how-it-works

Context injection works by capturing observations from project activity like Read, Edit, and Bash actions, then summarizing and injecting relevant past context into subsequent prompts to reduce repetitive explanations and codebase re-discovery.

Session memory is carried forward by automatically capturing compressed observations of every interaction and auto-injecting relevant past context into new sessions, effectively bootstrapping conversations without manual recall of prior work.

You can front-load memory across a repository using the /learn-codebase command, which pre-processes the codebase to build an initial observation set that provides immediate context for subsequent interactions.

Captured observation data remains entirely on your local machine under the ~/.claude-mem directory, with explicit uninstall cleanup safeguards that prevent data leakage and ensure no information persists after removal.

Summarized context is needed for multi-session development because subsequent sessions benefit from selective recall of prior work, eliminating the need to repeatedly explain codebase structures or re-discover previous progress.

claude-mem operates without external dependencies or cloud storage, keeping all observation data local under ~/.claude-mem and providing explicit uninstall cleanup to prevent data leakage outside your environment.