Tribal — Claude Code MCP server: team memory on Postgres
Keeps debugging notes, heuristics and decision rationale from your codebase and serves them to coding agents over MCP. Useful when that knowledge only lives in chat threads.
Open on GitHubWhat Tribal does
Tribal is a context engine for software work. It stores the things nobody writes down: what a debugging session taught you, rules of thumb, why a design went one way. Coding agents then pull that back through MCP, so Claude, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Cline and Zed start from accumulated team experience instead of a blank slate.
The server is written in Rust and sits on top of Postgres. You build it from source, which means a stable Rust 1.89+ toolchain plus nightly for rustfmt, Docker for the local database and test containers, and the just, sqlx-cli and cargo-deny utilities. Skip Docker and there is no local Postgres to talk to, so start with just db-up and follow it with just db-migrate.
Run it with just serve for stdio transport, or just serve-project <project_id> when you want a single project loaded. The repo ships a set of development tasks covering formatting, checks, tests and a full pre-push pass. MIT licensed.
What it helps with
- keep a hard-won bug analysis from disappearing into a chat log
- tell an agent why the codebase settled on a particular approach
- bring up a local Postgres and apply migrations in two commands
- run unit tests without a database connection
- share accumulated team knowledge across several coding agents
Example prompts for the agent
- Start the Tribal MCP server with
just serveand wire it into this project - Bring up the database and apply migrations:
just db-up, thenjust db-migrate - Run the server for one project:
just serve-project <project_id>
How to install Tribal
Install
The MCP registry has no launch command for it: see the repository README
Step by step, with commands for each platform: How to add an MCP server to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI and more
Questions about Tribal
How do I install Tribal in Claude Code?
There is no install command — you build the server from source. Clone the repository, change into the directory and run just db-up, just db-migrate, just check, just test in that order. Then start the server with just serve.
What does Tribal do?
It stores project notes, debugging findings and the reasoning behind decisions, then exposes them to coding agents over MCP. The knowledge stays on your own infrastructure.
What does Tribal need to run?
A stable Rust 1.89+ toolchain, a nightly toolchain for rustfmt, Docker for Postgres and test containers, and the just, sqlx-cli and cargo-deny utilities.
