Proxy Mode

Proxy mode is the zero-effort way to connect Claude Code (or any Anthropic-based tool) to pgmemory. Set one environment variable and work normally — knowledge capture happens automatically in the background.

How it works

pgmemory runs a local proxy on your machine. When you point your AI tool at it, the proxy:

1. On the way out — forwards the request to the LLM provider exactly as-is, with no modifications
2. On the way back — streams the response to you in real-time, then asynchronously processes the conversation through the knowledge capture pipeline and stores it

The proxy is a true passthrough — it never modifies prompts or responses. Knowledge capture happens entirely in the background after the response is delivered.

To retrieve stored knowledge, use the MCP server. The MCP tools (memory_search, memory_list, etc.) are how AI tools access the knowledge base.

AI tool → pgmemory proxy (local) → Anthropic API
               ↓                       ↓
        passthrough (no changes)  stream response back
                                       ↓
                              capture async (background)
                                       ↓
                              PostgreSQL + pgvector

Setup

pgmemory start
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:7432

That's it. Launch Claude Code and work normally.

What gets captured

Both sides of every conversation feed the knowledge store:

Source	What's captured
Questions	What you asked — signals what topics matter
Responses	The AI's answers — architecture decisions, debugging steps, explanations

Everything goes through the same pipeline — noise filtering, secret scrubbing, deduplication. There's no risk of secrets or garbage entering the store.

Real-time streaming

pgmemory handles streaming responses (SSE) natively. The response streams to you in real-time; pgmemory buffers a copy in the background for processing. No slowdown.

Built-in dashboard

The proxy also serves a dashboard at http://localhost:7432 where you can:

• Browse stored knowledge
• Search the knowledge base
• View quality statistics
• Monitor ingested sources

Proxy + MCP: the recommended setup

Proxy mode handles automatic capture — it passively records knowledge from every session. The MCP server handles everything else — retrieval, explicit storage, and knowledge maintenance.

Most setups use both together:

Component	Role
Proxy	Automatic knowledge capture from every conversation
MCP server	Knowledge retrieval, search, explicit store, and maintenance

For Claude Code, both run simultaneously — proxy captures in the background while MCP tools give the agent full access to the knowledge base. For Cursor, Windsurf, and other tools, MCP handles both capture and retrieval.

They all feed and read from the same PostgreSQL store.