mem0/cli/node/development.md

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm (npm install -g pnpm)

Setup

From the node/ directory:

pnpm install

Running the CLI

There are two ways to run the CLI during development:

Option 1: Development mode (no build needed)

Uses tsx to run TypeScript directly. Pass CLI arguments after pnpm dev:

pnpm dev --help
pnpm dev version
pnpm dev add "test memory" --user-id alice
pnpm dev search "test" --user-id alice
pnpm dev config show

Note: Do NOT use pnpm dev -- --help. With pnpm, arguments pass through directly — adding -- inserts a literal -- that breaks the CLI parser.

Option 2: Build and run compiled JS

# Build first
pnpm build

# Run the compiled CLI
node dist/index.js --help
node dist/index.js version
node dist/index.js add "test memory" --user-id alice

Option 3: Link globally (makes mem0 available system-wide)

pnpm build
pnpm link --global

# Now use it like a normal CLI
mem0 --help
mem0 version

Warning: If you also have the Python CLI installed, both register the mem0 command. The last one linked/installed wins. Unlink with pnpm unlink --global.

Build

pnpm build

The compiled output is in dist/.

Run tests

# Run all tests
pnpm test

# Watch mode
pnpm test:watch

Lint

# Check
pnpm lint

# Auto-fix
pnpm lint:fix

Type checking

pnpm typecheck