Memcrate

A portable, markdown-native, locally-owned personal context vault for AI tools. Three verbs. One vault. Any tool.

What this is

Every AI coding tool eventually loses context. Sessions end. Tools change. You start fresh in Cursor on Monday, then jump to Claude Code on Tuesday, then a Claude Desktop window for planning on Wednesday - and each one needs to be told from scratch what you’re working on, what’s been decided, what’s broken, what’s next.

Memcrate is a local markdown vault plus three verbs (/save, /pin, /load) that any AI tool can read and write to. Your context lives in plain .md files you own. The verbs make the rituals consistent across tools.

What your vault looks like

~/memcrate-vault/
├── README.md
├── .memcrate                  # marker file (lets tools find this vault)
└── Core/
    ├── Context/
    │   ├── Profile.md         # stable: who you are, tools, anti-goals
    │   ├── Projects.md        # every project with status, stack
    │   └── Current State.md   # living: this week's focus, deadlines
    └── Sessions/              # /save writes session logs here

Four files inside Core/. That’s the whole verbs surface - /save, /pin, and /load only read and write within Core/. Add optional folders alongside Core/ (Projects/, Daily/, Tasks/, Inbox/) whenever you want the personal-OS scope.

Read docs/overview.md for the full pitch, docs/verbs.md for the verb contracts, and docs/vault-structure.md for the structural details.

Why not [other thing]

• Static CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / .cursorrules capture project facts but not session state.
• Cloud-backed AI memory (mem0, Letta, supermemory) is vendor-locked and not repo-scoped.
• Session-memory packs (CPR - the verb-trio inspiration here) work great for one tool but don’t span tools or carry full personal context.
• MCP memory servers are binary; humans can’t read them.

Memcrate is a personal context OS, not a memory tool. Your project catalog, daily state, decisions, and infrastructure all draw from the same vault.

Repo layout

memcrate/
├── reference-vault/    # Starter vault scaffold (Core/ + .memcrate marker) - copy anywhere
├── skills/             # Canonical SKILL.md files for each AI tool
│   └── agent/          # /save, /load, /pin as SKILL.md (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex)
└── docs/               # Format spec: overview, verbs, vault structure, skills, CLI

Getting started

Install the CLI, then run memcrate. One question, then it does the rest.

$ memcrate