Using it

Install

You have	Do this
A Mac	Download Geniuz.dmg and drag it to Applications. To use geniuz in a terminal, use Settings → Copy Install Command in the menubar.
Windows 11	Download Geniuz-Setup.exe. It installs per user, with no admin prompt.
Linux	Run the command below, or see the releases for .deb, AppImage and tarballs (x86_64 and arm64).

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jackccrawford/geniuz/main/install.sh | bash

The script installs to ~/.geniuz/bin/. To build from source, see below.

From source

git clone https://github.com/jackccrawford/geniuz && cd geniuz
cargo build --release --bin geniuz
cp target/release/geniuz ~/.local/bin/

To build the dashboard as well: cd desktop/dashboard && cargo tauri build.

Connect your AI

You use	Next step
Claude Desktop	Connects by itself when Geniuz opens. Restart Claude Desktop once. To connect by hand: geniuz mcp install
Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf	geniuz skill prints instructions to give your agent
Your own agents	Call geniuz keep and geniuz recall from a shell, or run geniuz mcp serve

Then keep talking. Your AI saves what matters as you go. Tomorrow, in a new chat, ask it what you told it today.

Commands

geniuz keep -c "what happened" -g "category: short summary"
geniuz keep -c @notes.md -g "session: review"
echo "content" | geniuz keep -c - -g "piped: from a process"
geniuz keep -c "follow-up" -g "update" -p 98672A90

geniuz recall "topic"
geniuz recall "topic" --since 7d
geniuz recall --grep Cubic --grep PR
geniuz recall --thread 98672A90
geniuz recall --keyword "exact words"
geniuz recall --random
geniuz recall --full "topic"
geniuz recall --json "topic"

geniuz recall
geniuz recall -l 5
geniuz recall --all "topic"
geniuz recall 13625F6B:3487B9B0
geniuz tui
geniuz dashboard
geniuz capture ./docs/
geniuz backfill
geniuz status
geniuz watch
geniuz mcp install
geniuz mcp status
geniuz mcp serve
geniuz settings list

geniuz remember still works as another name for keep, and geniuz recent for recall with no search. keep and recall take --in <folder>, as does every other command that reads or writes memories.

Folders

geniuz folder list
geniuz folder list --archived
geniuz folder show Work
geniuz folder create Work -d "Client projects. No passwords here."
geniuz folder create Notes --at ~/notes
geniuz folder use Work
geniuz folder rename Work Clients
geniuz folder describe Clients "Client projects, and who owns them."
geniuz folder add /some/directory
geniuz folder remove /some/directory
geniuz folder move Clients --to /some/directory
geniuz folder archive Clients
geniuz folder restore Clients
geniuz folder pin Clients
geniuz folder unpin Clients

In the dashboard, folders are in the sidebar and in the Folders menu. Click the pin beside a name to keep it at the top of every list. Keep has a pulldown for choosing a folder, and Find can search any selection of them. To give a project its own folder, put the folder’s name in a .geniuz-folder file in the project.

Editing a description keeps the old wording. Your first folder, “My memory”, can be renamed, but it can’t be moved or archived, because other files live beside it.

Keyboard shortcuts

In the dashboard. Change any of these under Settings, and the menu follows at once.

Keys, on a Mac	What they do
⌘N	Keep
⌘K	Find
⌘0	Memories in this folder
⌘1 to ⌘9	Your first nine folders, in sidebar order (not changeable)
⇧⌘N	New folder
⌘B	Show or hide the sidebar
⇧⌘S	Status
⌘,	Settings
⇧⌘E	Export this folder
⌘R	Refresh

On Windows and Linux, use Ctrl in place of ⌘.

Good to know

Note on geniuz watch --exec. Your command runs through the shell with your own rights. {gist}, {content} and {json} reach it as shell variables, so put them in double quotes, not single. Shell syntax in a memory does not run.

Do not store secrets. A memory cannot be removed through Geniuz.

Where your data lives

Everything is under ~/.geniuz/ unless you moved it: memory.db, one directory per folder you made, archive/, models/, settings.json and bin/. A few small files hold your choices: current, added-folders, pinned-folders and shortcuts.json.

To back up, use Export under Data & Export in the dashboard, which saves the folder in use as one complete file. Time Machine and similar tools are fine too. A backup is a file to keep, not a folder to use: it holds the same permanent IDs, so Geniuz refuses it while the original is present.

Do not copy a folder by hand to use it elsewhere. A copy of a live database can lose recent memories, and copies aren’t supported. Use geniuz folder move.

Read the schema freely, and write through Geniuz, which keeps embeddings and identity right.

Settings

Variable	What it does
GENIUZ_HOME	Where Geniuz keeps its files
GENIUZ_DB	Use one specific memory file, for the CLI and MCP
GENIUZ_MODELS_PATH	Where the model is stored
GENIUZ_EMBED_URL, GENIUZ_EMBED_MODEL	The embedding service to try if the built-in model fails to load
GENIUZ_EMBED_SOCKET, GENIUZ_EMBED_SPAWN, GENIUZ_EMBED_IDLE	Control the embed helper