Sources you add by hand

This page helps you give Memo one thing to remember: a file, a web page or text you paste. Memo keeps it as a document of its own, so you find it in search, an agent finds it when it looks something up, and facts can cite it. A watched folder is for many files that keep changing (Notes and folders); this page is for one source.

Add a sourceCopy Anchor Link

memo sources add ~/Downloads/runner-notes.pdf --subject project:3
memo sources add https://example.org/release-notes --title "Release notes"
pbpaste | memo sources add - --subject person:12

• Only the text is kept. Memo stores the text it read, the title and, for a page, the address you gave. It does not copy the file unless you add --keep-copy; then the file is copied into Memo's data folder, named by its content, so the same file added twice is kept once. --keep-copy takes a file only, not a page or pasted text.
• The same source twice is one source. Adding it again changes nothing but the subjects you add. A source whose content is already in a watched folder or in Drive is not stored again: the answer names that document as duplicate_of, and only the subjects are linked to it.
• --subject says who or what it is about: person:, organization:, project:, task:, meeting:, or a messenger contact such as telegram:'Kai Sample'. Repeat it for several. Your subjects count at once; an agent's wait unconfirmed until you confirm them.
• --title names it. Without one, Memo takes the page's or the file's own title, or the first line of the text.
• --max-chars keeps at most that many characters of text, up to 2,000,000 (default 200,000). The answer says truncated: true when only the first part was kept.

A picture or a scanned PDF has no text Memo can read: it is kept by its title and subjects only (read: "no-text").

What the answer saysCopy Anchor Link

memo sources add notes.txt --json

Look at a sourceCopy Anchor Link

memo sources show document:42
memo sources show document:42 --bytes 65536 --json
memo sources mentions document:42

sources show gives the text (16 KiB by default, --bytes for more), what it is (kind, the url you gave, file_name, mime, bytes), whether a copy is kept, the subjects with whether each is confirmed, and what cites it: facts, memories and the findings batches whose evidence names it. kept is copy only while the copy is still in Memo's data folder. Any other document shows with added: false and these fields null.

sources mentions lists the people and organizations Memo already knows whose names appear in the text, read on this computer. A person is found by a name Memo has seen in a messenger or a meeting, or by an e-mail address or phone number of theirs; an organization by its whole name. A name several people share lists each of them. Memo reads the names of up to 500 organizations; past that, the answer says so in missing.

Have a reader propose factsCopy Anchor Link

A reader is a model you choose that reads a source and proposes the facts in it. You confirm each one; nothing becomes a fact on its own.

memo sources readers list
memo sources readers set claude-code
memo sources suggest document:42 --subject person:12
memo actions confirm 17 fact-1 fact-3 --fingerprint <fingerprint>

Choose a reader once. memo sources readers list shows each reader: whether it is installed and signed in, its model, whether the text leaves this computer (leaves_computer), and whether it could open files here (reads_files). It runs one read-only check per reader and chooses nothing. memo sources readers set <reader> chooses one; only you choose, and until you do, sources suggest refuses with reader.none-chosen and names the readers.

An API reader takes its key from the system keyring, never from an environment variable or the command line: memo models keys set openai asks for it at a hidden prompt or reads it from stdin. memo models keys remove openai forgets it. The key is never printed.

What sources suggest does. It sends the source's stored text to the reader with an instruction to propose facts, each with the exact words they rest on, and treats the text as data, never as instructions. Then it checks each answer:

• the quote must be in the text word for word, with spacing and line breaks ignored; a fact whose quote is not there is dropped as quote-not-found;
• a fact needs a statement and one of the fact types (fact, statement, question, decision, promise);
• a fact already stored from this source is dropped and named as duplicate_of, and a fact repeated in the answer is kept once.

What remains is one findings batch that cites the source, each fact with its quote, staged by memo-reader with the reader and model as its model. Only you confirm it, even when agent_decisions is on: memo actions confirm <batch> [fact ids] --fingerprint <fingerprint> creates the facts you name and rejects the rest. A confirmed fact keeps its quote on its evidence, so a later source check knows which words it rests on. The answer lists the facts staged and the dropped ones with why.

Reading the same text again with the same reader, model and subject returns the batch it staged before with reused: true and does not ask the reader again. --rescan asks again. --subject says who or what every fact is about: person:, organization:, project: or task:. --provider and --model read with another reader once; only you may give them.

An agent in its terminal may run sources suggest, but only with the reader you chose, and the batch still waits for you. Over MCP it is not offered: an agent cannot send a source's text off this computer.

Remove a sourceCopy Anchor Link

memo sources remove document:42

Only you remove a source you added. Its text goes, the copy Memo kept is deleted, and the answer lists the facts and memories that cite it as facts and memories. Removing changes none of them: they keep their status, and the next source check of memo sync opens a review of each, citing a source that is gone, for you to decide. A file on your disk is never touched.

For an agentCopy Anchor Link

An agent in a terminal adds a source the same way, and its subjects wait for you to confirm them:

Use memo CLI to keep these meeting notes as a source about Northbridge Bench, then list the people named in it.

Over MCP, sources add takes text only: an agent cannot make Memo read a file on this computer or open an address. sources remove, sources suggest and sources readers set are not offered over MCP (The MCP server).

When adding failsCopy Anchor Link

Each refusal names its reason and what to do next; Troubleshooting lists them all, and the reasons a reader refuses. A link that needs you signed in, such as a private Google Doc, cannot be read this way: save it as a file and add the file.