basicmachines-co/basic-memory

Overview

Basic Memory is an open-source Python tool that gives AI assistants persistent memory across conversations. It stores structured knowledge about your projects and preferences so you don't have to re-explain context each time.

Best for

Best for
Developers who frequently use AI assistants and want to avoid repeating project context

Use cases

• Maintaining consistent project context across multiple AI chat sessions
• Building a personal knowledge base that your AI assistant can reference
• Avoiding repetitive explanations of codebases, workflows, or preferences

How to use

Install

npx skills add basicmachines-co/basic-memory/skills

Tools exposed

• BASIC_MEMORY_LOG_LEVEL
• BASIC_MEMORY_CLOUD_MODE
• BASIC_MEMORY_FORCE_LOCAL
• BASIC_MEMORY_FORCE_CLOUD
• BASIC_MEMORY_EXPLICIT_ROUTING
• BASIC_MEMORY_ENV
• BASIC_MEMORY_NO_PROMOS
• BASIC_MEMORY_IMPORT_UPLOAD_MAX_BYTES

Tested with

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT

Notes

Basic Memory is an open-source Python tool that gives AI assistants persistent memory across conversations. It stores structured knowledge about your projects and preferences so you don’t have to re-explain context each time.

3,192 stars on GitHub. Last updated 2026-06-11. Licensed AGPL-3.0.

Use cases

• Maintaining consistent project context across multiple AI chat sessions
• Building a personal knowledge base that your AI assistant can reference
• Avoiding repetitive explanations of codebases, workflows, or preferences

Pros

• Eliminates the need to re-state project details in every conversation
• Open-source with a growing community (over 3,000 GitHub stars)
• Simple Python-based setup for developers

Cons

• Requires manual setup and integration with your AI workflow
• Memory persistence depends on how well you structure the stored knowledge
• Limited to Python environments and may not work with all AI tools out of the box

Indexed from awesome-mcp-servers-punkpeye and enriched against its public facts.