Cognetivy

Website: cognetivy.com

Cognetivy is an open-source state layer for AI-assistants like Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, etc. It helps you define workflows, track runs and events, and store structured collections in a local .cognetivy/ workspace. No LLMs inside - just the data and tools your editor's agent uses via Skills and MCP. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, and other Skills and MCP-compatible clients.

Star History

Why Cognetivy

AI coding agents are great at producing output, but their process is usually hard to inspect and hard to repeat.

Cognetivy gives your agent an operational layer so you can:

• Define how it should work with explicit workflows
• Track what happened in each run and event
• Keep reasoning artifacts organized in structured collections
• Re-run and compare outcomes with a persistent local workspace

In short: Cognetivy turns powerful-but-chaotic agent sessions into structured, auditable workflows.

Demo

Explain it like I'm new to this

Think of your coding agent as a very smart intern:

• The model is the brain
• Your editor is the workspace
• Cognetivy is the memory + process manager

Without Cognetivy, a lot of important context lives in chat history and disappears. With Cognetivy, that work is captured as workflows, runs, events, and collections inside .cognetivy/.

Project status: Actively maintained. We welcome issues and pull requests.

Great for:

• Building repeatable AI coding workflows
• Running structured research tasks with coding agents
• Teams that need traceability and auditability for agent output

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 18
• A project directory (or an empty folder) to create a workspace in
• A coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, etc.) working on that directory

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Install

Run once with npx (no global install):

npx cognetivy

Or install globally for use from any directory and for MCP:

npm install -g cognetivy

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Step-by-step

Step 1 - Run cognetivy

Open a terminal in your project folder (or an empty folder) and run:

npx cognetivy

An installer will open in the terminal:

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Step 2 - Use the installer

1. In the installer, choose your coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, etc.)
2. Cognetivy will create a .cognetivy/ workspace in the current folder.
3. Cognetivy will install its skills into the workspace.

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Step 3 - Studio opens

When the installer finishes, Cognetivy Studio opens in your browser.

You'll see the read-only UI: workflow, runs, and collections.

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Step 4 - Ask your agent to create a workflow and run it

In another chat window, ask your agent to create a workflow and run it.

• "Create a workflow with three nodes: one that gathers requirements, one that writes a plan, and one that writes a summary. Save it as the current workflow."
• "Start a run for the current workflow with input with the topic 'user onboarding'."

Connect your agent (MCP)

Cognetivy works best with agent skills, but you can connect via MCP so cognetivy tools appear in chat.

Cursor

1. Open Settings → Tools & MCP (or Features → MCP).
2. Click Add new MCP server.
3. Set Name to cognetivy.
4. Set Command to cognetivy (or the full path if not on PATH).
5. Set Arguments to mcp. If your project root is not the folder that contains .cognetivy/, add --workspace and the path to that folder (e.g. --workspace ./example-usage).
6. Save and restart Cursor.

Cognetivy tools (workflow, run, event, collection, node, etc.) will then be available in chat.

Optional - config file: You can instead add the server to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or your project’s .cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cognetivy": {
      "command": "cognetivy",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Use "args": ["mcp", "--workspace", "/path/to/folder/with/.cognetivy"] if the workspace is not your current project root.

Workflow templates (new)

Use built-in templates inspired by practical Cognetivy use-cases:

cognetivy workflow templates
cognetivy workflow apply-template            # interactive picker (creates workflow + sets current)
cognetivy workflow apply-template --id bug-triage-and-fix
cognetivy workflow template --id bug-triage-and-fix > workflow.template.json
cognetivy workflow set --workflow <your_workflow_id> --file workflow.template.json --name "template baseline"

See full gallery and usage in docs/TEMPLATES.md.

Commands

Command	Description
npx cognetivy	Run installer and open Studio (first time) or open Studio
cognetivy workflow get	Print current workflow
cognetivy run start --input <file>	Start a run
cognetivy studio	Open Studio in the browser
cognetivy mcp	Start MCP server (for your editor)
cognetivy install cursor	Install skills into Cursor (claude, agents, gemini, qwen, factory, opencode, openclaw, workspace also supported)

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Community

• Contributing - how to run the project, run tests, and submit changes
• Code of Conduct
• Report a bug · Request a feature

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License

MIT