Local-first knowledge graph that watches your project files, extracts entities and relationships via LLMs, and lets you query across projects in
Cortex MCP server exists for a simple reason — assistants are far more useful when they can act on Cortex directly instead of describing what you should do. Local-first knowledge graph that watches your project files, extracts entities and relationships via LLMs, and lets you query across projects in natural language.
You work on multiple projects. Decisions, patterns, and context are scattered across hundreds of files. You forget what you decided three months ago. You re-solve problems you already solved in another repo.
Built by GZOO — an AI-powered business automation platform.
Installation goes through your MCP client rather than a global install: point it at @gzoo/cortex on npm and it is fetched when the client starts. The copy-paste blocks for Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor are further down this page.
You will need 3 environment variables: CORTEX_SERVER_AUTH_TOKEN, OPENAI_API_KEY, CORTEX_TOKEN. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
hybrid, local-first, or local-only modes (install)Among the knowledge and memory options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. It is maintained by gzoonet; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.
{
"mcpServers": {
"cortex": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@gzoo/cortex"],
"env": {
"CORTEX_SERVER_AUTH_TOKEN": "your-value",
"OPENAI_API_KEY": "your-value",
"CORTEX_TOKEN": "your-value"
}
}
}
}Add to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop.
hybrid, local-first, or local-only modes (install)| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| CORTEX_SERVER_AUTH_TOKEN | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| OPENAI_API_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| CORTEX_TOKEN | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
A knowledge graph your assistant keeps between sessions — entities, relations and observations that persist.
Kill hallucinated APIs — version-accurate, up-to-date library documentation injected straight into context.
Your workspace, on speaking terms with AI — search, read and write Notion pages and databases.
A structured scratchpad for hard problems — stepwise reasoning with revisions, branches and visible logic.
Symbol-level code navigation, refactoring and memory for coding agents — the IDE brain your assistant has been missing.
Chat with your second brain — search, read and write vault notes through the Local REST API.