brain-mcp

Name: brain-mcp
Author: debashishthakur

by debashishthakurversion 0.5.2i★ –iRuns on your computer

Registry nameio.github.debashishthakur/brain-mcp

Install

Overview

Description from the maker (original English)

Your Obsidian vault as private, searchable memory for Claude, Cursor, Hermes and any MCP client

PopNx MCP’s three pillars

These three are never merged into one score: opinions, measurements and popularity are different things.

User voiceiNo reviews yetReviews open together with accounts in a later step
Our basic checksi1 of 1 passedChecked from public information; code not scanned yet
UsageiNot measured yet★ –

What you can do with it

We have not written a plain-language summary for this one yet. Below are the facts we read from the registry.

Connection: Runs on your computer
Transport: stdio
Category: Docs, sheets & office work

Install

Pick the AI app you use, then copy the settings.

Before you install

Basic checks: 1 of 1 passed
Runs on your computer with your user’s permissions (files, network, apps).
The registry lists no key to fill in.

You need

npmNode.js installed (for the npx command)

Which app do you use?

ClaudeClaude CodeCursorVS CodeChatGPT

Pick your app above. We remember it, so next time the button says “Install in …”.

Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config, and paste this into claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brain": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "debawho-brain-mcp",
        "--stdio"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Run this in your terminal

claude mcp add brain -- npx -y debawho-brain-mcp --stdio

Open in Cursor

Or copy the settings yourself

Paste into .cursor/mcp.json in your project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brain": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "debawho-brain-mcp",
        "--stdio"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Your browser asks to open the app, then the app shows the settings and asks you to confirm. Key values are left empty for you to fill in.

Open in VS Code

Or copy the settings yourself

Paste into .vscode/mcp.json in your project

{
  "servers": {
    "brain": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "debawho-brain-mcp",
        "--stdio"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Your browser asks to open the app, then the app shows the settings and asks you to confirm. Key values are left empty for you to fill in.

This one runs on your computer, and ChatGPT can only connect to servers on the internet. Pick another app.

Your choice stays on this device in a cookie; no account needed.

These settings are generated from the maker’s registry entry. If the README says otherwise, follow the README.

What it can do

Runs on your computer; the tool list appears in your AI app after you install it.

Basic checksi

We check information anyone can see; we have not read the code. Checks that do not apply are left out of the count. · Checked Nov 7, 2026

✓ Pass
Maker matches the repo
The registry name was verified with the GitHub account debashishthakur, which owns the repo
… Not checked yet
Still maintained
We have not read this repo from GitHub yet
… Not checked yet
Has a licence
We have not read this repo from GitHub yet
– Not applicable
Endpoint responds
This one runs on your computer; there is no internet endpoint
– Not applicable
Sign-in with OAuth
Runs on your computer and uses local settings instead
… Not checked yet
No hidden instructions in tool descriptions
Runs on your computer; we can only read tool lists from internet endpoints

Compared with others in Docs, sheets & office worki

More stars than 0% of the other 3536 servers in this category
Published to the registry more recently than 61% of the other 3536 servers in this category
Basic checks equal to or better than 100% of the other 3536 servers in this category

Compared with every active server in this category in the registry. Stars count only when the publisher owns the repo.

Common questions

Is brain-mcp safe?

It passed 1 of 1 applicable basic checks. We have not read the code. Before adding a key or token, see what access the server asks for and use a key with only the permissions you need.

What keys or codes does it need?

The registry does not list a required key, though some servers ask you to sign in on first use.

Does it run on my computer or in the cloud?

It runs on your computer. Your AI app starts it when needed, and data does not pass through the maker’s servers (unless it calls an online service itself).

Is it still maintained?

The GitHub repo last changed –, and the latest version (0.5.2) reached the registry 20 days ago.

Which apps can use it?

Apps that support MCP, such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and VS Code. You also need Node.js on your computer.

What can I use instead?

In the same category: Agent-Native Calendar, Excel MCP Server, MCP Server for Excel

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Install

README from the maker

Open the README

Copied from the maker’s repo as written. PopNx MCP has not reviewed or endorsed it. HTML, images and scripts are removed. Links lead off this site.

brain-mcp

Your Obsidian vault, as memory for every AI you use.

An open-source Model Context Protocol server that serves your notes, from your own machine, to Claude and any MCP client.

Website · Quick start · How it works · Contribute · Research questions

Why brain-mcp

Every new chat starts from zero. You explain who you are, what you are building and how you like to work, and tomorrow, in another app, you explain it again.

brain-mcp keeps that context in the Markdown notes you already own. Connect any MCP client and it learns who you are, how you work, what your projects are and what you touched this week. It can search, follow links and write back to the vault as you talk.

Your files, your machine. Notes stay plain Markdown in a folder you control. Nothing is uploaded to a third party.
One memory, every client. Claude Code, Claude Desktop, claude.ai, Cursor, Hermes Agent, your phone and anything else that speaks MCP read the same vault.
Hybrid retrieval, fully local. Keyword search plus meaning search with a small embedding model, then a reranker, all on your CPU. It can also answer "the vault does not record this" instead of guessing.
Measured. Every ranking change is scored by two bundled evals, keyword and hybrid side by side.
Private by default. OAuth 2.1 with PKCE for remote access, read, write and private scopes, secret redaction and an audit log of every call.
Writes back. brain_remember and brain_capture turn what a model learns into notes you can read and edit.
Small and readable. About 3,800 lines of strict TypeScript. Easy to study, easy to extend.

How it works

flowchart LR

V["Obsidian vault plain Markdown"]

subgraph S["brain-mcp: one Node process, one SQLite file"] I["Indexer sections, links, topics, projects"] DB[("SQLite FTS5 word index section embeddings link graph")] M["Local models on CPU bge-small embedder bge-reranker"] R["Hybrid retrieval"] T["14 MCP tools"] G["Scopes, redaction, audit log"] I --> DB --> R --> T --> G M -.-> DB M -.-> R end

Index. Every note is split into sections and indexed with its links, topics and project. Each section also gets an embedding (bge-small-en-v1.5) in the background. A file watcher keeps both current within a second of a save.
Retrieve. A question goes through five steps:

Understand: expand shorthands (pg → PostgreSQL) and fix typos against the vault's own words.
Search four ways: keywords per section (BM25), meaning (embeddings), exact dates, and note titles.
Fuse the four lists with reciprocal rank fusion.
Follow links (off by default, retrieval.graph): a section of a note linked with the top hits (hub and topic pages included, with a boost when several top hits link to the same note) can take a reranker place from the weakest fused entry it beats, and the reranker reads the sentence that links them. A section the last step would trim is kept anyway when it is linked with a kept hit.
Rerank the best candidates with a cross-encoder (bge-reranker-base), always including each list's first pick, so fusion cannot bury a hit only one search found. When keyword and meaning search agree on the top hit and fusion keeps it in the top 3, only those 3 are reranked.
Decide: if even the best passage scores below the reranker's floor, answer "nothing relevant"; otherwise return the strong hits and at least the five best, cited by note, with a coverage label (good, thin, none).

Serve. Over stdio beside your editor, over HTTP with a bearer token on your network, or behind an OAuth 2.1 login through Cloudflare Tunnel for the public internet.
Remember and write. brain_remember appends durable facts and refuses near duplicates. A fact can replace an earlier one, expire, or start at a given date; brain_identity serves only the facts true now, and brain_facts keeps the history. Four more tools write, edit, move and delete hand-written notes, inside the folders you allow.

The retrieval step from question to answer:

flowchart LR

Q["Question"] --> U["Understand shorthands, typo fixes"] U --> K["Keywords per section, BM25"] U --> D["Meaning embeddings"] U --> DT["Exact dates"] U --> NT["Note titles BM25"] K & D & DT & NT --> F["Fuse reciprocal rank fusion"] F --> RR["Rerank top 16 cross-encoder (top 3 when keywords and meaning agree)"] RR --> GT{"Best score above the floor?"} GT -->|no| X["Nothing relevant"] GT -->|yes| A["Cited passages coverage: good or thin"]

Everything runs on your machine: the models are downloaded once into data/models, and no note leaves the server. If the models are not ready yet, retrieval falls back to keywords, so the server never blocks. Set BRAIN_MCP_HYBRID=0 to stay keyword-only.

[!NOTE]

The architecture is intentionally simple right now, and ideas are welcome. It is one process and one SQLite file, with a hybrid ranker built from fixed rules. Some of it is already tweakable: the retrieval block in brain.config.json (embedding and reranker models, how many candidates to rerank, the score blend, the "nothing relevant" floor, your own shorthands), context budgets under context, and fusion constants such as RRF_K and TITLE_BONUS in src/vault/index.ts. Much more could become configurable, such as pluggable retrievers and storage, graph strategies, and query rewriting. If you have an idea, open an issue or a research proposal, even before there is code.

The bundled example vault as a knowledge graph on the project site . Drag to rotate, hover a node to read the note.

Tools

Tool	What it returns
`brain_identity`	Persona bundle: profile note, memory notes, the captured facts that are true now, skills, project list and recent focus. The server instructions ask clients to call this first. Pass `topic` for a smaller bundle.
`brain_context`	The sections most relevant to a question, with source note ids and a coverage label, from the hybrid ranker, packed under a size budget. Says so explicitly when the vault does not record the answer.
`brain_search`	Hybrid search (keywords, meaning, reranker, spelling correction) with project, type, topic and date filters. Returns ranked notes with snippets.
`brain_read`	One note, or one section of it, with metadata, topics and resolved links.
`brain_project`	Briefing on a project: description, latest progress, decisions, recent changes and notes grouped by type. With no argument it lists projects.
`brain_graph`	Links out, backlinks grouped by project, and notes that share topics.
`brain_recent`	Notes modified in the last N days, newest first.
`brain_capture`	Writes a new note with graph-ready frontmatter into the capture folder. Like `brain_write` and `brain_edit`, its reply lists existing notes the text names without linking, so the caller can link them in the sentence that says how they relate.
`brain_remember`	Appends a fact to the memory file; it joins `brain_identity` straight away. `replaces` names facts it makes outdated, `subject` + `attribute` replace the previous fact with the same pair on their own, and `valid_from` / `valid_until` bound when it holds. Near duplicates of current facts are refused (token Jaccard ≥ 0.6 or containment ≥ 0.85); a partial overlap in the same category is held back until the caller passes `replaces` or `force=true`.
`brain_facts`	Captured facts and when each was true: the current ones, the ones true at an `as_of` date, or every version with what replaced it (`history`). Filters by `subject`, `category` and words.
`brain_write`	Creates a note at a chosen path in a writable folder (`Notes/` and the capture folder by default), or replaces one with `overwrite=true`. A `hub` note groups every note whose `project` matches its title.
`brain_edit`	Changes part of a note in one of three ways: replace text that matches once, replace a section under a heading, or append. Keeps the file's line endings and bumps `modified`.
`brain_move`	Moves or renames a note within the writable folders. Never overwrites, and names any notes whose links stop resolving.
`brain_delete`	Moves a note into `.trash/`, which is never indexed. Nothing is erased.

The four write tools need the brain:write scope. They refuse notes a pipeline generates, hidden folders, paths outside the vault, and the memory file, which stays append-only through brain_remember.

Also exposed: the resources brain://identity and brain://note/{path}, and the prompts assume_persona and project_briefing.

The index lives in data/index.db, embeddings included. It is rebuilt on every start (about 10 ms for the 15-note example vault) and kept current by the watcher; embeddings are keyed by a hash of the text, so unchanged sections are never embedded twice. Every tool call is appended to logs/audit.jsonl.

Quick start

Requires Node 22 or newer. One command sets i

Only the beginning is shown; read the rest in the repo

brain-mcp

Overview

PopNx MCP’s three pillars

What you can do with it

Install

Before you install

What it can do

Basic checksi

Maker matches the repo

Still maintained

Has a licence

Endpoint responds

Sign-in with OAuth

No hidden instructions in tool descriptions

Compared with others in Docs, sheets & office worki

Common questions

Alternatives

Agent-Native Calendar

Excel MCP Server

MCP Server for Excel

README from the maker

brain-mcp

Why brain-mcp

How it works

Tools

Quick start