Skip to content
toon-memory logotoon-memory — The Continuity Layer for AI Agents

What is MCP Memory? Persistent Memory for AI Coding Agents

What is MCP Memory?

Section titled “What is MCP Memory?”

MCP memory is a way for AI coding agents to remember things between sessions. Without MCP memory, every time you start a new chat with Claude, Cursor, or OpenCode, the agent starts from scratch — it forgets all the decisions, patterns, and bugs from your previous conversations.

toon-memory is an MCP server that solves this problem. It gives your AI coding agent a persistent memory that:

  • Survives restarts — your agent remembers yesterday’s context today
  • Works offline — no cloud, no API calls, no LLM needed for storage
  • Saves tokens — 22% fewer tokens than JSON, 80% fewer tool calls per session
  • Works with 15+ agents — Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Windsurf, VS Code Copilot, and more

How MCP Memory Works

Section titled “How MCP Memory Works”

The Problem

Section titled “The Problem”

AI coding agents have no memory between sessions. Every new session, the agent:

  1. Forgets why you chose Postgres over MongoDB
  2. Doesn’t remember the Redis timeout bug you fixed last week
  3. Can’t recall the architecture patterns your team established
  4. Has to re-learn your project from scratch

The Solution: MCP Memory Server

Section titled “The Solution: MCP Memory Server”

toon-memory runs as a local MCP server that your agent connects to via the Model Context Protocol. It stores memory in a TOON format (Token-Oriented Object Notation) that is:

  • 22% more efficient than JSON for LLMs
  • Searchable with BM25 relevance + graph-aware recall
  • Quality-scored automatically (0-1 based on structure)
  • Graph-connected with links and references between entries

MCP Memory vs Other Approaches

Section titled “MCP Memory vs Other Approaches”
Approach Pros Cons
MCP Memory (toon-memory) Offline, token-efficient, graph-aware, 15+ agents Requires MCP support
Markdown files Simple, human-readable Not structured, not searchable, not MCP-compatible
Cloud memory (mem0) Managed, vector search Requires internet, costs money, data leaves your machine
Memory banks (shodh-memory) Hybrid search Complex setup, Docker required, sentence-transformers dependency

How to Get MCP Memory

Section titled “How to Get MCP Memory”

Step 1: Install toon-memory

Section titled “Step 1: Install toon-memory”
Terminal window
npm install -g toon-memory

Step 2: Configure your agent

Section titled “Step 2: Configure your agent”
Terminal window
# Interactive installer
npx toon-memory


# Or manual setup — see [Installation Guide](/toon-memory/getting-started/installation)

Step 3: Start using memory

Section titled “Step 3: Start using memory”

In your next agent session:

Terminal window
# Save important decisions
memory_remember({
  category: "decision",
  key: "use-postgres",
  content: "Choose Postgres for ACID compliance and JSON support"
})


# Search memory before coding
memory_recall({ query: "database" })


# Get full context in one call
memory_smart_recall({ intent: "what I was working on" })

Learn More

Section titled “Learn More”