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DocsCloud OSMemory MCP Quickstart

Memory MCP Quickstart

One page. Five steps. Five minutes.

This is the happy-path walkthrough. For the full surface — tools, resources, prompts, analytics, cross-node sync, troubleshooting — see Memory MCP.

1. Generate an API key

Open Settings -> MCP & Memory -> New key.

Pick:

  • Name — something you will recognise later (e.g. “Claude on my laptop”).
  • Client typeclaude_desktop, claude_code, chatgpt, cursor, vscode, or generic. Drives the auto-tag stamped on every memory written through this key.
  • Namespace — logical bucket (default, work, personal, …). Keeps Claude’s memories separate from Molly’s.
  • Scopes — tick only the operations the client actually needs. read_memory + write_memory covers most uses; grant delete_memory or manage_links only if your client asks for them.
  • Expiry — Never, 30 days, 90 days, or 1 year.

Click Generate key. A one-time banner shows the raw quaz_... bearer. Copy it now — it is shown once. If you lose it, click Rotate on the same key to mint a new one (the old bearer is revoked in place; name / scopes / namespace / expiry carry over).

2. Configure your client

In the Connect a client card, pick the tab for your tool and hit Copy. Paste the snippet into the file path it shows, replacing <KEY> with the bearer from step 1.

Claude Desktop

File: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS), %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Windows).

{ "mcpServers": { "quazzar-memory": { "url": "https://your.host/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <KEY>" } } } }

Restart Claude Desktop. The twelve memory tools appear on the next conversation.

Claude Code (CLI)

claude mcp add --transport http quazzar-memory https://your.host/mcp \ --header "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>"

New Claude Code sessions discover the server automatically.

ChatGPT / OpenAI MCP bridge

File: ~/.openai/mcp-config.json.

{ "mcpServers": { "quazzar-memory": { "url": "https://your.host/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <KEY>" } } } }

ChatGPT talks MCP through third-party bridges (mcp-bridge, mcp-proxy, …). Point the bridge at the URL with the same bearer.

Cursor

File: ~/.cursor/mcp.json.

{ "mcpServers": { "quazzar-memory": { "url": "https://your.host/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <KEY>" } } } }

Restart Cursor.

VS Code / Copilot

File: workspace or user settings.json.

{ "mcp.servers": { "quazzar-memory": { "url": "https://your.host/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <KEY>" } } } }

curl (sanity check)

curl -i https://your.host/mcp \ -H "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>"

A 200 or 401 with a JSON body means the server is live and reachable.

Pull the default embedding model so memory_search can do cosine-similarity retrieval:

ollama pull nomic-embed-text

Quazzar auto-detects http://127.0.0.1:11434 at boot. Override with the OLLAMA_HOST env var in /etc/quazzar/quazzar.env. Hit Reindex in the Embedding status card if you want to backfill existing notes.

Lexical search still works without embeddings — the hybrid ranker degrades cleanly.

4. Test the connection

Click Test connection in the Settings page. The UI sends a same-origin GET /mcp and reports the outcome:

  • 401 / 403Pass. The server is reachable and enforcing auth. Your bearer token just needs to make it through.
  • 200Pass. Rare (most MCP endpoints require auth) but fine.
  • Anything else — Fail. See the Memory MCP troubleshooting section.
  • Network error — Fail. Check that Quazzar is running and you reach the right host.

5. First memory

Restart your client so it discovers the new MCP server. Then ask it:

Create a memory titled “Quickstart test” with body “memory works”.

Then:

Search memory for “quickstart”.

If the AI returns the memory you just created, you are done. The new row is also visible in the Quazzar UI under Orbit -> Notes, filtered by source:mcp — you should see it immediately in the mind-map graph view as an amber hexagon (Orbit Pro required for the graph view; the note also appears in the list view on every plan).

What to do next