Basic Memory v0.13.0 is a major release that transforms Basic Memory into a true multi-project knowledge management system. This release introduces fluid project switching, advanced note editing capabilities, and robust file management - all while maintaining full backward compatibility.

🎯 Multi-Project Management

Switch between different knowledge bases instantly during conversations:

Project Switching in Action

You: "What projects do I have?"

Claude: Available projects:
• main (current, default) - 127 entities, 340 observations
• work-notes - 89 entities, 245 observations  
• creative-writing - 34 entities, 156 observations
• research-papers - 67 entities, 189 observations

You: "Switch to creative-writing"

Claude: ✓ Switched to creative-writing project

Project Summary:
• 34 entities (characters, plots, themes)
• 156 observations  
• 23 relations
• Last updated: 2 hours ago

You: "What have I been working on in this project?"

Claude: [Shows recent activity from creative-writing project only]
Recent updates to your novel planning:
- Updated character development for Sarah Chen
- Added new plot twist in Chapter 12
- Research notes on neural implant technology

Real-World Project Organization

Professional Developer Setup:

You: "Create a new project for the client work"

Claude: [Creates new project structure]
✓ Created project: client-webapp
Location: ~/knowledge/client-webapp/
Folders: architecture/, decisions/, api/, frontend/, deployment/

You: "Switch to client-webapp and document today's architecture meeting"

Claude: [Switches context and creates meeting notes with relevant technical context]

Personal Knowledge Management:

You: "Switch to my personal project and add today's reflections"

Claude: [Switches to personal knowledge base]
✓ Now in personal project
I can see your previous reflections, goal tracking, and habit notes.
What insights would you like to add from today?

✏️ Advanced Note Editing

Edit notes incrementally without rewriting entire documents:

Append Operations

Adding to existing meeting notes:

You: "Add today's action items to our project meeting notes"

Claude: [Uses edit_note with append operation]
✓ Added to "Weekly Project Meeting Notes":

## Action Items - January 15, 2025
- [ ] Sarah: Update API documentation by Friday
- [ ] Mike: Review security implementation 
- [ ] Team: Prepare demo for client meeting next week
- [ ] Jenny: Coordinate user testing sessions

[Content appended to existing note without affecting previous sections]

Building research over time:

You: "Add the new study findings to my climate research note"

Claude: [Appends new research section]
✓ Added to "Climate Change Solutions Research":

## Recent Studies - January 2025
- [study] MIT carbon capture efficiency improved 40% #breakthrough
- [finding] Solar panel costs dropped 15% year-over-year #economics
- [policy] EU carbon tax showing measurable emissions reduction #policy-impact

Relations automatically updated to connect with existing energy and policy notes.

Prepend Operations

Adding timestamps to journals:

You: "Add today's entry to my learning journal"

Claude: [Uses prepend to add newest entry at top]
✓ Added to beginning of "Daily Learning Journal":

## January 15, 2025 - React Performance Insights
- [discovery] useMemo doesn't help with props.children changes #react-gotcha
- [technique] React.Children.count for shallow comparison #workaround  
- [pattern] Custom hooks for complex state logic #architecture

[New entry added above previous entries, maintaining chronological order]

Section Replacement

Updating specific documentation sections:

You: "Update the deployment section in our API docs with the new Docker setup"

Claude: [Replaces specific section under ## Deployment header]
✓ Updated "API Documentation" → ## Deployment section:

## Deployment

### Docker Setup (Updated)
# Build the application
docker build -t my-api:latest .

# Run with environment variables
docker run -d \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  -e DATABASE_URL=postgresql://... \
  -e REDIS_URL=redis://... \
  my-api:latest

### Environment Variables
- `DATABASE_URL`: PostgreSQL connection string
- `REDIS_URL`: Redis cache connection
- `JWT_SECRET`: Secret key for token signing

[Only the deployment section was updated, rest of documentation unchanged]

Find and Replace

Version updates across documentation:

You: "Update all references to v0.12.0 to v0.13.0 in the configuration guide"

Claude: [Uses find_replace with validation]
✓ Updated "Configuration Guide":
Found and replaced 3 occurrences of "v0.12.0" with "v0.13.0"

Changes made:
- Line 23: Version requirement updated
- Line 45: Docker image tag updated  
- Line 67: Example configuration updated

📁 Smart File Management

Move and organize notes with full database consistency:

Organizing Project Documentation

Moving notes to appropriate folders:

You: "Move all my old meeting notes to an archive folder"

Claude: [Moves files and updates database]
✓ Moved 8 meeting notes to archive/:
- meeting-2024-12-01.md → archive/meetings/meeting-2024-12-01.md
- meeting-2024-12-08.md → archive/meetings/meeting-2024-12-08.md
- weekly-standup-notes.md → archive/meetings/weekly-standup-notes.md

Database updated: permalinks, search index, and relations preserved.
All links to these notes remain functional.

Reorganizing research by topic:

You: "Move my AI research notes into a dedicated ai-research folder"

Claude: [Creates folder structure and moves files]
✓ Created folder: ai-research/
✓ Moved 12 AI-related notes:
- neural-networks.md → ai-research/neural-networks.md  
- transformer-architecture.md → ai-research/transformer-architecture.md
- ai-ethics-considerations.md → ai-research/ethics/ai-ethics-considerations.md

Search functionality maintained, all relations preserved.

Renaming and Restructuring

Renaming notes for clarity:

You: "Rename 'temp-notes.md' to 'database-design-decisions.md'"

Claude: [Renames file and updates all references]
✓ Renamed: temp-notes.md → database-design-decisions.md
✓ Updated permalink: /temp-notes → /database-design-decisions
✓ Search index updated
✓ All internal links automatically updated

📖 View Notes as Formatted Artifacts

Display notes as html formatted artifacts in Claude Desktop:

Technical Documentation

You: "Show me the API documentation as a formatted artifact"

Claude: [Uses view_note tool to display formatted artifact]

Claude displays a html formatted artifact with:

  • Proper heading hierarchy
  • Syntax-highlighted code blocks
  • Organized sections and subsections
  • Clean typography and spacing
  • Clickable links and references

Creative Writing Projects

You: "Display my character development notes as an artifact"

Claude: [Creates formatted view of character notes]

Result: Clean, readable format showing:

  • Character profiles with clear sections
  • Relationship maps and connections
  • Story arc progression
  • Research and background details

Research Summaries

You: "View my climate research compilation as an artifact"

Claude: [Formats comprehensive research note]

Displays: Professional research document with:

  • Executive summary
  • Organized findings by category
  • Source citations and links
  • Visual hierarchy of information

🔍 Enhanced Search & Discovery

Find content more easily with frontmatter tag search:

Searchable Frontmatter Tags

Before v0.13.0 - Only content was searchable:

---
title: Coffee Brewing Methods
tags: [coffee, brewing, equipment, chemex]
---

# Coffee Brewing Methods
Pour-over techniques for better coffee...

Search for “chemex” would find nothing

v0.13.0 - Tags are now indexed and searchable:

You: "Search for all my chemex notes"

Claude: [Finds notes with 'chemex' in tags or content]
Found 4 notes mentioning 'chemex':
• Coffee Brewing Methods (tag match)
• Morning Routine - Coffee Setup (content match)  
• Kitchen Equipment Reviews (tag match)
• Weekend Coffee Experiments (content match)

Better Content Discovery

Topic-based discovery:

You: "Find all my notes about productivity"

Claude: [Searches across titles, content, tags, and metadata]
Found 12 productivity-related notes:

By Tags:
• Daily Habits Tracking [productivity, habits]
• Time Management Systems [productivity, time-management]
• Focus Techniques [productivity, deep-work]

By Content:
• Weekly Reviews (mentions productivity goals)
• Book Notes: Deep Work (productivity principles)
• Morning Routine (productivity habits)

Project-scoped search:

You: "Search for 'authentication' in my work project only"

Claude: [Searches within current work project]
Found 6 authentication-related notes in work-notes project:
• API Authentication Strategy
• OAuth Implementation Guide  
• Security Review - Auth System
• User Session Management
• Password Reset Flow
• Two-Factor Authentication Setup

🗄️ Unified Database Architecture

Single app-level database for better performance and project management:

Automatic Migration

Seamless upgrade from v0.12.x:

After upgrading, Basic Memory will re-index all your project notes into a single project. Basic Memory uses your files as the source of truth, so there is no risk of data loss. You can see the status any time.

You: what is the sync status?

Claude:

**Current Status**: 🔄 Syncing 1 projects (231/331 files, 70%)
**System Ready**: 🔄 Processing

🔄 **File synchronization in progress**

Basic Memory is automatically processing all configured projects and building knowledge graphs.
This typically takes 1-3 minutes depending on the amount of content.

**Currently Processing:**
- **main**: Processing new files (231/331, 70%)

**What's happening:**
- Scanning and indexing markdown files
- Building entity and relationship graphs
- Setting up full-text search indexes
- Processing file changes and updates

**What you can do:**
- Wait for automatic processing to complete - no action needed
- Use this tool again to check progress
- Simple operations may work already
- All projects will be available once sync finishes

**Note**: All configured projects will be automatically synced during startup.
You don't need to manually switch projects - Basic Memory handles this for you.

Better Project Isolation

Secure project boundaries:

You: "Switch to work-notes project"
Claude: ✓ Switched to work-notes

You: "Search for client information"  
Claude: [Searches only within work-notes project]
Found 3 client-related notes in work-notes:
• Client Requirements Document
• Meeting Notes - Client Kickoff
• Client Feedback Analysis

[Personal project notes remain completely isolated]

🛠️ Complete MCP Tool Suite

New Project Management Tools

Discover and manage projects:

# List all available projects
list_projects()
→ Shows: main (default, current), work-notes, personal-journal

# Switch project context
switch_project("work-notes") 
→ Changes active project for all subsequent operations

# Get current project info
get_current_project()
→ Returns: project name, stats, last updated

# Check sync status
sync_status()
→ Shows: file sync status, background operations, any issues

Enhanced Note Operations

Incremental editing tools:

# Append new content
edit_note("meeting-notes", "append", "\n## New Action Items\n- Task 1\n- Task 2")

# Prepend timestamp
edit_note("journal", "prepend", "# January 15, 2025\nToday's insights...")

# Replace specific section  
edit_note("api-docs", "replace_section", "New deployment steps...", section="## Deployment")

# Find and replace with validation
edit_note("config", "find_replace", "v0.13.0", find_text="v0.12.0", expected_replacements=3)

File management tools:

# Move notes with database consistency
move_note("old-location.md", "new-folder/better-name.md")

# View formatted artifacts
view_note("important-document")
→ Displays note as beautifully formatted artifact in Claude Desktop

Real-World Workflows

Software Development Team

Morning standup routine:

You: "Switch to our team project and show yesterday's progress"

Claude: [Switches to team project]
✓ Switched to team-project

Recent activity (last 24 hours):
• Updated API documentation with new authentication endpoints
• Added deployment guide for Docker setup
• Meeting notes from client feedback session
• Bug tracking for payment processing issues

You: "Add today's standup notes"

Claude: [Creates structured standup note]
✓ Created "Daily Standup - January 15, 2025"

## Team Updates
- Sarah: Completed user authentication module, starting on password reset
- Mike: Fixed payment processing bug, investigating performance issues  
- Jenny: Client demo went well, gathering requirements for Phase 2

## Blockers
- Need DevOps review for production deployment
- Waiting on client approval for UI changes

[Automatically linked to previous standup notes and relevant project documentation]

Academic Researcher

Research session workflow:

You: "Switch to my research project and add today's paper notes"

Claude: [Switches to research context]
✓ Switched to phd-research project

You: "Create detailed notes on the transformer architecture paper"

Claude: [Creates comprehensive research note]
✓ Created "Attention Is All You Need - Paper Analysis"

## Key Contributions
- [innovation] Self-attention mechanism replaces RNN/CNN architectures #breakthrough
- [performance] Parallelizable training reduces computation time significantly #efficiency
- [impact] Enables larger models and better sequence understanding #scaling

## Technical Details
- [architecture] Multi-head attention with scaled dot-product attention #technical
- [training] Position encoding for sequence order without recurrence #implementation
- [results] BLEU score improvements on translation tasks #evaluation

## Relations
- revolutionizes [[Natural Language Processing]]
- enables [[Large Language Models]]  
- influences [[Computer Vision - Vision Transformers]]

[Automatically connects to existing AI research and methodology notes]

You: "Move this to my 'foundational-papers' folder"

Claude: [Organizes research]
✓ Moved to foundational-papers/attention-is-all-you-need.md
✓ Updated research index and cross-references

Creative Writer

Novel planning session:

You: "Switch to my novel project and update character development"

Claude: [Switches to creative writing project]
✓ Switched to sci-fi-novel project

You: "Add new backstory details to Sarah Chen's character profile"

Claude: [Uses append to add to existing character note]
✓ Updated "Sarah Chen - Protagonist Character Profile"

## New Backstory Details
- [background] Lost younger brother in early neural implant experiment #trauma
- [motivation] Brother's death drives her investigation into NeuroLink Corp #personal-stakes
- [skill] Developed advanced hacking abilities after brother's accident #character-development
- [relationship] Estranged from father who worked for competing tech company #family-conflict

## Character Arc Implications
- [growth] Must overcome trust issues to work with allies #emotional-journey
- [conflict] Personal vendetta vs. broader social justice #internal-struggle

Relations updated:
- drives [[Main Plot - Corporate Conspiracy]]
- connects_to [[NeuroLink Corporation - Antagonist]]
- influences [[Theme - Technology vs Humanity]]

You: "View the character profile as a formatted artifact"

Claude: [Displays beautiful character sheet]
[Shows organized character profile with clear sections, relationship maps, and story connections]

Personal Knowledge Management

Weekly life review:

You: "Switch to my personal project and create this week's reflection"

Claude: [Switches to personal knowledge context]
✓ Switched to personal-life project

You: "Review this week's notes and create a summary of patterns and insights"

Claude: [Analyzes recent personal notes]
✓ Created "Weekly Reflection - January 15, 2025"

## This Week's Patterns
- [energy] Most productive mornings when I exercise first #health-performance-link
- [social] Deep conversations with friends boost mood for 2+ days #relationship-impact
- [work] Finished projects faster when I break tasks into 25-minute chunks #productivity-technique

## Growth Areas Identified
- [challenge] Procrastination increases when overwhelmed - need better task management #self-awareness
- [opportunity] Reading before bed improves sleep quality #habit-optimization

## Goal Progress
- [fitness] Ran 3 times this week (goal: 3x) ✓ #achievement
- [learning] Completed 2 Spanish lessons (goal: 3x) #partial-progress
- [creativity] No creative writing this week #missed-goal

## Relations
- builds_on [[Monthly Goals - January 2025]]
- informs [[Habit Tracking and Optimization]]
- connects_to [[Work-Life Balance Strategies]]

You: "Move my old reflections to an archive folder"

Claude: [Organizes personal history]
✓ Moved 12 reflection notes to archive/reflections/
✓ Maintained chronological order and cross-references
✓ Updated personal development timeline

Getting Started with v0.13.0

Installation

# Install the latest release
uv tool install basic-memory

Upgrading from Previous Versions

# Upgrade existing installation
uv tool upgrade basic-memory

# Check version
basic-memory --version

Automatic Migration: The first run will automatically migrate your existing data to the new unified database structure. No manual action required - all your notes and projects are preserved exactly as they were.

Ready to experience the next evolution of AI-human collaboration? Get started with Basic Memory v0.13.0 →