* feat: add /code-review skill for automated code quality checks Adds a Claude Code skill that reviews changes against project standards: missing tests, dead code, type safety, lint, and CLAUDE.md conventions. CLAUDE.md now instructs contributors to run /code-review after implementation. * refactor: move code standards from CLAUDE.md into /code-review skill Single source of truth for coding conventions (Python style, type safety, TypeScript style) is now .claude/skills/code-review.md. CLAUDE.md points to the skill for reading before coding and running after implementation. * feat: add code comments convention to /code-review skill Require comments explaining non-trivial technical decisions, with history of previous approaches. Review step checks for missing reasoning comments, stale comments, and undocumented approach changes. * fix: move skill to directory structure for Claude Code discovery Claude Code requires .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md, not loose .md files. * feat: add branch hygiene checks to /code-review skill Review step 1 now verifies branch is based on recent origin/main and all commits are relevant to the feature. Unrelated commits flagged as must-fix.
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CLAUDE.md
This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.
Project Overview
Hindsight is an agent memory system that provides long-term memory for AI agents using biomimetic data structures. Memories are organized as:
- World facts: General knowledge ("The sky is blue")
- Experience facts: Personal experiences ("I visited Paris in 2023")
- Mental models: Consolidated knowledge synthesized from facts ("User prefers functional programming patterns")
Development Commands
API Server (Python/FastAPI)
# Start API server (loads .env automatically)
./scripts/dev/start-api.sh
# Run all tests (parallelized with pytest-xdist)
cd hindsight-api-slim && uv run pytest tests/
# Run specific test file
cd hindsight-api-slim && uv run pytest tests/test_http_api_integration.py -v
# Run single test function
cd hindsight-api-slim && uv run pytest tests/test_retain.py::test_retain_simple -v
# Lint and format
cd hindsight-api-slim && uv run ruff check .
cd hindsight-api-slim && uv run ruff format .
# Type checking (uses ty - extremely fast type checker from Astral)
cd hindsight-api-slim && uv run ty check hindsight_api/
Control Plane (Next.js)
./scripts/dev/start-control-plane.sh
# Or manually:
cd hindsight-control-plane && npm run dev
Documentation Site (Docusaurus)
./scripts/dev/start-docs.sh
Generating Clients/OpenAPI
# Regenerate OpenAPI spec after API changes (REQUIRED after changing endpoints)
./scripts/generate-openapi.sh
# Regenerate all client SDKs (Python, TypeScript, Rust)
./scripts/generate-clients.sh
Benchmarks
# Accuracy benchmarks
./scripts/benchmarks/run-longmemeval.sh
./scripts/benchmarks/run-locomo.sh
# Performance benchmarks
./scripts/benchmarks/run-consolidation.sh
./scripts/benchmarks/run-retain-perf.sh --document <path> # Requires API server running
# Results viewer
./scripts/benchmarks/start-visualizer.sh # View results at localhost:8001
Architecture
Monorepo Structure
- hindsight-api-slim/: Core FastAPI server with memory engine (Python, uv)
- hindsight/: Embedded Python bundle (hindsight-all package)
- hindsight-control-plane/: Admin UI (Next.js, npm)
- hindsight-cli/: CLI tool (Rust, cargo, uses progenitor for API client)
- hindsight-clients/: Generated SDK clients (Python, TypeScript, Rust)
- hindsight-docs/: Docusaurus documentation site
- hindsight-integrations/: Framework integrations (LiteLLM, OpenAI)
- hindsight-dev/: Development tools and benchmarks
Core Engine (hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/engine/)
memory_engine.py: Main orchestrator (~170KB) for retain/recall/reflect operationsllm_wrapper.py: LLM abstraction supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, MiniMax, Ollama, LM Studioembeddings.py: Embedding generation (local sentence-transformers or TEI)cross_encoder.py: Reranking (local or TEI)entity_resolver.py: Entity extraction and normalizationquery_analyzer.py: Query intent analysis
retain/: Memory ingestion pipeline
orchestrator.py: Coordinates the retain flowfact_extraction.py: LLM-based fact extraction from contentlink_utils.py: Entity link creation and management
search/: Multi-strategy retrieval
retrieval.py: Main retrieval orchestratorgraph_retrieval.py: Entity/relationship graph traversalmpfp_retrieval.py: Multi-Path Fact Propagation retrievalfusion.py: Reciprocal rank fusion for combining resultsreranking.py: Cross-encoder reranking
API Layer (hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/api/)
http.py: FastAPI HTTP routers (~80KB) for all REST endpointsmcp.py: Model Context Protocol server implementation
Main operations:
- Retain: Store memories, extracts facts/entities/relationships
- Recall: Retrieve memories via 4 parallel strategies (semantic, BM25, graph, temporal) + reranking
- Reflect: Disposition-aware reasoning using memories and mental models.
Database
PostgreSQL with pgvector. Schema managed via Alembic migrations in hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/alembic/. Migrations run automatically on API startup.
Key tables: banks, memory_units, documents, entities, entity_links
Adding Database Migrations
-
Create a new migration file in
hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/alembic/versions/:- File name format:
<revision_id>_<description>.py(e.g.,f1a2b3c4d5e6_add_new_index.py) - Use a unique hex revision ID (12 chars)
- Set
down_revisionto the previous migration's revision ID
- File name format:
-
Migration template:
"""Description of the migration Revision ID: f1a2b3c4d5e6 Revises: <previous_revision_id> Create Date: YYYY-MM-DD """ from collections.abc import Sequence from alembic import context, op revision: str = "f1a2b3c4d5e6" down_revision: str | Sequence[str] | None = "<previous_revision_id>" branch_labels: str | Sequence[str] | None = None depends_on: str | Sequence[str] | None = None def _get_schema_prefix() -> str: """Get schema prefix for table names (required for multi-tenant support).""" schema = context.config.get_main_option("target_schema") return f'"{schema}".' if schema else "" def upgrade() -> None: schema = _get_schema_prefix() op.execute(f"CREATE INDEX ... ON {schema}table_name(...)") def downgrade() -> None: schema = _get_schema_prefix() op.execute(f"DROP INDEX IF EXISTS {schema}index_name") -
Run migrations locally:
# Set database URL and run migrations for the base schema plus all tenants uv run hindsight-admin run-db-migration # Run on a specific tenant schema uv run hindsight-admin run-db-migration --schema tenant_xyz
Key Conventions
Code Quality
Before writing code, read .claude/skills/code-review/SKILL.md for the full coding standards (Python style, type safety, TypeScript style, general principles).
Always run the lint script after making Python or TypeScript/Node changes:
./scripts/hooks/lint.sh
After completing any implementation work, run /code-review to verify your changes against project standards (missing tests, dead code, type safety, etc.). Fix any "must fix" issues before considering the task done.
Memory Banks
- Each bank is an isolated memory store (like a "brain" for one user/agent)
- Banks have dispositions (skepticism, literalism, empathy traits 1-5) affecting reflect
- Banks can have background context
- Bank isolation is strict - no cross-bank data leakage
API Design
- All endpoints operate on a single bank per request
- Multi-bank queries are client responsibility to orchestrate
- Disposition traits only affect reflect, not recall
Control Plane API Routes
When adding or modifying parameters in the dataplane API (hindsight-api), you must also update the control plane routes that proxy to it:
-
API Routes (
hindsight-control-plane/src/app/api/):recall/route.ts- proxies to/v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/memories/recallreflect/route.ts- proxies to/v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/reflectmemories/retain/route.ts- proxies to/v1/default/banks/{bank_id}/memories/retain- Other routes follow the same pattern
-
Client types (
hindsight-control-plane/src/lib/api.ts):- Update the TypeScript type definitions for
recall(),reflect(),retain()etc.
- Update the TypeScript type definitions for
-
Checklist when adding new API parameters:
- Add parameter extraction in the route handler (destructure from
body) - Pass the parameter to the SDK call
- Update the client type definition in
lib/api.ts - Update any UI components that need to use the new parameter
- Add parameter extraction in the route handler (destructure from
Adding New API Configuration Flags
Configuration follows a hierarchical system: Global (env vars) → Tenant (via extension) → Bank (database).
Fields must be categorized as either hierarchical (can be overridden per-tenant/bank) or static (server-level only).
Adding a New Configuration Field
-
config.py (
hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/config.py):- Add
ENV_*constant for the environment variable name (e.g.,ENV_MY_SETTING = "HINDSIGHT_API_MY_SETTING") - Add
DEFAULT_*constant for the default value - Add field to
HindsightConfigdataclass with type annotation - Mark as hierarchical or static by adding to
_HIERARCHICAL_FIELDSset (hierarchical) or leaving it out (static) - Add initialization in
from_env()method
# Hierarchical field (can be overridden per-bank) _HIERARCHICAL_FIELDS = { ..., "my_setting", # Add here for hierarchical } # Static field - just don't add to _HIERARCHICAL_FIELDS - Add
-
main.py (
hindsight-api-slim/hindsight_api/main.py):- Add field to the manual
HindsightConfig()constructor call (search for "CLI override")
- Add field to the manual
-
Use hierarchical config in MemoryEngine:
# Config is resolved automatically per bank via ConfigResolver config_dict = await self._config_resolver.get_bank_config(bank_id, context) value = config_dict["my_setting"] -
Use static config (non-hierarchical):
from ...config import get_config config = get_config() value = config.my_static_field -
Documentation (
hindsight-docs/docs/developer/configuration.md):- Add to appropriate section table with Variable, Description, Default
- Mark if it's hierarchical (can be overridden per-bank)
Hierarchical vs Static Guidelines
Hierarchical (per-bank overridable):
- LLM settings (provider, model, API key, base URL)
- Operation-specific settings (retain mode, chunk size, etc.)
- Feature flags that vary by customer/bank
Static (server-level only):
- Infrastructure settings (database URL, port, host)
- Global limits (max concurrent operations)
- System-wide feature flags
Environment Setup
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with LLM API key
# Python deps
uv sync --directory hindsight-api-slim/
# Node deps (uses npm workspaces)
npm install
Required env vars:
HINDSIGHT_API_LLM_PROVIDER: openai, anthropic, gemini, groq, minimax, ollama, lmstudioHINDSIGHT_API_LLM_API_KEY: Your API keyHINDSIGHT_API_LLM_MODEL: Model name (e.g., gpt-4o-mini, claude-sonnet-4-20250514)
Optional (uses local models by default):
HINDSIGHT_API_EMBEDDINGS_PROVIDER: local (default) or teiHINDSIGHT_API_RERANKER_PROVIDER: local (default) or teiHINDSIGHT_API_DATABASE_URL: External PostgreSQL (uses embedded pg0 by default)HINDSIGHT_API_ENABLE_BANK_CONFIG_API: Enable per-bank config API (default: true)