Memory Providers

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Quick Start

mibyan memory setup      # interactive picker + configuration
mibyan memory status     # check what's active
mibyan memory off        # disable external provider

memory:
  provider: openviking   # or honcho, mem0, holographic, retaindb, byterover, supermemory,
                         # or hindsight (plugin catalog — run `mibyan plugins install hindsight` first)

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How It Works

1. Injects provider context into the system prompt (what the provider knows)
2. Prefetches relevant memories before each turn (background, non-blocking)
3. Syncs conversation turns to the provider after each response
4. Extracts memories on session end (for providers that support it)
5. Mirrors built-in memory writes to the external provider
6. Adds provider-specific tools so the agent can search, store, and manage memories

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Available Providers

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Honcho

• contextCadence — how often the base layer refreshes (API call frequency)
• dialecticCadence — how often the dialectic LLM fires (LLM call frequency)
• dialecticDepth — how many .chat() passes per dialectic invocation (1–3, depth of reasoning)

mibyan memory setup        # select "honcho" — runs the Honcho-specific post-setup

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New profile, fresh Honcho peer

mibyan profile create coder --clone

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Existing profiles, backfill Honcho peers

mibyan honcho sync

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Per-profile observation

"mibyan.coder": {
  "aiPeer": "coder",
  "observation": {
    "user": { "observeMe": true, "observeOthers": true },
    "ai":   { "observeMe": false, "observeOthers": true }
  }
}

• "directional" (default) — all four flags on. Full mutual observation; enables cross-peer dialectic.
• "unified" — user observeMe: true, AI observeOthers: true, rest false. Single-observer pool; AI models the user but not itself, user peer only self-models.

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Gateway identity mapping

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OpenViking

# Prepare OpenViking first
openviking-server init
openviking-server doctor
openviking-server

# Then configure Mibyan
mibyan memory setup    # select "openviking"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider openviking

OPENVIKING_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:1933
# OPENVIKING_API_KEY=...
# OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT=default
# OPENVIKING_USER=default

• Tiered context loading: L0 (~100 tokens) → L1 (~2k) → L2 (full)
• Automatic memory extraction on session commit (profile, preferences, entities, events, cases, patterns)
• viking:// URI scheme for hierarchical knowledge browsing

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Mem0

mibyan memory setup    # select "mem0" → "Platform"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider mem0
echo "MEM0_API_KEY=your-key" >> ~/.mibyan/.env

mibyan memory setup    # select "mem0" → "Open Source (self-hosted)"
# Or via flags:
mibyan memory setup mem0 --mode oss --oss-llm openai --oss-llm-key sk-... --oss-vector qdrant

mibyan memory setup mem0 --mode oss --oss-llm-key sk-... --dry-run

mibyan memory setup    # select "mem0" → "Self-hosted server"
# Or via flags:
mibyan memory setup mem0 --mode selfhosted --host http://localhost:8888 --api-key your-admin-api-key

echo "MEM0_HOST=http://localhost:8888" >> ~/.mibyan/.env
echo "MEM0_API_KEY=your-admin-api-key" >> ~/.mibyan/.env

{ "host": "http://localhost:8888", "api_key": "your-admin-api-key" }

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Hindsight

mibyan plugins install hindsight   # from the plugin catalog
mibyan memory setup                # select "hindsight"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider hindsight
echo "HINDSIGHT_API_KEY=your-key" >> ~/.mibyan/.env

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Migrating from bundled Hindsight

• mibyan update installs the catalog plugin into every profile home that names the provider (this runs even when security.allow_lazy_installs is false).
• If the plugin is still missing on the first agent start (mibyan chat, the gateway, …), Mibyan installs it and prints ✓ Memory provider 'hindsight' moved out of core — installed its plugin from the catalog (your memory.hindsight settings and data are unchanged).
• With security.allow_lazy_installs: false, the agent-start path instead logs one line — Memory provider 'hindsight' is not installed; security.allow_lazy_installs is off — run `mibyan plugins install hindsight`. — and you run mibyan plugins install hindsight yourself.

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Holographic

mibyan memory setup    # select "holographic"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider holographic

• probe — entity-specific algebraic recall (all facts about a person/thing)
• reason — compositional AND queries across multiple entities
• contradict — automated detection of conflicting facts
• Trust scoring with asymmetric feedback (+0.05 helpful / -0.10 unhelpful)

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RetainDB

mibyan memory setup    # select "retaindb"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider retaindb
echo "RETAINDB_API_KEY=your-key" >> ~/.mibyan/.env

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ByteRover

# Install the CLI first
curl -fsSL https://byterover.dev/install.sh | sh

# Then configure Mibyan
mibyan memory setup    # select "byterover"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider byterover

• Automatic pre-compression extraction (saves insights before context compression discards them)
• Knowledge tree stored at $mibyan_HOME/byterover/ (profile-scoped)
• SOC2 Type II certified cloud sync (optional)

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Supermemory

mibyan memory setup    # select "supermemory"
# Or manually:
mibyan config set memory.provider supermemory
echo 'SUPERMEMORY_API_KEY=***' >> ~/.mibyan/.env

npx supermemory local

{
  "base_url": "http://localhost:6767"
}

• Automatic context fencing — strips recalled memories from captured turns to prevent recursive memory pollution
• Per-turn capture — each completed turn is written as it happens, one document per session per 4-hour window
• Failed turn writes are retried (at-least-once) on the next turn, session end, /reset, or shutdown
• End-to-end self-hosted routing — SDK and probe requests use the same configured endpoint
• Profile facts injected on first turn and at configurable intervals
• Profile-scoped containers — use {identity} in container_tag (e.g. mibyan-{identity} → mibyan-coder) to isolate memories per Mibyan profile
• Multi-container mode — enable enable_custom_container_tags with a custom_containers list to let the agent read/write across named containers. Automatic operations stay on the primary container.

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Memori

# Run only after confirming the external installer's integration contract above.
mibyan-memori install
mibyan config set memory.provider memori
mibyan memory setup

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Provider Comparison

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Profile Isolation

• Local storage providers (Holographic, ByteRover) use $mibyan_HOME/ paths which differ per profile
• Config file providers (Honcho, Mem0, Hindsight, Supermemory) store config in $mibyan_HOME/ so each profile has its own credentials
• Cloud providers (RetainDB) auto-derive profile-scoped project names
• Env var providers (OpenViking) are configured via each profile’s .env file

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Providers Moving to the Plugin Catalog

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Building a Memory Provider