IWE is an open-source tool for providing shared memory for individuals and AI agents. Its core idea is: your notes are the agent's memory, and iWe is where you and the agent work on notes together.
The problem it solves Many AI conversations start from scratch: you explain the project, decisions, and reasoning, and then have to explain it all over again in the next session. Your own notes live elsewhere, out of the agent's reach. Or the agent "remembers" something in its internal memory, but it is hard for you to see what it saved, you cannot correct mistakes, and that memory cannot be transferred to other agents you use. IWE lets you and AI agents share the same workspace within a project: a folder of interlinked Markdown documents containing specifications, plans, decisions, and more.
Main capabilities
- Shared context: agents can use the same notes you write for yourself, notes are interlinked, and a note can belong to multiple topics.
- Readable memory: decisions and lessons saved by agents are ordinary notes that you can browse, correct, or delete.
- Notes belong to you: everything is Markdown in a local folder and can be backed up, synced, or placed under git. No IWE cloud account is needed to save notes.
Four ways to use it
- Native Mac app: open a notes folder for a fast, keyboard-friendly space for writing and browsing, and you can also connect an existing Claude/Codex agent to work together.
- Your own editor: keep writing in Neovim, Helix, VS Code, or Zed, with IWE adding link autocompletion, backlinks, search, and safe cross-note renaming.
- Command line: search, create, and reorganize notes in the terminal, or integrate it into scripts. The CLI does not include AI, and these commands can be used independently.
- Agent memory: let Claude/Codex save decisions, find past work, and organize what has been learned.
All four ways act on the same set of Markdown documents, can be mixed freely, and each tool can also be used independently.
About AI models Neither the IWE CLI nor the iWe Mac app includes an AI model, and both can be used independently as note-taking tools. When you need AI help, use the Claude/Codex agent you already have—either in the terminal or directly in the Mac app. IWE is not tied to a single AI, and the same set of notes can be used with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Gemini, Cursor, and any tool that supports the Model Context Protocol.
How to use it (commands provided in the materials) Installation: can be installed via Homebrew, or choose another method in the installation guide. Run in the notes folder:
iwe find
This command lists notes;--lexical is used to search note contents. See the CLI reference and workflow examples for more.
Providing memory for Claude/Codex: for Claude Code, after installing the plugin, run in any project where you want it to be remembered /iwe:init. For Codex, follow the agent connection steps.
Connecting other agents: After installing Homebrew, install IWE, run it in the notes folder, iwe init, then follow the agent connection guide to add the iwec MCP server, and set that folder as its working directory.
After connecting, you can ask the agent to: "Explore my IWE notes and summarize what's here."
The material also mentions a piece of self-starting content that can be pasted into any agent that can run commands, but the original text does not show the specific contents of that code block, so it is not provided here for now.
Applicable scenarios Planning, diagrams, technical documentation, publishing, etc. The material lists ready-made workspaces: dev-workspace (project memory for coding agents), marketing-workspace (campaign memory for marketing agents).
Limitations The IWE CLI and Mac app themselves do not include an AI model; connecting an AI agent involves that agent's own settings and account requirements. The CLI and MCP server are the currently supported integration methods.
