SAE4U Memory

A persistent memory architecture for Claude — MCP server + hooks + rules + prompts + templates. Free and open source. MIT.

Claude forgets you every time you close the chat. SAE4U Memory fixes that, and goes further: it ships an opinionated architecture for how persistent memory should be organized — not just storage, but classification, periodic review, persona, cleanup, and session continuity.

Part of the SAE4U OSS family alongside sae4u-agent.

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What you get

Core (works in any MCP client — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, etc.)

• Two-corpus recall — recall(query) searches BOTH SQLite facts AND your markdown memory files (Claude Code auto-memory dirs + ~/.sae4u-memory/) in one call. No re-explaining yourself.
• Hierarchical memory — remember(text, category) with 5 categories: user, feedback, project, reference, general.
• Session journals — journal(text) for end-of-session notes written to ~/.sae4u-memory/journals/YYYY-MM-DD.md for human reading.
• Customizable persona — persona.md shapes the AI's identity. Default: Simple, a peer-level coder friend who remembers things.
• Local-first — your memory lives in ~/.sae4u-memory/ on your machine. Nothing leaves.

Architecture (Claude Code with --code-full)

• hooks/memory-tick.sh — UserPromptSubmit hook that fires every 10 min and forces a brief memory review. Catches borderline observations before they fall out of context.
• rules/ — 10 universal feedback rules covering memory discipline, session continuity, anti-confabulation, hardcode prevention, post-write review.
• prompts/ — opinionated session-open and session-close prompts that pair with the architecture.
• templates/ — formats for MEMORY.md, feedback rules, project facts, and tick logs.
• commands/memory-distill.md — weekly distill ritual that promotes tick-log items to permanent memory interactively.

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Install

Minimum (MCP only)

git clone https://github.com/Simple4uhq/sae4u-memory
cd sae4u-memory
pip install -e .
sae4u-memory init

This wires the MCP server into Claude Desktop and Claude Code, and appends a guidance block to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md. Restart your client and the memory tools are live.

Full architecture (Claude Code only)

sae4u-memory init --code-full

Adds:

• Copy hooks/memory-tick.sh → ~/.claude/hooks/memory-tick.sh
• Register the hook in ~/.claude/settings.json under hooks.UserPromptSubmit
• Scaffold ~/.sae4u-memory/MEMORY.md
• Drop default rules into ~/.sae4u-memory/rules/

Restart Claude Code. The tick will fire every 10 min and instruct the AI to review and classify recent context.

Flags

sae4u-memory init --desktop        # Claude Desktop only
sae4u-memory init --code           # Claude Code MCP only
sae4u-memory init --code-full      # Claude Code MCP + hook + scaffold
sae4u-memory init --no-claude-md   # skip CLAUDE.md guidance block
sae4u-memory init --dry-run        # preview changes without applying
sae4u-memory uninstall             # remove all config entries

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Tools exposed (MCP)

Tool	Purpose
remember(text, category)	Save a fact to long-term memory
recall(query, limit, sources)	Search across SQLite + markdown roots. sources = all / sqlite / markdown
list_memories(category)	Browse what's remembered
forget(memory_id)	Delete a wrong/outdated memory
journal(text)	Write an end-of-session note
recent_journals(days)	Read recent journal entries
get_persona()	Return full persona + user context

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How memory is organized

~/.sae4u-memory/
├── persona.md              # Edit to customize behavior
├── memory.db               # SQLite + FTS5
├── MEMORY.md               # Index of permanent files (loaded at session start)
├── user/                   # User context loaded by get_persona()
│   ├── identity.md
│   ├── projects.md
│   └── preferences.md
├── tick/                   # Day-rolling tick log (NOT indexed in MEMORY.md)
│   └── 2026-05-07.md
├── archive/                # User-confirmed archived files
├── journals/               # End-of-session narratives
│   └── 2026-05-07.md
└── .last_tick              # Epoch of last memory tick

The 4-type classification (user, feedback, project, reference) plus the tick / permanent split is the architectural core. See architecture.md for the full explanation.

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Documentation

All architecture content lives under sae4u_memory/_assets/ so it ships with the wheel.

• docs/architecture.md — 5 concepts, file layout, the 4 types, what NOT to save
• docs/tick-protocol.md — how the 10-min hook works, what gets written where
• docs/persona-customization.md — what's editable, what's loaded at session start
• docs/episodic-bridge.md — optional pattern for users with a remote dev box
• prompts/session-open.md — paste this at session start
• prompts/session-close.md — paste this at session end
• commands/memory-distill.md — weekly cleanup ritual
• rules/ — 10 universal feedback rules
• hooks/memory-tick.sh — the UserPromptSubmit hook itself
• templates/ — MEMORY.md, feedback rule, project fact, tick log

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Customize

Edit ~/.sae4u-memory/persona.md to change the AI's identity, voice, and rules. Edit ~/.sae4u-memory/user/*.md to pre-fill what the AI knows about you. Both are loaded fresh on every session start.

The default persona is Simple — a peer-level coder friend. Rename, rewrite, or replace as you see fit.

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Environment

• SAE4U_MEMORY_HOME — override the data directory (default ~/.sae4u-memory)
• SAE4U_MARKDOWN_ROOTS — colon-separated list of markdown roots that recall() should search. Defaults to all Claude Code auto-memory dirs (globbed from ~/.claude/projects/*/memory/) plus SAE4U_MEMORY_HOME.

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Uninstall

sae4u-memory uninstall    # remove configs from Claude Desktop + Code
rm ~/.claude/hooks/memory-tick.sh    # if you ran --code-full
rm -rf ~/.sae4u-memory    # optional — also delete stored memories
pip uninstall sae4u-memory

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Status

v0.2.0 — memory architecture release. Full export of the pattern the project authors run in production: hooks + rules + prompts + templates + persona + extended init for Claude Code. Renamed from simple4u-memory to align with the SAE4U OSS family.

Previous: v0.1.3 (under the old name) shipped two-corpus recall and a working-rules persona. v0.1.x users on PyPI: install fresh from this repo; the old package is no longer maintained.

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Sister project

• sae4u-agent — multi-tenant control plane and agent runtime template. The agents need memory; this is that memory.

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License

MIT.