Agent Skills
Agent skills are ready-made instructions that help Claude and ChatGPT use Basic Memory well. They teach your assistant when to save something, how to organize it, and how to pick up where you left off.
Install a skill in Claude or ChatGPT
Add the skill to Claude
- Choose a skill from the list below.
- Open Customize → Skills and click +.
- Choose Upload a skill and select its
SKILL.mdfile. Formemory-onboarding, upload the packaged ZIP instead. - Turn the skill on.
See Claude's walkthrough with screenshots.
Add the skill to ChatGPT
- Choose a skill from the list below.
- Click your profile icon → Skills.
- Choose New skill → Upload from your computer and select its
SKILL.mdfile. Formemory-onboarding, upload the packaged ZIP instead. - Wait for ChatGPT to finish scanning it.
See the ChatGPT skills walkthrough.
Choose a skill
Most skills are a single SKILL.md file that you can upload directly. memory-onboarding includes supporting reference files, so it uses a packaged ZIP.
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|---|
| memory-onboarding | Guided setup — interview, design, and build a complete knowledge system from scratch |
| memory-notes | Core note format — frontmatter, observations, relations, memory:// URLs |
| memory-capture | Capture the state of a working thread into a single coherent note |
| memory-continue | Resume prior work by rebuilding context from the knowledge graph |
| memory-tasks | Structured task tracking that survives context compaction |
| memory-schema | Schema lifecycle — infer, validate, create definitions, detect drift |
| memory-curate | Find orphan notes, propose relations, merge duplicates, build hub notes |
| memory-reflect | Review conversations, extract insights, consolidate knowledge |
| memory-defrag | Split bloated files, merge duplicates, restructure hierarchy |
| memory-lifecycle | Status transitions through folder-based organization, archive-never-delete |
| memory-metadata-search | Query notes by custom frontmatter fields (equality, range, array filters) |
| memory-ingest | Process transcripts, emails, and documents into structured notes |
| memory-research | Web research synthesized into knowledge entities |
| memory-literary-analysis | Analyze a complete literary work into a structured knowledge graph |
SKILL.md file in the Basic Memory skills collection.Install skills in a coding agent
If you use Claude Code or Codex, install skills from the terminal with npx. It ships with Node.js; install Node.js first if needed.
Install with npx
Install all Basic Memory skills:
npx skills add basicmachines-co/basic-memory/skills
Or install one skill:
npx skills add basicmachines-co/basic-memory/skills --skill memory-onboarding
List the available skills:
npx skills add basicmachines-co/basic-memory/skills --list
basicmachines-co/basic-memory/skills, update the Skills CLI or install manually.Install manually
Clone the repo and copy a skill folder into your agent's skills directory. This example installs memory-notes for Claude Code:
git clone https://github.com/basicmachines-co/basic-memory.git
cp -r basic-memory/skills/memory-notes ~/.claude/skills/
For a project-scoped Claude Code skill, copy it to .claude/skills/ in your project root.
Use a skill
Skills activate automatically when your request matches what they teach. You can also name the skill directly:
"Use memory-onboarding to help me set up Basic Memory."
"Use memory-notes to write up what we just discussed."
In Claude Code and Codex, you can also invoke an installed skill as a slash command, such as /memory-notes.