| FMRS | 45 / 100 · D | 75 / 100 · B |
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| Reliability | 6 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
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| Security and permissions | 8 / 20 | 16 / 20 |
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| Maintenance | 11 / 20 | 14 / 20 |
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| Documentation | 12 / 20 | 18 / 20 |
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| Setup experience | 8 / 20 | 15 / 20 |
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| Best for | - Desktop users who want one interface for many model providers
- Users who want to run Ollama models locally
- Users needing desktop shortcuts, document retrieval, or agent features
- Developers integrating desktop AI actions through a localhost HTTP API
| - Individuals or teams who prioritise privacy and offline operation and do not want data leaving the machine
- Users who share memory across multiple MCP clients such as Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Hermes Agent, OpenClaw, Cursor, Codex and Gemini CLI
- Scenarios that need encrypted storage, a hash-chained audit log and verifiable vault migration
- Users who want low-latency recall, a bundled embedding model and no extra LLM calls inside the memory layer
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| Not for | - Users seeking a standalone MCP server that provides tools to other MCP clients
- Users seeking a confirmed client-specific MCP server configuration
- Users who do not want to configure cloud API keys or install a local model runtime
| - Users who need cloud multi-device sync or a hosted team memory service; moving between machines means locking the vault and copying the file
- Users who expect the server itself to run an LLM that extracts facts and decides what to remember; Compartment explicitly keeps no LLM inside and leaves that to the host model
- Users who cannot keep a passphrase safe or who need a recovery path if it is lost, since Compartment never generates a password, seed or recovery phrase
- Deployments that require network transports such as SSE or streamable-http; this server is stdio only and opens no ports
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| Required permissions | - Cloud models, search, generation, and speech services require the relevant API keys
- Ollama requires a local installation and model files
- Local-file RAG and the local filesystem plugin require access to selected files
- Prompt Anywhere, AI commands, and global shortcuts interact with other desktop applications
- The local HTTP API listens on localhost port 8090 by default, or the next available port
- CLI installation may require creating system-level symlinks on macOS or Linux
| - Read and write the vault file under the user's home directory, by default ~/.compartment/memory.vault, and its sibling settings file
- Access the session directory holding the unlock credential (configurable with COMPARTMENT_SESSION_DIR), which also carries the shared embedding process's Unix socket
- Optionally use the macOS keychain (compartment unlock --keychain is an explicit opt-in, and it survives reboots)
- Write or merge an mcpServers entry into each MCP client's own configuration file, taking a byte-exact backup first
- Install a PostToolUse hook for Claude Code that captures memory files the agent writes
- Serve a read-only dashboard on 127.0.0.1 behind a one-time random URL token
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| Risks and side effects | - User-provided API keys are used with configured third-party services; costs and data handling depend on those providers
- Local files, prompts, and conversations may be sent to the selected cloud models or services
- The HTTP API is localhost-only by default; exposing it through a reverse proxy requires user-configured authentication
- MCP servers, Python execution, agents, and local-file features can expand the actions or data accessible to the model
- The software is licensed under AGPL-3.0
| - A leaked passphrase means the encrypted content can be decrypted; Compartment generates no recovery phrase and cannot recover a lost passphrase
- Enabling the memory_unlock tool places the passphrase in the model's context, which is why it is off by default
- If a 2FA keyfile is lost, for example a USB stick, the vault cannot be opened even with the passphrase
- `export --plaintext` writes the vault as unencrypted JSONL, so that file must be handled carefully
- Memory content can come from untrusted sources; recall wraps memories with a notice that they are stored data and content can be marked quarantined, but the host agent must still treat memory as data to limit prompt-injection risk
- The capture hook and client integration write into the user's own settings files, although the implementation backs up and merges rather than replacing
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| Supported clients | | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Hermes Agent, OpenClaw, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cline, Roo Code, Zed, OpenCode, LM Studio, AnythingLLM, BoltAI, Goose, Kiro |
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| Tools | 0 | 14 |
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