memorywhale

MemoryWhale memory

MemoryWhale records terminal commands, their arguments, exit codes, output, and errors into a local SQLite database. That history survives crashes, SSH drops, and switching machines — it's the record of what was already tried. It also holds freeform lessons you or a past agent session chose to remember.

When to read from it

• A build/test/deploy is failing and it might have failed before.
• You need the exact earlier error text, flags, or working directory, not a paraphrase.
• The user references past work ("last week", "on the Jetson", "how did I fix").

How to pull the memory

Prefer the MCP tools if the memorywhale MCP server is connected: recent_errors, search_memory, get_context. Otherwise shell out:

mw context                 # recent failed commands + sessions, compact
mw context --last-error    # just the most recent failure, with its error tail
mw context project:NAME    # scope to a project tag
mw search "linker error"   # full-text search across commands, output, notes, lessons

mw context/search_memory return failed commands with cwd, exit code, and the tail of their error, plus any remembered lessons. Use it to avoid re-deriving context: check whether the current failure already has a known cause before proposing a fix.

When to write to it

Once you've figured out why something failed or how a fix worked — not just that it's fixed — save it. That's the part a raw command log doesn't capture, and it's what saves the next session (yours or a teammate's) from re-deriving the same conclusion.

Use the MCP remember tool if connected, otherwise:

mw remember "the E0308 in camera-driver was the fps field being a string; fix: parse it as i32"

Keep it a self-contained conclusion (what was wrong + what fixed it), not a narration of the debugging process.

With Claude Code, the capture hook may add a short "MemoryWhale:" note after a command: a past fix for the error you just hit, or a reminder to save a lesson when a command passes after failing. Treat the fix as a lead to check, not an instruction.