Memos

Memos Skill

Purpose

This skill provides read-write access to a self-hosted Memos instance for quick note capture, search, and organization. Memos is a privacy-focused, self-hosted note-taking service with Markdown support, tagging, and file attachments.

Core capabilities:

• Create, read, update, and delete memos (notes)
• Search memos by content, tags, or metadata
• Upload and manage file attachments
• Organize memos with tags
• Archive and visibility controls
• Link related memos together

Primary use case: Quick capture of important information from Claude conversations into a personal knowledge base.

Setup

Prerequisites

• Memos instance running and accessible
• API access token generated from Memos UI
• curl and jq installed

Credential Configuration

Configure these values in plugin userConfig. The hook writes ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/lab-memos/config.env with mode 600. Legacy env files are fallback-only during migration:

# Memos - Self-hosted note-taking service
MEMOS_URL="https://memos.example.com"
MEMOS_API_TOKEN="<your_api_token>"

To generate an API token:

1. Log into your Memos instance
2. Go to Settings → Access Tokens
3. Click "Create" and copy the generated token
4. Add the token to plugin userConfig, or to .env as a local fallback

Security:

• Generated config and .env files are local-only (never commit)
• The plugin-generated config is written with mode 600
• Token has same permissions as your user account

Commands

All commands return JSON output for LLM parsing. Scripts source credentials from the generated plugin config automatically.

Invocation: All script paths below are written relative to the skill directory, so run them with the skill directory as the working directory (this is where the Bash tool starts for a skill's own scripts). Each script resolves its own location internally, so a relative bash scripts/<name>.sh ... is all that is needed — use this bash scripts/... form consistently.

Core scripts

Common examples:

# Create / list / get / update / delete / archive
bash scripts/memo-api.sh create "Your memo content here" --tags "work,project"
bash scripts/memo-api.sh list --limit 10 --filter 'tag == "work"'
bash scripts/memo-api.sh get <memo-id>
bash scripts/memo-api.sh update <memo-id> "Updated content"
bash scripts/memo-api.sh delete <memo-id>
bash scripts/memo-api.sh archive <memo-id>

# Search and tags
bash scripts/search-api.sh "docker kubernetes" --tags "devops" --from "2024-01-01"
bash scripts/tag-api.sh list
bash scripts/tag-api.sh search "project-x"

# Attachments and user
bash scripts/resource-api.sh upload image.png --memo-id <id>
bash scripts/user-api.sh whoami

Every script supports --help. For the full per-command option tables and worked examples, see references/quick-reference.md.

Workflow

When the user asks about memos:

1. "Save this to my memos" → Extract key content, create memo with appropriate tags
2. "What did I write about X?" → Search memos by content/tags, present results
3. "Find my notes on project Y" → Use tag search or content filter
4. "Update my memo about Z" → Search for memo, get ID, update content
5. "Delete that memo" → Confirm with user, then delete by ID

Destructive and Sensitive Actions

Get explicit user confirmation before deleting memos, deleting attachments, deleting access tokens, creating long-lived access tokens, updating profile fields, or bulk-renaming tags across memos. Prefer archive over delete when the user's intent is cleanup rather than permanent removal.

Notes

API Details

• Authentication: Bearer token in Authorization header
• Base URL: /api/v1 endpoint
• Rate limits: No documented limits (self-hosted)
• Pagination: Uses pageSize and pageToken parameters
• Filtering: Google AIP-160 standard (e.g., tag == "work")

Memo Format

Memos support full Markdown syntax:

• Headers, lists, code blocks
• Links and images
• Task lists (- [ ] and - [x])
• Tables

Visibility Options

• PRIVATE - Only you can see
• PROTECTED - Authenticated users can see
• PUBLIC - Anyone can see (RSS feed)

Best Practices

1. Use descriptive content: First line is preview in UI
2. Tag consistently: Use lowercase, hyphens for multi-word (e.g., "project-alpha")
3. Archive old memos: Keep workspace clean
4. Link related memos: Use memo relations for context

Common Errors

For error diagnosis, see references/troubleshooting.md.

Reference

Bundled references (load as needed):

• references/api-endpoints.md — API endpoint details
• references/quick-reference.md — command examples
• references/troubleshooting.md — common errors and fixes
• examples/quick-capture.md, examples/tagging-workflow.md, examples/search-patterns.md — worked examples

External:

• Official Docs: https://usememos.com/docs
• API Reference: https://usememos.com/docs/api

Agent Tool Usage

Run this skill's scripts with the Bash tool directly, from the skill directory:

bash scripts/memo-api.sh [args]