What is cortex CLAUDE.md?

A repository guide for Cortex, an embedded memory engine for AI agents. It describes the Rust workspace, language client libraries, storage and search components, documentation areas, and common build and test commands.

Use it when working on Cortex's Rust libraries, server, client SDKs, protocol definitions, documentation, or examples. It also explains how to build, test, lint, and run the system.

It gives coding agents the project's structure and working conventions before they change code. This helps them choose the right package and run the expected checks.

How MikeSquared-Agency/cortex configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to MikeSquared-Agency/cortex. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MikeSquared-Agency/cortex/main/CLAUDE.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MikeSquared-Agency/cortex

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/mikesquared-agency/cortex/claude-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/mikesquared-agency/cortex/claude-md)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/mikesquared-agency/cortex/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/mikesquared-agency/cortex/claude-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/mikesquared-agency/cortex/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/mikesquared-agency/cortex/claude-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 1,549 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 1,549 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.01549	$0.01549
Opus 5.5	$0.00620	$0.00620
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00310	$0.00310
Haiku 4.5	$0.00155	$0.00155

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 996cd71a76a4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

cortex CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

CLAUDE.md · 147 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 147 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLAUDE.md — Cortex Agent Guide

What is this?

Cortex is an embedded graph memory engine for AI agents. Rust, redb (embedded DB), gRPC + HTTP APIs, vector search (HNSW), auto-linking.

Repo structure

crates/
  cortex-core/     — Storage, graph, vector, auto-linker, types. The library.
  cortex-server/   — gRPC/HTTP server, CLI, config. The binary.
  cortex-client/   — Rust gRPC client crate.
  cortex-proto/    — Protobuf definitions + generated code.
  warren-adapter/  — Optional Warren integration (feature-gated).
sdks/
  typescript/      — cortex-memory-client npm package
  python/          — cortex-memory-client PyPI package (`cortex_memory` import)
  go/              — Go client module
specs/             — Design specs (tagged IMPLEMENTED/DEFERRED)
docs/              — User-facing documentation
examples/          — Integration examples (LangChain, CrewAI, etc.)

Build & test

cargo test --workspace                          # All 176 tests
cargo test --workspace --no-default-features    # Without warren adapter
cargo build -p cortex-server --release          # Release binary
cargo clippy --workspace                        # Lint

Run

cortex init                    # Create cortex.toml
cortex serve                   # Start server (gRPC :9090, HTTP :9091)
cortex node create --kind fact --title "..."
cortex search "query"
cortex briefing <agent-id>
cortex shell                   # Interactive REPL

Key types

NodeKind / Relation — validated string newtypes (not enums)
Cortex::open(path) — library mode, no server needed
Storage trait — RedbStorage implements it
IngestAdapter trait — pluggable event sources
TrustEngine -- computes trust from graph topology, no stored confidence
BriefingRoleConfig -- maps node kinds to briefing roles (identity, persistent, trackable, temporal, reviewable, superseding)
BriefingScope -- Agent (default), Shared (cross-agent), Unified (orchestrator)
Entity convention: kind: "entity" + metadata.entity_type
Config: cortex.toml with #[serde(default)] on all structs

Read the full file on GitHub · 147 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2mo ago First seen · 147 lines · 1,549 tokens per session scan A 996cd71a76a4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cortex CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository MikeSquared-Agency/cortex (11 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,549 tokens to every session, about $0.0062 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Memory and context

cortex CLAUDE.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
cortex CLAUDE.mdMikeSquared-Agency/cortex	Instructions file	11	3mo ago	MIT	A	1,549	Claude Code
vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	9,719	GitHub Copilot
next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js	Instructions file	143k	today	MIT	A	7,461	Codex, OpenCode
langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain	Instructions file	149k	today	MIT	A	4,680	Codex, OpenCode
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	5,516	GitHub Copilot
vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	3,093	GitHub Copilot
deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness	Instructions file	274k	2d ago	MIT	A	4,313	Codex, OpenCode

cortex: Instructions file for Claude Code