vestige

Local-first Rust MCP memory. Causal Backfill answers "what caused this?" (shared entities as join key; similarity excluded from ranking). Use for recall, smart_ingest, and backward-only Backfill — not as OpenClaw default memory.

Vestige Memory Skill

Community skill wrapper around the official vestige-mcp binary.

Vestige is local-first Rust MCP memory. Most memory systems answer "what is like this?" Vestige answers "what caused this?" via backward-only causal Backfill: shared entities are the join key, and similarity is excluded from ranking.

Proof: no LLM in the memory path, exact FSRS-6 decay, local-first. Proven on local / synthetic traces. Not a production claim.

This skill is not OpenClaw default memory and not a plugins.slots.memory plugin. OpenClaw default is memory-core. Do not set plugins.slots.memory to vestige until a real OpenClaw plugin exists.

OpenClaw still has its own files and memory-core. Vestige does not replace them.

Install

Official path is npm. Then resolve the absolute binary path — GUIs do not inherit shell PATH and do not expand ~.

bash

npm install -g vestige-mcp-server@2.8.0
which vestige-mcp          # macOS / Linux
where vestige-mcp          # Windows

Paste that path into OpenClaw MCP JSON:

json

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "vestige": {
        "command": "<absolute path from which vestige-mcp>",
        "args": []
      }
    }
  }
}

Per-project store (absolute directory only). There is no --project flag — unknown args exit 1:

json

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "vestige": {
        "command": "<absolute path from which vestige-mcp>",
        "args": ["--data-dir", "<absolute dir>"]
      }
    }
  }
}

macOS and Linux are fine with the npm package. 2.8.0 is in on Ubuntu 22.04 / Debian 12 (glibc 2.35). Do not upgrade system glibc. Intel Mac still needs ORT_DYLIB_PATH in the MCP env block. Local/synthetic only.

Helper vmem ships with this listing. It resolves vestige-mcp with command -v.

Advertised tools

Prefer recall. search is a hidden v2.2 alias of recall.

Tool	Arguments	Use
recall	query (mode lookup default)	Retrieve
smart_ingest	content	Store
backfill	failure_id, manual, lookback_days, promote, scan_limit	Start from a later failure / symptom; ranked trail of earlier operational records

Backfill args are the live schema from crates/vestige-mcp/src/tools/backfill.rs. Omit failure_id to use the most recent failure-like memory. manual=true forces a run. promote=false is a dry run.

Do not treat search / ingest / memory / codebase / intention / promote_memory / demote_memory as the advertised surface.

When to use

• Causal trail after a later failure ("what caused this?")
• Durable facts worth storing (smart_ingest)
• Session recall (recall with query)
• User preferences, bug fixes, project decisions

Never save API keys, passwords, or secrets.

Trigger words

User says	Action
"Remember this" / "Don't forget"	smart_ingest
"I always..." / "I never..." / "I prefer..."	smart_ingest as a preference
"What caused this?" / "Why did this break?"	backfill

Session start

bash

vmem recall "user preferences"
vmem recall "current project context"

Helper

bash

vmem recall "user preferences"     # search is an alias
vmem save "User prefers dark mode" # smart_ingest
vmem backfill                      # latest failure-like memory
vmem backfill <failure_id>
vmem stats                         # if vestige CLI is on PATH
vmem health                        # if vestige CLI is on PATH

Data location

Default OS data dir (override with --data-dir):

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/com.vestige.core/
• Linux: ~/.local/share/vestige/core/
• Windows: %APPDATA%\vestige\core\

Credits

• Official server: Vestige by @samvallad33
• Skill wrapper by @Belkouche