Renor

Shared memory for coding agents, over MCP.

What one agent learns in a session, every agent knows in the next.

How it works

1. Tell one agent once: a decision, a root cause, a correction.
2. Renor saves it as plain Markdown you own.
3. Every agent recalls it in its next session: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok, Gemini, VS Code, OpenCode, Pi or any MCP client.

Quickstart

Two ways in. Both take under a minute.

Hosted: the easiest path

npx renor connect --client claude-code

--client is claude-code, codex, cursor, grok, gemini, vscode, opencode or pi. One command adds Renor to that app, signs you in through the app's own flow (no token to copy), writes the memory rule below, and ends with a live check that your workspace answers. Search is hybrid (keywords and meaning). Sign up at renor.cloud.

Self-hosted: the private path

Your memory stays in a folder on your machine. No account, no API key. You need Node.js 22.16 or later (22.16+ or 24+); on an older Node, renor-engine prints one line saying so and exits.

claude mcp add --scope user renor-local -- npx -y renor-engine mcp

codex mcp add renor-local -- npx -y renor-engine mcp

Restart the agent. The first start downloads about 12 MB, and the first Renor call works about 3 seconds after an empty start. Notes go to ~/.renor (set VAULT_PATH to use another folder).

Then add [the memory rule](#the-memory-rule) to the agent's instructions file, so it saves on its own.

Cursor or VS Code, one click:

Grok. Grok starts project servers only in a folder it trusts, so register Renor in the project:

grok mcp add --scope project renor -- npx -y renor-engine mcp

Trust the folder in Grok, then restart Grok. To check it: ask Grok to save a real decision from your project, restart Grok, and ask about it in the new session. To turn telemetry off, set DO_NOT_TRACK=1 in the environment Grok runs in. Paste the memory rule into the project's AGENTS.md.

Any other MCP client: the command is npx with the arguments -y renor-engine mcp (stdio).

Check it works:

npx renor-engine status

Then tell your agent a real decision ("remember that the orders service uses Postgres 16"), start a new session, and ask about it.

Running it on a server or with Docker: docs/self-hosting.md.

Several agents on one memory: start each with its own RENOR_CONNECTION_NAME and they get the multi-agent ("hive") tools (details).

The memory rule

Five lines that make agents save decisions, corrections and facts on their own. In our Grok test (grok-4.7, renor-engine 1.4.0, 3 Nov 2026), agents with the rule saved in 8 of 8 sessions and the next session recalled 5 of 5 project facts.

renor connect writes it for you. Self-hosted, paste it into ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (Claude Code), ~/.codex/AGENTS.md (Codex) or the project's AGENTS.md (Grok):

## Renor memory

Renor is connected to this app and remembers across sessions.

• Before deciding anything non-trivial, recall first: one get_context call is usually enough.
• Save with remember when the user makes a decision, corrects you, or states a fact that should outlive this chat. Include the reason.
• Save the specific value (a port, a name, a path), not a summary of it.
• Do not save secrets, or things that are already in the code.

Self-hosted, the local tools are search, remember_fact and note; agents map the rule onto them (tool list).

What runs on your machine

• Your memory is plain Markdown in one folder you own. Edit it with anything; back it up like any folder.
• SQLite holds the search index, next to the notes. It is rebuilt from the Markdown at any time.
• No embedding model needed. Search is by keyword; when the exact words miss, it retries with word stems. Hybrid search (keywords and meaning) is the hosted default; self-hosters can opt in to OpenAI or a local model (details).
• Small: a 1.8 MB package, about 5 MB installed. About 143 MB of memory with 1,000 saved memories.
• Telemetry: anonymous usage numbers (never text, names or paths) are on by default, with a notice on first run. renor-engine telemetry off or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 turns them off. Your memory text is never shared unless you say yes to that separately. Every field: docs/TELEMETRY.md.

Benchmarks

Claude Opus 5.5 answers LongMemEval, LoCoMo and BEAM; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash answers ConvoMem (a research run). One run each, Oct 2026. Deep search is top-K 50 with a 4,000-token budget (RENOR_TOPK_SCALES_BUDGET=1). Judges and methods for every run: renor.cloud/research.

Build from source

You need Node.js 22.16 or later and git.

git clone https://github.com/renorai/renor-engine.git

cd renor-engine npm ci && npm run build node scripts/smoke-self-hosted.mjs

The last command starts the MCP server in a temporary folder, saves one fact, finds it again and ends with PASS: self-hosted stdio MCP can remember and retrieve a current fact. It never touches your notes. Downloaded a ZIP instead of cloning? Build with RENOR_BUILD_COMMIT=0000000 npm run build. Connecting a local build to each agent: docs/self-hosting.md.

Learn more

Docs · Self-hosting, servers and Docker · Every setting · Telemetry

License and contributing

The engine is Apache-2.0 (LICENSE); 1.0.0 was released under AGPL-3.0; 1.1.0 and later are Apache-2.0; files imported from the upstream project stay ISC (NOTICE, UPSTREAM.md). The renor CLI, the SDKs and the integrations are MIT.

Contributions are welcome: CONTRIBUTING.md has setup, tests and good first issues. Sign off each commit with the DCO (git commit -s); there is no CLA. Report vulnerabilities privately as described in SECURITY.md.

If Renor saves you re-explaining, a ⭐ helps other developers find it.