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FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Lore.

What's the difference between Lore and a memory system?

Memory systems store processed facts without attribution. Lore preserves original documents so you can cite exactly what was said, by whom, and when. When an AI tool uses Lore, it can say "In the Jan 15 interview, Sarah said..." rather than just "Users want faster exports."

What does sync cost?

Discovery (Phase 1) is free — Lore computes content hashes and checks which files are new without any LLM calls. Only new files trigger LLM processing (Phase 2) for metadata extraction and embedding generation. Re-syncing existing files costs nothing.

Can multiple people share a knowledge base?

Not yet. Each user's data is isolated via Postgres Row Level Security. Team sharing is planned for a future release.

What file formats are supported?

Markdown, JSONL, JSON, plain text, CSV, HTML, XML, PDF, and images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP). Claude extracts metadata automatically during sync — including EXIF data from images and transcripts from structured JSON.

When you add a sync source with lore sync add, the default glob is **/* (all files). Use --glob to restrict to specific types if needed. The ingest MCP tool accepts any text content directly — just tell your AI "save this to lore."

Do I need to set up any infrastructure?

No. The backend (Supabase with pgvector) is fully hosted. Just install, log in, and bring your own OpenAI and Anthropic API keys.

How does multi-machine sync work?

Run lore setup on each machine with the same email. Your data repo URL is saved to your account, so new machines discover and clone it automatically. Lore deduplicates by content hash (SHA256), so nothing gets indexed twice even if the same document is synced from multiple machines.

How much does it cost to use?

Lore itself is free. You pay for your own API keys:

Is my data private?

Yes. Documents are stored in your local data directory and a Supabase database scoped to your user ID. Row Level Security ensures only you can access your data. API keys are stored locally in ~/.config/lore/config.json with restricted file permissions.

Can I use Lore without MCP?

Yes. The CLI works standalone:

  • lore search "query" — search from the terminal
  • lore browse — interactive TUI browser
  • lore research "question" — AI-powered research

MCP integration is optional but recommended for AI-assisted workflows.

What AI tools work with Lore?

Any MCP-compatible client: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, Codex CLI, and more. See the MCP Setup guide for platform-specific configuration.

Setup says my API key is invalid — what should I do?

During setup, Lore validates your OpenAI and Anthropic keys against the live APIs. If validation fails:

  • 401 Unauthorized — the key is wrong or revoked. Double-check it at platform.openai.com/api-keys or console.anthropic.com/settings/keys.
  • Connection timed out — your network may be blocking API calls. Try again or check your firewall/proxy settings.
  • Rate limited — this actually means the key is valid. Lore treats rate-limit responses as a pass.

You can continue setup with an invalid key and fix it later by editing ~/.config/lore/config.json or re-running lore setup.

The background daemon reports Git repair needed — how do I fix it?

Run:

lore sync repair

This rebuilds generated caches such as sources/.paths.json, imports local deletion cache entries into Lore Cloud, updates .gitignore, and untracks generated files that should not participate in Git merges. It refuses to auto-resolve real source-content conflicts and prints the exact files that need manual review.

Git is optional local history for LORE_DATA_DIR; Lore Cloud/Supabase remains the primary sync layer. If a push fails after repair, retry manually with git push from the data directory or re-run lore sync repair.

The background daemon can't push or pull optional Git history — how do I fix it?

Check the daemon logs with lore sync logs. Common issues:

  • "Permission denied (publickey)" — the daemon doesn't have SSH agent access. If you use an SSH remote, HTTPS remotes with credential caching are more reliable for background sync.
  • "Could not resolve host" — network is down. The daemon retries automatically every 5 minutes.
  • "Authentication failed" — git credentials expired. Run gh auth login to refresh, then lore sync restart.

These Git failures should not block Lore Cloud-backed search or daemon context refresh. They only affect optional data-dir Git history.

Setup says "git not installed" — is Git required?

No. Lore Cloud/Supabase is the primary sync layer across machines. Git is useful optional local history for the data directory, and setup may warn if it is missing or not configured. Install it from git-scm.com/downloads if you want that history. If you see a warning about git user not being configured, run:

git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Your Name"