Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop supports MCP natively. Once configured, Claude can create, search, and manage memories without any additional setup.

Prerequisites

• Claude Desktop installed
• A MemNexus API key (get started free)
• Node.js 18+ installed

Setup

1. Install the CLI and log in

npm install -g @memnexus-ai/cli
mx auth login

mx auth login stores your API key in ~/.memnexus/config.json, so it never appears in your Claude Desktop config file.

2. Configure Claude Desktop

mx setup claude-desktop

This writes the MemNexus MCP server entry into Claude Desktop's config file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

The entry launches the MCP bridge with mx mcp serve, which forwards requests to the hosted MemNexus MCP server using your stored key. For reference, the entry it writes looks like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "memnexus": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "mx",
      "args": ["mcp", "serve", "--inject-rules"]
    }
  }
}

--inject-rules delivers MemNexus steering rules to Claude Desktop through the MCP handshake, since Claude Desktop has no project rules file.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Close and reopen Claude Desktop. The MemNexus tools should now appear in the tools menu.

3. Verify

Ask Claude:

"Search my memories for recent notes"

If configured correctly, Claude will use the search_memories tool and show results (or confirm no memories exist yet).

Custom instructions

Add these to Claude Desktop's custom instructions for the best experience:

You have access to MemNexus, a persistent memory system. Use it proactively:

SAVING: When I share preferences, decisions, or important project context,
save it using create_memory with relevant topics.

SEARCHING: Before answering questions about my projects or past conversations,
search memory first. Search by meaning — "deployment preferences" finds
memories about CI/CD and hosting.

TOPICS: Use consistent topics for categorization:
- Project names (lowercase, hyphenated)
- Types: preferences, decisions, architecture, debugging, context
- Status: completed, in-progress, blocked, needs-review

Available tools

Once connected, Claude has access to 12 MemNexus tools. The most commonly used:

Tool	What Claude uses it for
create_memory	Saving important context from conversations
search_memories	Finding relevant past information
recall	Synthesizing a topic across many past memories
conversations	Reconstructing a past work session as a timeline
knowledge_graph	Exploring facts, topics, and entities across your knowledge

See MCP Integration for the full tool reference.

Tips

• Be explicit initially — Tell Claude "remember this" or "search your memory" until it learns your patterns
• Use topics — Mention project names and categories so memories are easy to find later
• Cross-platform — Memories created in Claude Desktop are searchable from Claude Code, Cursor, or any other MCP client

Troubleshooting

Tools not appearing

1. Re-run mx setup claude-desktop and confirm it reported success
2. Ensure mx is available in your PATH (mx --version)
3. Check the bridge logs: mx mcp logs
4. Restart Claude Desktop completely (not just the conversation)

Authentication errors

1. Verify your API key format: cmk_live_<id>.<secret>
2. Re-run mx auth login and confirm with mx auth status
3. Run mx mcp doctor for a full bridge and config health check

Next steps

• Claude Code — Set up memory in Claude Code
• Prompt Library — Optimize Claude's memory usage
• MCP Integration — Full MCP tool reference