Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop is the flagship way to use Basic Memory. Connect once, and Claude gains full access to your knowledge base — reading, writing, searching, and building on past conversations automatically.

Basic Memory describes its tools to Claude through the Model Context Protocol, so Claude already knows how to use them. You just ask in plain language.

Cloud Setup

Local Setup

For local installation, follow the Quickstart: Local guide. It walks you through installing Basic Memory and configuring Claude Desktop in a few minutes.

Try It

Once connected, try these prompts to see Basic Memory in action:

Save something from a conversation:

Create a note summarizing what we just discussed about API rate limiting.

Claude will write a structured note with observations, tags, and relations to other topics in your knowledge base.

Search with meaning, not just keywords:

Find my notes about login security.

Even if your notes use terms like "authentication hardening" or "credential rotation," semantic search surfaces them based on meaning. See Semantic Search for details.

Pick up where you left off:

What have we been working on this week?

Claude checks recent activity and offers to continue any thread. Changes sync in real time — edits you make in any text editor appear instantly in your next conversation.

You can also reference specific notes with memory:// URLs. Learn more in Memory URLs.

Troubleshooting

Tools not appearing

• Cloud: Re-open Claude Desktop after adding the connector. Check that the connector URL is exactly https://cloud.basicmemory.com/mcp.
• Local: Verify uv is installed (which uvx), check config JSON syntax, and restart Claude Desktop.

Tools appear but return errors

• Check Basic Memory is installed: basic-memory --version
• Verify sync status: basic-memory status
• Check file permissions in your ~/basic-memory directory

Changes not showing up

• Real-time sync is on by default. Run basic-memory status to confirm.
• Make sure the file is in the correct project directory.
• If needed, run the watcher manually: basic-memory watch

Project selection

Projects are selected at the start of each conversation. For single-project setups, set a default in ~/.basic-memory/config.json:

{
  "default_project": "main"
}

Next Steps