Install Claude Recall.

One npm install, then start the daemon. Two commands. Nothing leaves your machine after it runs.

Install in two commands

npm install -g @clauderecallhq/cli

recall start && recall open

Requires Node 20 or newer. Ships as @clauderecallhq/cli on npm. Also available as a VS Code extension and an MCP server.

Requirements

Node 22 LTS or newer (node --version)
macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel), Linux x64 / arm64 (glibc), or Windows 10+ x64. Alpine (musl) and 32-bit platforms are not supported. npm install will be rejected.
Claude Code installed and having written at least one session to ~/.claude/projects/

First run

Three interactive entry points. They all read the same SQLite database, so you can switch between them at any time.

recall start            # background daemon (file watcher + local HTTP)
recall                  # branded welcome dashboard with a slash command palette
recall tui              # full terminal UI: arrow-key browse, live search, preview pane
recall open             # web UI in your browser

The dashboard and the TUI both read the local database directly, so you can browse without starting the daemon. The daemon is required for the web UI and for the TUI's o shortcut (open selected session in browser).

Add the MCP server to Claude Code

Once installed, wire Recall into Claude Code as a native tool. Full MCP setup docs →

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recall": {
      "command": "claude-recall-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Updating

recall update has two modes. --global installs the latest published package, detecting whether you use npm, pnpm, yarn, or bun. --local rebuilds a source checkout. With no flag, a checkout goes local and everything else goes global. It asks before it runs anything.

recall update --global  # install the latest published package
recall update --local   # rebuild a source checkout: pull + build + restart
recall update           # auto: checkout -> local, anything else -> global

recall update --yes     # skip the prompt (scripts, CI)
recall update -n        # show the plan, run nothing
recall --version        # confirm what you are on

--global works from anywhere, including inside a checkout. After a global update, restart the daemon so it picks up the new build: recall stop && recall start. Local mode does that for you. Your index is untouched by an update either way, and ~/.claude/projects/ is never modified. Full install & updating docs →

Note that recall upgrade is a different command: it opens the Pro pricing page. Pro is a one-time purchase with lifetime updates, so recall update works the same on Free and Pro.

Troubleshooting

Run recall status to see daemon state and the indexed session count. Check ~/.recall/daemon.log for errors.