.45.0, published September 14, 2026. The repository was last pushed on September 19, 2026, indicating active development. The project was previously named opencode-mem before a rename migration. OpenCode 2 support (validated against @opencode/cli@2.0.2 and @opencode/plugin@2.0.2) is labeled beta until it has shipped through a full release cycle. The CLI is distributed via npm as codemem and requires Node.js 24.15+; native database support covers macOS x64/arm64, Linux x64/arm64 (glibc 2.34+ or musl), and Windows x64.