Show HN: Callimachus – Local search across your AI coding-agent history

Callimachus, a new open-source desktop app, indexes and searches conversations from 11 AI coding agents into a local SQLite store, enabling hybrid keyword and semantic search across tools like Claude Code and Cursor. The app provides a provider-agnostic chat, MCP server, CLI, and VS Code extension, with features for knowledge distillation, project memory, and RAG over history, all running locally on the user's machine.

Local index & search for your AI coding-agent threads— across11 tools Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, Goose, OpenCode, Continue, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code — plus a provider-agnostic chat, an MCP server, a CLI, and a VS Code / Cursor extension. Everything stays on your machine. Named for Callimachus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callimachus , who built the first catalogue of the Library of Alexandria. Grab the latest signed build from Releases — macOS .dmg , Apple Silicon , Windows .msi , or Linux .AppImage / .deb . The app auto-updates from there on. Prefer to build it yourself? See Develop develop . Indexes every conversation from 11 coding agents into one local SQLite store — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, Goose, OpenCode, Continue, Cline, Roo Code, and Kilo Code. Adding another source is a small, documented contract /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/indexer/README.md . Searches them with hybrid ranking: keyword SQLite FTS5 / BM25 fused with on-device semantic similarity sqlite-vec KNN, no cloud via Reciprocal Rank Fusion. Filter by source, project, subagents, starred, and tags. Finds code-aware — type file:embed/mod.rs in the search bar or cal files <path to find every thread that touched a path; backed by a file-mention index built at index time. Distills knowledge — free heuristic TODO extraction, plus opt-in LLM distillation of decisions, gotchas, and summaries, with cross-thread semantic recall of past decisions/gotchas. Optional auto-distillation drains new/changed threads in the background so memory self-populates. Needs local Ollama keyless or a cloud API key. Curates the facts — pin, edit, or delete distilled facts so your edits survive re-distilling, plus an LLM "Review conflicts" pass that flags decisions that contradict each other. Remembers per project — a Projects tab aggregates each repo's decisions, gotchas, and open TODOs into durable memory grouped by a canonical project key, so worktrees / symlinks / ~ don't split one repo , with an LLM brief and a managed .callimachus/memory.md . That memory is prepended when you "Open in CLI", and you can inject it into any agent automatically: Update AGENTS.md or cal agents writes a managed block into the repo's AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md , and cal hook feeds it to a Claude Code SessionStart hook. Asks your history RAG — a synthesized, cited answer over your own threads, with thread N citations back to the sources it used. Needs an LLM engine Knowledge/distillation enabled . Organizes into collections — star threads and attach free-form tags, then filter the list by starred or by tag. Chats with an in-app agent Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini / OpenRouter / Ollama — your key, your choice that can search your own history and run shell commands with your approval ; streaming, cancellable, with live model lists. Chats are saved and become searchable too. Carries context across tools — open any thread in any agent CLI "Open in Claude / Codex / Gemini …", seeded with the packed transcript , resume a Claude Code / Codex thread in its native CLI, copy context, or export a thread to Obsidian optionally AI-summarized with decisions / gotchas / TODOs . Surfaces to your agents — a bundled MCP server callimachus-mcp exposes the index as tools any agent can call mid-session, and it's two-way: agents can write back into Callimachus's own memory close TODOs, record decisions/gotchas without ever touching your files. The /recall skill teaches them when to use it. Stays current via a background file watcher; stays private — API keys live in the OS keychain, nothing is sent anywhere except the LLM provider you pick. Shell: Tauri 2 Rust + React 19 + TypeScript + Vite 8 Store/search: bundled SQLite + FTS5 rusqlite ; on-device embeddings via fastembed bge-small-en-v1.5, 384-dim ; KNN in SQL via sqlite-vec vec0 Watcher: notify + debouncer Chat: multi-provider via the genai crate Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini / OpenRouter / Ollama , streaming tokens over a Tauri Channel, cancellable, with agent tool-calls history search + approved shell Secrets: OS credential store via the cross-platform keyring crate — macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, Linux Secret Service Sidecars: callimachus-mcp MCP server and cal CLI — both reuse the desktop core lib against the same index.db Editor: a VS Code / Cursor extension apps/vscode , published to the Marketplace + Open VSX that shells out to cal This is a Turborepo https://turborepo.com + pnpm workspace. apps/ desktop/ the Tauri 2 desktop app + the cal CLI and MCP server src-tauri vscode/ VS Code extension search history from the editor web/ marketing + download site reserved, not built yet packages/ shared code, when it appears .changeset/ version + changelog management scripts/ version-sync, release tagging Releases, versioning, and the auto-updater are documented in RELEASING.md /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/RELEASING.md . pnpm install pnpm desktop:dev launches the desktop window tauri dev from the repo root, across all apps: pnpm build turbo: build every app's frontend pnpm typecheck turbo: typecheck every app First launch: the index is empty — open Settings or hit Reindex to index your sources, then Build semantic index to enable semantic search. Reindex runs as a background job with a per-source progress bar, separate from Build semantic index — the two are mutually exclusive one pauses while the other holds the write lock . cd apps/desktop/src-tauri cargo test fast unit tests cargo test -- --ignored --nocapture real-data + model + keychain smoke tests The --ignored tests touch live data on this machine: each source has a real <source index smoke test that indexes your real history read-only ~/.claude , ~/.codex , Cursor, ~/.gemini , ~/.qwen , Goose, OpenCode, Continue, Cline/Roo/Kilo , plus the embedding-model download first run, needs network and a Keychain round-trip. Beyond the desktop window, the same local index is reachable from your agents, terminal, and editor — all reading one index.db . MCP server — let any agent search its own past work mid-session. callimachus-mcp ships with the desktop app on your PATH ; just register it with your client: claude mcp add callimachus -- callimachus-mcp or any MCP client Building from a checkout instead? cargo install --path apps/desktop/src-tauri --bin callimachus-mcp . Tools 15 — now read and write. Reads: search threads , search current project auto-scoped to the repo it runs in , recent threads , get thread , list tags , list open todos , get thread knowledge , recall decisions , recall gotchas , project memory a project's aggregated decisions / gotchas / open TODOs , ask history a cited RAG answer over your history , and threads for file which sessions touched a path . Writes into Callimachus's own memory, never your code : complete todo close an open TODO , record decision , and record gotcha persist a fact into a project's memory . The bundled /recall skill .claude/skills/recall /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/.claude/skills/recall/SKILL.md tells agents when to reach for them. CLI — cal , pipe-friendly. Ships with the desktop app on your PATH ; or build from a checkout with cargo install --path apps/desktop/src-tauri --bin cal . cal search "vector index migration" -y -y = hybrid semantic + keyword cal recent -n 10 cal cat 42 | pbcopy packed transcript → clipboard cal stats index totals + per-source breakdown cal export 42 --vault ~/Obsidian write a thread as an Obsidian note cal ask "how did we set up releases?" cited RAG answer over your history cal files embed/mod.rs threads that touched a file path cal memory this repo's distilled memory decisions/gotchas/TODOs cal done 17 mark an open TODO done id from cal todos cal remember decision "use sqlite-vec for KNN" record a fact into the repo's memory cal agents write the repo's memory into AGENTS.md any agent reads it cal hook print the repo's memory use as a Claude Code SessionStart hook star , tag , tags , todos , knowledge , distill , decisions , gotchas , and related also exist — run cal help for all 21. VS Code / Cursor — the extension adds a "Callimachus History" sidebar, a status-bar search button, and commands to search / insert / copy threads it shells out to cal . Install from the VS Code Marketplace or the registry Open VSX https://open-vsx.org/ Cursor and VSCodium use , or grab the .vsix from Releases /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/releases . See apps/vscode/README.md /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/apps/vscode/README.md . - Cross-platform macOS / Windows / Linux . The only macOS-only piece left is the "Open in CLI" / "Resume" launchers they drive Terminal via AppleScript ; on Windows/Linux those actions return a "not supported yet" notice — everything else index, search, chat, export, keychain works everywhere. - Cline / Roo Code / Kilo Code are editor extensions with no CLI, so they are index-only searchable, but not relaunchable via "Resume" . - Cursor doesn't store a per-thread workspace, so Cursor threads currently have no project path. - Claude Code subagent transcripts are indexed but hidden behind a "subagents" toggle by default. - Large first index is a one-time cost the Claude corpus here was ~90k messages in ~25s ; subsequent passes skip unchanged files. - More sources Charm Crush, Factory Droid, Copilot CLI are scoped but not yet integrated — see the indexer guide /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/indexer/README.md . Issues and PRs welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md covers local setup, conventions, and the release flow. Adding support for another agent is a small, documented contract /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/indexer/README.md — usually one indexer module + a migration + a few wiring points. Callimachus is local-first by design: your conversation index never leaves your machine, API keys live in the OS keychain never on disk , and the only outbound traffic is to the LLM provider you explicitly choose. To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/SECURITY.md . Dual-licensed. Free and open source under AGPL-3.0-or-later — use, modify, and share it; if you distribute it or run a modified version as a network service, you must release your source under the AGPL. For closed-source, proprietary, or for-profit/SaaS use that the AGPL doesn't permit, a commercial license is required — see COMMERCIAL.md contact ari@shaller.dev mailto:ari@shaller.dev . © 2026 Ari Shaller. See NOTICE /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/NOTICE for attributions. Contributions are accepted under the terms in CONTRIBUTING.md /BetaBots-LLC/callimachus/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md . Built on Tauri https://tauri.app , fastembed-rs https://github.com/Anush008/fastembed-rs , sqlite-vec https://github.com/asg017/sqlite-vec , and genai https://github.com/jeremychone/rust-genai . Named for Callimachus of Cyrene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callimachus , who catalogued the Library of Alexandria. Social preview: assets/og.png · brand sources in assets/brand/