Neurostack

<a href="https://neurostack.sh"><img src="docs/logo.svg" alt="NeuroStack" height="48"></a>

Not a note-taking app. A memory layer for the notes you already have.

Your AI assistant forgets everything when the conversation ends. You ask it about the paper you summarised last week — it has no idea. You ask it to continue the chapter outline you built together — it starts from scratch.

And even when it does find your notes, it might find the wrong version. The thesis argument you reversed, the runbook endpoint you deprecated, the decision you made in April that you overturned in June. It cites these confidently. It has no idea they're wrong.

NeuroStack reads your existing Markdown notes — from Obsidian, Logseq, Notion exports, or any folder of .md files — indexes them into a searchable knowledge graph, and connects that graph to your AI. It detects when notes have gone stale before your AI cites them. Your files are never modified.

npm install -g neurostack && neurostack init

Works with Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, VS Code, and Codex — anything that supports MCP.

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Your notes, untouched

Before anything else: NeuroStack is strictly read-only.

• Your Markdown files are never modified, moved, or deleted
• All index data lives in NeuroStack's own separate database
• To remove it completely: neurostack uninstall — your notes are untouched
• In local mode: nothing ever leaves your machine
• In cloud mode: you review and approve exactly what gets sent, and can exclude any folder with a .neurostackignore file

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Who this is for

You do not need to be a developer. If you take notes in Markdown — or can export your notes as Markdown from Obsidian, Notion, Bear, or Roam — NeuroStack works for you.

| If you are... | NeuroStack helps you... | |--------------|------------------------| | A researcher | Ask your AI "what do my notes say about X?" across hundreds of papers. Get warned when a note references a retracted finding or superseded paper before your AI cites it confidently. | | A fiction writer | Your AI knows your world-building bible, character histories, and chapter decisions. "We agreed in session 4 that Elena's backstory changes in act 2" — it remembers that. | | A student | Ask your AI to explain connections across all your course notes. When a syllabus topic changes, stale revision notes are flagged automatically. | | A professional | Your AI remembers client context, project decisions, and meeting notes session-to-session. No more re-pasting the same background every time. | | A developer or DevOps engineer | Notes that reference deprecated APIs or reversed architecture decisions get flagged before your AI cites them as current. |

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Get started in three steps

You will need Node.js installed (most computers already have it). That is the only prerequisite for cloud mode — no GPU, no Python knowledge, nothing else.

Step 1 — Install

npm install -g neurostack

Step 2 — Set up (takes about two minutes)

neurostack init

The setup wizard asks: cloud or local, which vault folder, which profession pack. It does everything else automatically.

Step 3 — Connect to your AI

For Claude Desktop:

neurostack setup-desktop

For Claude Code:

claude mcp add neurostack -- neurostack serve

For Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, or VS Code:

neurostack setup-client cursor      # or: windsurf, gemini, vscode

Zero-install option — connect Claude to your vault via NeuroStack Cloud with nothing installed locally:

claude mcp add neurostack --transport http https://mcp.neurostack.sh/mcp

Done. Open a new conversation and ask your AI about something from your notes.

Free tier: 500 queries/month, 200 notes. No credit card required. Start at app.neurostack.sh

<details> <summary><strong>Cloud vs Local — what's the difference?</strong></summary>

| | Cloud (recommended) | Local | |--|--------------------|-| | What you need | Just Node.js | Node.js + Ollama (a local AI engine) | | GPU required | No | Recommended, but not required | | Setup time | About 2 minutes | 10-20 minutes | | Works offline | No | Yes | | Syncs across devices | Yes, automatically | Manual | | Cost | Free tier: 500 queries/month, 200 notes. Pro plans for more. | Free. Your hardware, your cost. | | Your files | Sent for indexing via encrypted connection, not stored after processing | Never leave your machine |

Privacy notice: Cloud mode requires explicit consent before uploading. Your vault files are sent to Google's Gemini API for indexing (embeddings, summaries, connections between notes). Files are processed via HTTPS and not retained after indexing completes. Run neurostack cloud consent to review and grant consent. Exclude sensitive files with a .neurostackignore file (gitignore syntax).

</details> <details> <summary><strong>Local mode (Lite and Full)</strong></summary>

Run everything on your machine with Ollama. Choose a tier during neurostack init:

• Lite (~130 MB) — keyword search, link-based connections between notes, stale detection, MCP server. No GPU or Ollama required.
• Full (~560 MB) — adds semantic search (finds notes by meaning, not just keywords), AI-generated summaries, connections between notes, and topic clustering via local Ollama. GPU or 6+ core CPU recommended.

Non-interactive setup:

neurostack init --mode full ~/my-notes    # local full mode
neurostack init --cloud ~/my-notes        # cloud mode

</details> <details> <summary><strong>Alternative install methods (PyPI, pip, curl)</strong></summary>

# PyPI
pipx install neurostack
pip install neurostack        # inside a venv
uv tool install neurostack

# One-line script
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raphasouthall/neurostack/main/install.sh | bash

# Lite mode (no ML deps)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raphasouthall/neurostack/main/install.sh | NEUROSTACK_MODE=lite bash

On Ubuntu 23.04+, Debian 12+, and Fedora 38+, bare pip install outside a virtual environment is blocked by the operating system. Use npm, pipx, or uv tool install instead.

To uninstall: neurostack uninstall

</details>

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What it actually feels like

The researcher. You ask Claude to help write the methodology section. Instead of starting from scratch, it already knows you've read 50 papers on complementary learning systems, that you settled on a particular framing in January, and that the meta-analysis you were relying on has been flagged as stale — it keeps appearing in searches where it no longer fits. You check it, update the note, and the AI's next answer reflects where your thinking actually is.

The writer. You ask Cursor to help with chapter eleven. It knows Elena's backstory from chapter two, the decision you made in your world-building notes to keep magic systems implicit, and that you changed her last name in a revision three weeks ago. No contradictions.

The DevOps engineer. You ask about the deployment runbook for the auth service. NeuroStack surfaces it — but also flags it as stale. You check it. The endpoint was renamed six weeks ago. You fix the note. The next time anyone asks, they get the right answer.

The student. You're revising three weeks before exams. You ask your AI what's on the syllabus for Module 4. It searches your notes — and stale detection tells you two of the topics were in last year's module structure, which you replaced when the course was restructured. You know what to revise. You don't waste time on dropped content.

The data scientist. You ask about the hyperparameters from your best experiment. NeuroStack returns the results from the rerun, not the original — because you updated that note, and the update is reflected in the index.

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What makes it different

NeuroStack is not a replacement for Obsidian, Notion, or any note-taking app. It sits on top of what you already use and adds what they don't have.

| Capability | Note apps | Basic RAG | NeuroStack | |-----------|-----------|-----------|------------| | Stores your notes | Yes | No | No (read-only layer) | | AI can search your notes | Some | Yes | Yes | | Detects stale/outdated notes | No | No | Yes | | AI memories persist across sessions | No | No | Yes | | Works with any MCP-compatible AI | No | Varies | Yes | | Tiered retrieval (saves 80-95% tokens) | No | No | Yes | | Profession-specific workflows | No | No | Yes | | Open source, self-hostable | Varies | Varies | Yes (Apache 2.0) |

Stale detection is the feature no other tool offers. When a note keeps appearing in contexts where it no longer fits — a deprecated API, a reversed decision, a superseded paper — NeuroStack flags it and demotes it in future results. Without this, your AI confidently cites information that is no longer true.

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Profession packs

When you run neurostack init, you choose a profession pack. Each one configures NeuroStack with templates, folder structures, and AI guidance suited to how your profession actually uses notes.

| Pack | Built for | |------|-----------| | researcher | Literature review, citation tracking, evolving arguments, stale paper detection | | writer | Character sheets, world-building, chapter outlines, continuity tracking | | student | Cour