Connect Brain
to your local agent.

Search the conversation. Retrieve the decision. Give your agent the context behind the work, through Brain’s CLI or local MCP server.

1. Find the CLI

Any local agent or tool that can run terminal commands can use Brain’s CLI. MCP clients can also connect directly to the local server.

Mac

Brain includes a command-line tool, brain. Find its installed path in Settings → Advanced. Run that full path in Terminal, or use your existing brain command if it is on your PATH. If the path contains spaces, wrap it in quotes.

brain --help

Windows

For the portable preview, open PowerShell in the extracted Brain folder containing brain.cmd. Keep the full folder together; the launcher uses the CLI included in that folder and the same meeting library as the portable app.

.\brain.cmd --help

The commands below use that launcher. A packaged installation may expose a different entry point; do not assume brain is registered on PATH. Use the CLI matching your app and its database.

Open Brain once, complete setup, and approve a practice meeting before trying a search. These examples use a scope named Personal; substitute one from your own library.

2. Choose your context

A scope groups meetings in Brain. Start by listing the available scopes, then choose a single named scope for your agent.

brain scopes --json
brain list --scope Personal --json

.\brain.cmd scopes --json
.\brain.cmd list --scope Personal --json

Quote names containing spaces, for example --scope "Design Team". Use --scope all only when you intend to include multiple scopes.

3. Search and export

Search approved meeting context and return structured JSON for your agent. It can use the result to find supporting information before drafting a reply, plan, or update.

brain search "release decision" --scope Personal --json

.\brain.cmd search "release decision" --scope Personal --json

To make a local Markdown export, choose a new output location. Mac exports to a directory; Windows writes the named file.

brain export --scope Personal --out ./brain-approved

.\brain.cmd export --scope Personal --output .\brain-approved.md

These commands run against your local Brain library. The website demonstrations use fictional content and never connect to that library.

4. Connect through MCP

Brain serves MCP over stdio: your client starts the local process and talks to it directly. Generate a configuration entry for the client you use:

brain mcp --scope Personal --print-config codex
brain mcp --scope Personal --print-config claude

.\brain.cmd mcp --scope Personal --print-config codex
.\brain.cmd mcp --scope Personal --print-config claude

Run the command for your client and merge the generated Brain entry into its existing MCP configuration. Keep the generated absolute executable path, arguments, and database selection together.

For other MCP clients, use those same process settings in the client’s stdio-server configuration. Start with standard read access; it is enough to search and retrieve approved meeting context.

Try: “Find the release decision in my Personal meetings, show its supporting context, then draft a short launch update.” Your agent should check the retrieved evidence before relying on it.

What your agent can see

Standard read access includes approved meetings, clean transcripts, and search results within the chosen scope. Drafts, discarded meetings, unedited transcript drafts, and audio are excluded from that interface.

Brain also has a separate review interface for tools that need to work with drafts and approvals. It requires an explicit review configuration and current review tokens; this guide uses the standard read interface.

Local access does not determine where your agent’s model runs. An agent connected to a cloud model may send retrieved text to that provider. Choose its model and permissions to match how you want to handle your meetings.

Read Brain’s privacy information

If something is missing

Command not found: use the path shown by Brain on Mac, or run .\brain.cmd from the complete portable folder on Windows.
No matching records: check the scope name, try a word in the meeting, and confirm the meeting is approved. Drafts are deliberately excluded.
The wrong library: check that the command-line tool and the library belong to the app you use. Regenerate the MCP configuration from the correct launcher.
Connection fails after moving Brain: regenerate the configuration so it contains the current executable path.

Use --help to inspect the commands in your installed version. See the Mac notes or Windows preview notes for current availability.