Pre-compression capture + human-editable markdown tree; tiered retrieval (cache → FTS → LLM fallback). Primary cache/FTS paths are sub-100ms and LLM-free; cloud sync is optional.
Deep diveByteRover deep dive: is letting the agent curate its own memory actually safe?Read →- Storage
- Local markdown + brv CLI (optional cloud sync)
- Retrieval
- Tiered read path: cache lookup → full-text search → LLM-powered search as last-resort fallback only. Primary cache/FTS paths are sub-100ms and LLM-free; LLM fallback uses the configured provider (Ollama, LM Studio, or any of 20+ supported providers) and can be kept local.
- Self-host
- Self-host: trivial
- License
- Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2) — source-available, not OSI-approved open source
- Pricing
- Free (local, plus cloud sync for up to 100 context files); Pro $15/month billed yearly (unlimited context files, priority support); Enterprise custom (SSO/SAML, on-premise deployment, SOC 2 Type II infrastructure). · Free + paid
- GitHub stars
- 4,936
- Last release
- 2026-05-27
- Last commit
- 2026-06-25
- First catalogued
- 2026-06-28
Strengths
- Captures decisions before context compaction
- Git-friendly markdown
- Fast, no-LLM reads
- Human-in-the-loop review queue — curated writes can require explicit approve/reject before they land in the canonical context tree (opt-out per project via `brv review --disable`)
Watch out
- brv CLI dependency; manual-ish curation
- Licensed under Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2), not a permissive OSS license — the repo is public and source-visible, but ELv2 bars offering the software as a hosted/managed service and bars circumventing license-key functionality. Confirm compatibility before forking, embedding, or redistributing; this is a materially different commitment than the MIT/Apache-2.0 licenses used by most of the rest of this family.
- The curator can hallucinate facts it never saw: an open GitHub issue (#647, filed 2026-05-13, still unresolved as of 2026-07-15) documents `brv curate` writing prompt-example text into the context tree as if it were sourced fact when using a Gemini Flash-Lite provider — a real instance of the write-stage hallucination risk that applies to any LLM-curated memory store, not just this one.
- Young and still churning: renamed from Cipher to ByteRover CLI in April 2026, and the README already marks several commands 'legacy' (`brv push`/`brv pull` superseded by `brv vc push`/`brv vc pull`) or 'deprecated' (`brv space`). Budget time for breaking changes if you depend on a stable CLI surface.
Best for
- Coding agents wanting Git-like, versioned, team-synced memory
- Cursor / Claude Code / Windsurf users needing one portable memory layer across 22+ tools
How it integrates
Benchmark results
| Benchmark | Value | Backbone | Trust | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| locomo | 92.2 accuracy | Gemini 3 Flash (curation/judge) + Gemini 3 Pro (answer/justifier, best run) | Self-reported | ByteRover ↗ |
| locomo | 96.1 accuracy | Gemini 3 Flash (curation/query) + Gemini 3.1 Pro (justifier) | Self-reported | ByteRover team (Nguyen et al.) ↗ |
Sources
- Pricing page re-checked — unchanged: Free (100 context files synced to cloud, cross-device sync, team collaboration); Pro $15/mo billed yearly (unlimited context files, 24h email response); Enterprise custom (SOC 2, SSO/SAML, RBAC, on-premise) (vendor)
- Monthly card re-verification — GitHub API repo metadata: 4,928 stars, GitHub reports no auto-detectable SPDX license (card license recorded from the repo's own LICENSE file), archived=false, last commit on the default branch 2026-06-25 (third-party)
- https://www.byterover.dev/ (vendor)
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01599 (paper)
- https://github.com/campfirein/byterover-cli (vendor)
- ByteRover CLI 2.0 — tiered retrieval ('cache lookup → full-text search → LLM-powered search only when necessary'); local-first by default, cloud optional; 22+ coding agents (vendor)
- GitHub API — stars 4887, pushed 2026-06-25 (third-party)
- ByteRover CLI reference — `brv mcp` (stdio to agent, Socket.IO to daemon; brv-query/brv-curate tools); `brv connectors install` for Claude Code/Cursor/Windsurf; no native IDE extension (vendor)
- ByteRover V4 quickstart — supported agents include Codex (default 'Skill' connector + dedicated Codex CLI page /v4/agents/codex-cli), plus Claude Code/Cursor/Windsurf/Gemini CLI/Copilot (vendor)
- GitHub API re-check — stars 4889, latest release still v3.16.1 (2026-05-27), no new tag since prior verification (third-party)
- byterover-cli LICENSE file — Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2) full text; GitHub API repo license field returns NOASSERTION/'Other', confirmed by fetching the raw LICENSE file, which resolves the prior card's ambiguous 'OSS*' notation (vendor)
- GitHub API re-check for the deep-dive — stars 4918, forks 454, open issues 18, latest release still v3.16.1 (2026-05-27); no new tag since 2026-06-30 (third-party)
- ByteRover pricing page — Free $0/mo (100 synced context files), Pro $15/mo billed yearly (unlimited context files), Enterprise custom (SSO/SAML, on-premise) (vendor)
- README (main, fetched 2026-07-15) — review workflow (brv review pending/approve/reject, per-project brv review --disable), SOC 2 Type II certified cloud infrastructure with privacy mode, brv push/pull marked Legacy in favor of brv vc push/pull, brv space marked Deprecated (vendor)
- Byterover CLI: A deep dive into our move from MCP to CLI — vendor's own account of why the primary integration surface shifted from an MCP-server-first design to CLI-first (context-window bloat from loading MCP tool defs upfront; three MCP servers alone consumed 26% of context in their example) (vendor)
- We tested Markdown vs HTML for agent memory: HTML won — vendor's own 603-question benchmark (271 curated LoCoMo sessions) found HTML 5.9% more accurate, 42.4% cheaper, and 39.2% faster than Markdown for the agent-facing read path, with the caveat 'we are developing this feature' — not yet the shipping default as of this verification (vendor)
- ByteRover CLI: Git for Your AI's Memory — independent third-party review (Starlog/Rob Ragan); praises the git-like context-tree versioning and human-review-before-commit workflow, flags 'biggest limitation is its maturity level' (Cipher rebrand, deprecated 'spaces', legacy commands), ELv2 enterprise-cloud friction, and a still-small community (4.7k stars at time of review) versus established alternatives (third-party)
- GitHub issue #647, 'Curator can copy prompt example facts into the context tree when using Gemini Flash-Lite' — filed 2026-05-13, open as of 2026-07-15; a concrete write-stage hallucination bug in brv curate (third-party)
- GitHub issue #301, 'Cipher is now ByteRover CLI' — the rename announcement, dated 2026-04-01 (vendor)
- Monthly re-check — license field still NOASSERTION at API level (raw LICENSE.md confirms Elastic License 2.0), not archived, latest release still v3.16.1 (2026-05-27) (third-party)
- Pricing page re-check — unchanged: Free (100 synced context files), Pro $15/mo billed yearly (unlimited files), Enterprise custom (SSO/SAML, on-prem) (vendor)
- Issue #647 re-check — still open as of 2026-07-23 (third-party)
Last verified 2026-08-01 · updated by refresh-framework-cards