ShieldCortex — Persistent Memory & Security for AI Agents

Give your AI agent a brain that persists between sessions — and protect it from memory poisoning attacks.

Description

ShieldCortex is a complete memory system with built-in security. It gives AI agents persistent, intelligent memory with semantic search, knowledge graphs, decay-based forgetting, and contradiction detection. Every memory write passes through a 6-layer defence pipeline that blocks prompt injection, credential leaks, and poisoning attacks.

Use when:

• You want your agent to remember things between sessions (decisions, preferences, architecture, context)
• You need semantic search across past memories (not just keyword matching)
• You want automatic memory consolidation, decay, and cleanup
• You want knowledge graph extraction from memories (entities, relationships)
• You need to protect memory from prompt injection or poisoning attacks
• You want credential leak detection in memory writes
• You want to audit what's been stored in and retrieved from memory
• You want to scan agent instruction files (SKILL.md, .cursorrules, CLAUDE.md) for hidden threats

Do NOT use when:

• You only need simple key-value storage (use a config file)
• You want ephemeral session-only context (use the agent's built-in context window)
• You need a vector database for RAG pipelines (ShieldCortex is agent memory, not document retrieval)

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18
• npm or pnpm

Install

npm install -g shieldcortex

For OpenClaw integration (installs the cortex-memory hook):

shieldcortex openclaw install

For Claude Code / VS Code / Cursor MCP integration:

shieldcortex install

Quick Start

As an OpenClaw hook (automatic)

After shieldcortex openclaw install, the hook activates on next restart:

• Auto-saves important session context on compaction
• Injects relevant past memories on session start
• "remember this: ..." keyword trigger saves memories inline

CLI Commands

# Check status
shieldcortex status

# Scan content for threats
shieldcortex scan "some text to check"

# Full security audit of your agent environment
shieldcortex audit

# Scan all installed skills/instruction files for hidden threats
shieldcortex scan-skills

# Scan a single skill file
shieldcortex scan-skill ./path/to/SKILL.md

# Build knowledge graph from existing memories
shieldcortex graph backfill

# Start the visual dashboard
shieldcortex --dashboard

As a Library (programmatic)

import {
  addMemory,
  getMemoryById,
  runDefencePipeline,
  scanSkill,
  extractFromMemory,
  consolidate,
  initDatabase
} from 'shieldcortex';

// Initialize
initDatabase('/path/to/memories.db');

// Add a memory (automatically passes through defence pipeline)
addMemory({
  title: 'API uses OAuth2',
  content: 'The payment API requires OAuth2 bearer tokens, not API keys',
  category: 'architecture',
  importance: 'high',
  project: 'my-project'
});

// Scan content before processing
const result = runDefencePipeline(untrustedContent, 'Email Import', {
  type: 'external',
  identifier: 'email-scanner'
});

if (result.allowed) {
  // Safe to process
}

// Extract knowledge graph entities
const { entities, triples } = extractFromMemory(
  'Database Migration',
  'We switched from MySQL to PostgreSQL for the auth service',
  'architecture'
);
// entities: [{name: 'MySQL', type: 'service'}, {name: 'PostgreSQL', type: 'service'}, ...]
// triples: [{subject: 'auth service', predicate: 'uses', object: 'PostgreSQL'}, ...]

Memory System Features

Feature	Description
Persistent Storage	SQLite-backed, survives restarts and compaction
Semantic Search	Find memories by meaning, not just keywords
Project Scoping	Isolate memories per project/workspace
Importance Levels	Critical, high, normal, low with auto-decay
Categories	Architecture, decisions, preferences, context, learnings, errors
Decay & Forgetting	Old, unaccessed memories fade — like a real brain
Consolidation	Automatic merging of similar/duplicate memories
Contradiction Detection	Flags when new memories conflict with existing ones
Knowledge Graph	Extracts entities and relationships from memories
Activation Scoring	Recently accessed memories get retrieval priority
Salience Scoring	Important memories surface first in search

Security Features

Layer	Protection
Input Sanitisation	Strip control characters, null bytes, dangerous formatting
Pattern Detection	Regex matching for known injection patterns
Anomaly Scoring	Entropy analysis, behavioural deviation detection
Credential Leak Detection	Blocks API keys, tokens, private keys (25+ patterns, 11 providers)
Trust Scoring	Source-based reliability scoring for memory writes
Audit Trail	Full forensic log of every memory operation
Skill Scanner	Detect prompt injection in SKILL.md, .cursorrules, CLAUDE.md

ShieldCortex Cloud (Optional)

Sync audit data to a team dashboard for cross-project visibility:

shieldcortex config set-api-key <your-key>

Free local package is unlimited. Cloud adds team dashboards, audit aggregation, and alerts.

Links

• npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/shieldcortex
• GitHub: https://github.com/Drakon-Systems-Ltd/ShieldCortex
• Website: https://shieldcortex.ai
• Docs: https://github.com/Drakon-Systems-Ltd/ShieldCortex#readme

70 Exported APIs

The library exports 70 named functions and types covering defence, memory, knowledge graph, skill scanning, and audit. Full list in the CHANGELOG.