Quick start
Memory fills itself as you work, so a fresh install has nothing to recall yet. These three steps give it something to find on day one.
Map the code
The graph is the one part that needs a command. It parses every supported source file and stores each symbol and each relationship between symbols.
claude-db scanIt takes about a second on a mid-size repository and costs no tokens, because parsing is local. Re-running is cheap: files are hashed and only what changed is re-parsed.
Seed from git history
Your repository already contains a record of what happened. This reads it into memory so search has something to match before you have built up any sessions.
claude-db seed --from-gitOr let Claude do both
Install also adds a /cdb-scan skill. Run it once inside Claude Code and it builds the graph, then
writes five notes about your stack, layout, conventions, workflows and architecture into memory under
stable keys.
Ask something
From here you do not run commands. Ask Claude the questions you would normally ask, and the answers come from the graph instead of from four file reads:
what breaks if I change closeObservations?
why does capture read the transcript instead of the diff?
what was I in the middle of yesterday?The first is answered by the code graph, the second by memory, and the third by
the open-work list that claude-db status also prints.
Record a rule
Most memory is captured automatically, but a standing preference is worth stating outright. Tell Claude to remember it, or write it yourself:
claude-db remember "always use pnpm in this repo"Rules recorded this way come back the same as anything else: injected above your prompt when they are relevant.