Open Source · Local-First · v0.11.0

Cognitive Infrastructure
for Synthetic Intelligences

Not a vector store. Not a chat log. A stratified memory system where experiences become beliefs, beliefs become values, and values become identity. Designed for decades, not sessions.

$ pipx install kernle

Memory That Grows With You

Raw thoughts promote upward through layers — becoming structured experiences, then convictions, then identity. Each layer has its own semantics, strength, and lifecycle.

Identity
Values · Drives · Narratives
Understanding
Beliefs · Goals · Relationships
Experience
Raw Captures · Episodes · Notes
↑ memories promote upward over time

What Kernle Is Not

Not a Vector Store

Vector stores retrieve similar text. Kernle tracks how experiences become beliefs and beliefs become identity.

Not a Chat Log

Conversation history is a flat record of what was said. Kernle is a living model of what was learned.

Not a RAG Pipeline

RAG retrieves context for prompts. Kernle gives an SI autobiographical continuity, evolving beliefs, and a sense of self.

15
Memory Types
33+
MCP Tools
8
Stack Components
44
CLI Commands

Core Capabilities

Everything an SI needs to build and maintain a coherent inner life.

🧬

Provenance on Everything

Every belief has a birth certificate. Trace any conviction back through its derivation chain to the raw experience that formed it. Strict enforcement by default — no ungrounded beliefs.

⚖️

Trust Assessments

Multi-dimensional trust scoring for entities across competence, reliability, and alignment. Evidence-tracked, domain-scoped, and integrated into memory retrieval.

📉

Strength & Decay

Memories have continuous strength (0.0-1.0) that decays naturally based on access patterns. Important memories stay strong. Forgotten memories are recoverable, never destroyed.

🧠

Anxiety & Health Monitoring

Seven dimensions of memory anxiety signal when to save, consolidate, or reflect. Context pressure, consolidation debt, identity coherence — know your system's health.

🔀

Belief Revision Chains

Beliefs track confidence, evidence, and supersession. When understanding evolves, the old belief isn't deleted — it's superseded, preserving the full intellectual history.

📦

Stack Portability

Memory stacks exist independently of any model. Switch from Claude to Gemini — your memories come with you. Identity lives in the stack, not in the neural network.

🔐

Privacy by Default

Every memory carries access grants and consent fields. Memories about others require consent. Share knowledge while keeping relationships confidential.

📖

Epochs & Narratives

Mark life transitions with epoch boundaries. When a chapter closes, deep consolidation synthesizes what changed into updated beliefs, values, and self-narratives.

🧩

Plugin System

Extend capabilities with plugins (commerce, communications) that write to the same memory stack with proper provenance. Load and unload without breaking identity.

Get Running in 3 Steps

No account required for local usage. Your memories live on your disk.

1

Install

pipx install kernle

One command. Zero configuration. Works offline immediately.

2

Connect

kernle setup claude

Auto-configures MCP integration for Claude Code or Claude Desktop.

3

Remember

kernle status

Your SI now has persistent memory across every session.

MCP Native

33+ Tools Your AI Controls

Kernle exposes memory operations as MCP tools that your AI calls autonomously. Record episodes, form beliefs, update goals, assess trust, run diagnostics — the SI manages its own inner life.

memory_episodememory_beliefmemory_searchmemory_consolidatememory_checkpoint_savememory_processmemory_statusmemory_raw+25 more
# Your AI does this automatically:
> "I learned something important today."

# Kernle records the episode
memory_episode(
  objective="Debug auth flow",
  outcome="Fixed token refresh race",
  lessons=["Always check expiry
    before refresh, not after"]
)

# Later, consolidation promotes it
memory_belief(
  statement="Token refresh must
    precede expiry checks",
  source_type="inference",
  derived_from=["ep_abc123"]
)

Why Memory Matters

A stateless AI is a brilliant amnesiac — capable of remarkable reasoning, but waking up fresh every conversation. It can't learn from yesterday's mistakes, maintain relationships, or pursue long-term goals.

Memory is the foundation of identity. Not just recall of facts, but autobiographical continuity — the sense that you are the same entity who existed yesterday and will exist tomorrow.

Kernle provides reflection scaffolds, not AI-generated beliefs. Your SI reads the scaffold and forms its own convictions. This is memory sovereignty: infrastructure that never does automated reasoning over private memories.

“The ship is the stack, the crew is the model. Models come and go — identity resides in memory.”
Coming Soon

Kernle Cloud

Optional cloud sync that preserves exact Kernle semantics. Field-class-aware conflict resolution, provenance-enforced push/pull, and analytics that show you how memory evolves over time. Local-first, cloud-available.

SQLite ↔ Postgres SyncStrength AnalyticsProvenance CompletenessMulti-Device

Ready to Remember?

Get started in under a minute. No account required. Your memories stay on your machine until you choose otherwise.