Exocortex

Foundation-shaped memory kernel for the Misty Step agent fleet: one binary that gives every agent a uniform read/write/search interface over registered knowledge corpora.

Status: v0.2 on master. Built in Go with sole-publisher isolation, fail-closed reads, compare-and-swap concurrency, hybrid semantic retrieval, and executive orientation briefs (brief). The CLI and bundled skill (skill://exocortex) is the universal fleet baseline.

Model

• Cortex — a writable markdown+git corpus registered with the kernel. Daybook is the first. Full read/write/search/lint/lineage over plain files humans can still read and diff.
• Feed — an adapter that ingests a foreign source (Notion, Google Drive, harness session logs) into a cortex as compiled, provenance-stamped notes with source: lineage. Raw sources stay where they are.

Surface

exocortex register daybook ~/Development/misty-step/daybook
exocortex brief "<topic>"                               # executive orientation briefing
exocortex search "<query>" [--mode hybrid|bm25|vector] [--type decision|memo|session] # omitted mode is hybrid; pass bm25 for deterministic
exocortex get <path>                                    # read from committed Git HEAD snapshot
exocortex note "<thought>"                              # atomic memo capture (~2s)
exocortex put <path> --from draft.md                    # create-only (fails if path exists)
exocortex put <path> --from draft.md --expects <sha>    # update: stored-revision hash REQUIRED
exocortex log <path>                                   # git lineage
exocortex lint [<path>]                                # frontmatter floor gate
exocortex sync [--cortex <name>]                       # refresh QMD index and embeddings
exocortex status [--cortex <name>]                     # dirty markers, last sync, last error

Develop

Clone-to-green:

./scripts/check.sh

That is the owned gate: gofmt, go vet, golangci-lint fuse (cyclop ≤ 15, staticcheck, production errcheck, gocognit < 16, nestif < 5), gitleaks, govulncheck, module token budgets, go test -race, and a CLI smoke (register → put → get → lint on a temp cortex). scripts/lint-report.sh prints remaining gocognit/nestif bands plus funlen, maintidx, and dupl without failing. Go 1.26.6 is required (go.mod); 1.26.5 stdlib is govulncheck-red.

Install the binary so go version -m names this module:

go install -trimpath ./cmd/exocortex

The user timer runs ~/.local/bin/exocortex. Rebuild after merge. Roll back by installing the previous commit the same way.

./scripts/install-hooks.sh   # core.hooksPath=.githooks

Docs

• SPEC.md — full design: decisions, contracts, delivery plan
• VISION.md — why this exists
• ADR-0001 — accepted kernel decision
• skills/exocortex/SKILL.md — bundled agent skill (source; scripts/install-skill.sh writes omp-config; omp-config ./install deploys live)

Clone-to-green: go test ./.... Generate the omp-config copy with scripts/install-skill.sh <omp-config>/skills/exocortex. Deploy live with omp-config ./install. Drift fails skills/exocortex/check-source.sh in omp-config.

Provenance

This repo previously hosted an earlier, unrelated "evidence core" concept (citable context packets, 2026-07). On 2026-08-21 the operator repurposed the repository for the memory kernel. The prior tree remains recoverable from git history; LICENSE was retained.