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 type —
claude_desktop,claude_code,chatgpt,cursor,vscode, orgeneric. 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_memorycovers most uses; grantdelete_memoryormanage_linksonly 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.
3. (Optional) Enable semantic search
Pull the default embedding model so memory_search can do cosine-similarity retrieval:
ollama pull nomic-embed-textQuazzar 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:
401/403— Pass. The server is reachable and enforcing auth. Your bearer token just needs to make it through.200— Pass. 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
- Memory MCP — complete tool, resource, and prompt reference
- Orbit Notes — how memories appear in the Notes UI
- Molly Memory — how Molly reads and writes the same store
- Cross-node sync — Orbit Pro replication