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nvwalj/ai-memory-reader

Analysis updated 2026-06-24

★ 25SwiftAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

Native Mac and iPhone viewer that auto-finds and pretty-prints the CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, memory, and session transcript files that AI coding assistants drop on disk across eight tools.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((ai-memory-reader))
    Inputs
      CLAUDE.md
      AGENTS.md
      Session JSON
      Local folders
    Outputs
      Markdown viewer
      File tree sidebar
      Today panel
    Use Cases
      Browse agent memory
      Open huge session JSON
      Edit memory files
    Tech Stack
      Swift
      SwiftUI
      Xcode
    Supported Tools
      Claude Code
      Codex
      Cursor
      Aider
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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Browse Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex memory files in one app instead of jumping folders

USE CASE 2

Open multi-megabyte ~/.claude/projects session transcripts without crashing the editor

USE CASE 3

Jump straight to a heading inside a memory file from another agent via the aimemoryreader URL scheme

USE CASE 4

Edit CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md with autosave and live file watching

What is it built with?

SwiftSwiftUIXcodexcodegen

How does it compare?

nvwalj/ai-memory-readerappeight/app8-ios-sdkashutosh160798/context-scope
Stars252524
LanguageSwiftSwiftSwift
Setup difficultymoderatemoderatehard
Complexity3/54/53/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

The release build is ad-hoc signed not notarized, so macOS Gatekeeper needs to be bypassed manually on first launch.

GPL-3.0 license, free to use and modify but redistributed copies and derivatives must stay open source under the same license.

In plain English

AI Memory Reader is a native Mac and iPhone app for browsing the memory and instruction files that AI coding assistants drop on disk. When you use a tool like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or Gemini, each one leaves behind files such as CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, daily memory entries, and long JSON session transcripts. This app finds those files automatically and shows them in one viewer instead of scattering you across folders. It is written in Swift and SwiftUI, ships as a 3 MB universal binary, and makes no network calls aside from an optional daily check for new releases. It auto detects eight tools: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Cursor, Continue, GitHub Copilot, Aider, and OpenClaw, each with its own home folder under your user directory. It also opens any local folder or single .md or .json file. One specific pain point it addresses is Claude's session telemetry files at ~/.claude/projects, which can be many megabytes long and crash editors like VS Code. AI Memory Reader pretty prints them in chunks so the viewer stays responsive. The reading side has GitHub style Markdown rendering, a file tree sidebar, a clickable table of contents, dark and light themes that follow the system, full text search across the current folder, a Today panel that highlights the day's memory file, and live file watching so the view refreshes as agents write to disk. The editing side is lighter: a toggle with Cmd-E switches into an editor with basic syntax highlighting and line numbers, autosave after two seconds of idleness, and a manual save shortcut. The app can be driven from outside too. A URL scheme of the form aimemoryreader://open?path=...&heading=... lets other programs or agents jump to a specific file and heading. A small aimr command line tool ships alongside it for the same job. The iPhone build is read only and integrates with the Files app. Installation is a download from GitHub releases, drag into Applications, then bypass the macOS unidentified developer warning since the build is ad-hoc signed rather than notarized. Building from source uses xcodegen, Xcode 16, and Swift 6 on macOS 15 or iOS 17 and newer. The project is GPL-3.0 licensed.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Add a ninth tool detector to ai-memory-reader for a custom agent that writes to ~/.myagent
Prompt 2
Wire ai-memory-reader's URL scheme into a Raycast extension that opens today's memory file
Prompt 3
Write the aimr CLI invocation to open ai-memory-reader at a specific heading inside CLAUDE.md
Prompt 4
Build ai-memory-reader from source on macOS 15 with Xcode 16 and explain every xcodegen step
Prompt 5
Patch ai-memory-reader so the iPhone build can edit files instead of being read only

Frequently asked questions

What is ai-memory-reader?

Native Mac and iPhone viewer that auto-finds and pretty-prints the CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, memory, and session transcript files that AI coding assistants drop on disk across eight tools.

What language is ai-memory-reader written in?

Mainly Swift. The stack also includes Swift, SwiftUI, Xcode.

What license does ai-memory-reader use?

GPL-3.0 license, free to use and modify but redistributed copies and derivatives must stay open source under the same license.

How hard is ai-memory-reader to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is ai-memory-reader for?

Mainly developer.

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