ContextLayer

ContextLayer

Local reasoning timelines for serious questions.

ContextLayer is a desktop app for structured investigation. You open a workspace for a question you are working through (a product bet, a strategic call, a security assessment, a debugging rabbit hole). Each block on the timeline records what you believe, what you tried, what you observed, and what you concluded.

A health panel flags open loops, stale threads, and dead ends so unfinished reasoning does not disappear into scattered notes.

Data stays on your machine in SQLite (%USERPROFILE%\.contextlayer\graph.db).

MCP (recommended if you use Cursor or Claude)

ContextLayer ships with an optional MCP server that reads and writes the same database as the desktop app. While you investigate in chat, you can ask the agent to log blocks, update evidence on a block by title, list what is in a workspace, or check hygiene (orphans, stale items, dead ends). Less copy-paste from chat into the app; your reasoning graph stays current as you work.

Setup: [docs/MCP-SETUP.md](./docs/MCP-SETUP.md) · Commands: [docs/COMMANDS-CHEATSHEET.md](./docs/COMMANDS-CHEATSHEET.md) · MCP tools: [docs/MCP-TOOLS.md](./docs/MCP-TOOLS.md) · Agent prompts: [docs/mcp-cursor-cheatsheet.md](./docs/mcp-cursor-cheatsheet.md)

> Not a notes app. Typed hypothesis / action / evidence / conclusion fields, not a freeform vault. Cloud sync is not in this release.

Friends beta (source only): build from source; see [docs/BETA-LAUNCH-CHECKLIST.md](./docs/BETA-LAUNCH-CHECKLIST.md), [docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md](./docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md), and [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md).

Documentation (start here)

| Doc | Use when | |-----|----------| | [COMMANDS-CHEATSHEET.md](./docs/COMMANDS-CHEATSHEET.md) | Quick reference — desktop, recorder CLI, capture gate, MCP essentials | | [MCP-SETUP.md](./docs/MCP-SETUP.md) | Wire MCP into Cursor / Claude Desktop | | [MCP-TOOLS.md](./docs/MCP-TOOLS.md) | Full MCP tool list + params | | [mcp-cursor-cheatsheet.md](./docs/mcp-cursor-cheatsheet.md) | Example prompts + save_block fields | | [TROUBLESHOOTING.md](./docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md) | Something broke |

• [ContextLayerPRD.md](./ContextLayerPRD.md) — locked v1.0 spec
• [docs/PRD-addendum-blocks.md](./docs/PRD-addendum-blocks.md) — blocks, belief states, hygiene roadmap
• [docs/FUTURE-IMPLEMENTATION.md](./docs/FUTURE-IMPLEMENTATION.md) — post-beta backlog (PR export, collaboration, Graphify/Linear inspo)
• [docs/B1-PR-EXPORT-SPEC.md](./docs/B1-PR-EXPORT-SPEC.md) — Phase 1 PR export (multi-select → markdown)
• [docs/PITCH.md](./docs/PITCH.md) — concise read-off pitch
• [docs/DESIGN-PARTNER-OUTREACH.md](./docs/DESIGN-PARTNER-OUTREACH.md) — 30-day design partner ops (Twitter, DMs, metrics)
• [docs/PRD-addendum-merged-vision.md](./docs/PRD-addendum-merged-vision.md) — merged product scope (ContextLayer × GitLLM)

Prerequisites

1. Rust — rustup.rs (required for Tauri)
2. Node.js 20+
3. Tauri prerequisites (Windows) — tauri.app/start/prerequisites

Windows: cargo not found after install

If npm run tauri dev says program not found for cargo, Rust is installed but your terminal session does not have it on PATH yet. Either close and reopen the terminal (or restart Cursor), or run once in that session:

$env:Path = "$env:USERPROFILE\.cargo\bin;" + $env:Path

Build fails with E0119 / cookie / tauri-utils (Jun 2026)

Rust 1.89+ plus time 0.3.48 triggers blanket-impl conflicts in Tauri’s dependency tree. This repo pins time to 0.3.47 in Cargo.lock. If you regenerate the lockfile, run:

cargo update -p time --precise 0.3.47

Track upstream: time-rs/time#783, tauri-apps/tauri#15525.

Development

Clone from GitHub (Code → copy URL), then:

cd ContextLayer
npm run desktop:install   # once
npm run dev

Use the Tauri desktop window, not the Vite browser tab.

Alternative from apps/desktop:

cd apps/desktop
npm install
npm run tauri dev

Database path: %USERPROFILE%\.contextlayer\graph.db

MCP build

See the [MCP section](#mcp-recommended-if-you-use-cursor-or-claude) above. Build the binary from repo root:

cargo build -p contextlayer-mcp --release

Copy [.cursor/mcp.json.example](./.cursor/mcp.json.example) → .cursor/mcp.json and set the absolute path to target/release/contextlayer-mcp.exe (or a stable copy elsewhere). Full steps: [docs/MCP-SETUP.md](./docs/MCP-SETUP.md).

The desktop app does not need to be running while MCP is in use.

Workspace layout

ContextLayer/
├── apps/
│   ├── desktop/        # Tauri 2 + React UI
│   ├── mcp-server/     # stdio MCP read/write lane
│   ├── recorder/       # opt-in Cursor transcript capture
│   └── trace-cli/      # trace CI for PRs
├── crates/
│   ├── core/           # domain types + admission validation
│   ├── db/             # SQLite migrations
│   ├── export/         # compile + import
│   └── trace/          # capture log, recorder, trace CI
├── migrations/
└── fixtures/workspaces/

What is (and is not) in this repo

Shipped with the product: source, migrations, docs/, [ContextLayerPRD.md](./ContextLayerPRD.md), and [.cursor/mcp.json.example](./.cursor/mcp.json.example) for MCP setup.

Local only (gitignored): .taskmaster/ (internal task planning), .cursor/mcp.json and other Cursor IDE files, .env, target/, node_modules/, and *.db under your user profile. See [.env.example](./.env.example) for optional MCP env vars.

Locked invariants (do not drift)

• Four stored types only — Constraint is not first-class
• Conclusions require ≥1 hypothesis + ≥1 evidence link
• Phase 1 UI: blocks are manual or MCP-logged; opt-in live capture via start_capture + recorder (not always-on)
• Compile outputs are views over the graph, never shadow schema

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: sstanley-yelnatss
• Source: sstanley-yelnatss/ContextLayer
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.