⚡ Recall

Your terminal has perfect memory.

Install • Quick Start • Features • Commands • Architecture • Contributing

Recall is a local-first, fully offline, privacy-first CLI tool that eliminates Command Amnesia — the #1 flow-state killer for developers and engineers.

It doesn't just search your history. It understands intent.

$ recall "find large files over 100mb"

╭─ Best Match (confidence: 97%) ──────────────────────────╮
│ find . -type f -size +100M -exec ls -lh {} \;           │
│                                                          │
│ 📂 Used 14 times in ~/projects/                          │
│ 🕐 Last used: 3 days ago                                 │
│ 🏷️  Tags: find, disk, cleanup                            │
│                                                          │
│ [Enter] Execute  [e] Edit  [c] Copy  [Tab] More results  │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

No internet. No API keys. No subscriptions. Nothing ever leaves your machine.

The Problem

Every developer does this 12–25 times per day:

1. Deep in flow, building something important
2. Need a command — can't remember the exact syntax
3. Ctrl+R... nope
4. Open browser → Google → Stack Overflow → scroll past ads → copy-paste
5. Paste back into terminal
6. Flow state: DESTROYED. Cost: 5–23 minutes per interruption.

That's 60–120 minutes of productive time lost every day. Over a year, an entire month of engineering time — gone to Google.

Existing tools don't fix this:

Tool	Why It Fails
`tldr`	You must already know the command name
`fzf` + `Ctrl+R`	Dumb string matching — no intent understanding
Warp / Copilot CLI	Cloud-dependent, $15/mo, sends your history to servers
`man` pages	4,000 lines of text for a one-line answer
`cheat.sh`	Requires internet. Generic. Doesn't know YOUR patterns

Recall fills the gap. The only tool that is:

✅ 100% offline — zero network calls, ever
✅ Intent-aware — understands "kill node process", not just kill
✅ Personal — learns YOUR commands and YOUR patterns
✅ Contextual — knows your cwd, git branch, project type
✅ Instant — <10ms response time on local SQLite+FTS5
✅ Zero-config — works immediately after recall init

Installation

Homebrew (macOS / Linux) — Recommended

brew tap Om-Rohilla/tap
brew install recall

One-Line Install Script

curl -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Om-Rohilla/recall/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

macOS users: Binary is not yet notarized (planned for v1.1). The installer automatically removes the Gatekeeper quarantine flag. If you install manually, run:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /usr/local/bin/recall

Download Binary

Pre-built binaries for every platform are on the Releases page:

Platform	File
macOS (Apple Silicon)	`recall_*_macOS_arm64.tar.gz`
macOS (Intel)	`recall_*_macOS_x86_64.tar.gz`
Linux (x86_64)	`recall_*_linux_x86_64.tar.gz`

Build From Source

git clone https://github.com/Om-Rohilla/recall.git
cd recall
CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -tags sqlite_fts5 -o recall .
sudo mv recall /usr/local/bin/

Requirements

macOS 11+ or Linux (kernel 4.x+)
Bash 4.0+, Zsh 5.0+, or Fish 3.0+
~30MB disk space
No internet connection required — ever

Quick Start

# 1. Initialize (installs shell hook, creates encrypted vault)
recall init

# 2. Restart your shell (or source your rc file)
source ~/.zshrc   # or ~/.bashrc / ~/.config/fish/config.fish

# 3. Start using it immediately
recall "compress a folder to tar.gz"
recall "undo last git commit"
recall "docker remove all stopped containers"
recall "find and kill process on port 3000"

Tip: After recall init, every command you run is automatically captured and indexed in the background — you don't need to do anything.

Features

🔍 Intent Search — Describe What You Want

Don't remember the exact command? Just describe it:

$ recall "find files modified in the last 24 hours"

╭─ Best Match (confidence: 94%) ──────────────────────────╮
│ find . -type f -mtime -1                                 │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Interactive TUI lets you navigate, preview, copy, or execute results directly.

🌍 Context-Aware — Knows Where You Are

~/myapp (git:feature/auth) $ recall "undo last commit"

╭─ Context: Git repo · branch: feature/auth ──────────────╮
│ git reset --soft HEAD~1                                   │
│                                                           │
│ ⚠️  Soft reset — keeps changes staged                     │
│ 💡 You're on a feature branch (safe to reset)             │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Uses your current directory, git state, project type, and recent command history to surface the most relevant result.

🔐 Command Vault — AES-256 Encrypted

Every command you run is silently captured, parsed for secrets, and stored in an encrypted SQLite vault:

$ recall vault   # Opens interactive TUI browser

📊 12,847 commands  |  342 unique patterns  |  🔒 Encrypted
🔥 Most used this week: git commit, docker compose up, kubectl get pods
💎 Rare but valuable: that openssl command from 3 months ago

Browse, filter, and manage your history by category, project, frequency, or recency.

Backup tip: The vault is a single SQLite file (default ~/.local/share/recall/vault.db). In WAL mode, a complete backup requires copying both vault.db and any vault.db-wal file while Recall is not running. Use recall export for a safe, encrypted backup.

🧠 Explain Mode — Understand Any Command

$ recall explain "find . -name '*.log' -mtime +30 -delete"

find .               ← search current directory
  -name '*.log'      ← files ending in .log
  -mtime +30         ← modified more than 30 days ago
  -delete            ← ⚠️ DELETE matching files permanently

⚠️  DESTRUCTIVE: This permanently deletes files.
💡 Remove -delete and add -print first to preview.

💡 Smart Aliases — Auto-Generated From Your Patterns

$ recall suggest-aliases

You type this 23×/week:
  docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d
→ Suggested alias: dcdev

[a] Accept all  [s] Select  [i] Ignore

📦 Compose Mode — Build Commands Interactively

Guided wizard for constructing complex commands from parts.

📊 Stats & Wrapped — Know Your Terminal Habits

$ recall stats          # Usage stats, streaks, top commands
$ recall wrapped        # Weekly Terminal Wrapped — your CLI story
$ recall roast          # AI-style playful roast of your CLI habits

🔗 Share — Generate Beautiful Command Cards

$ recall share "git log --oneline --graph --all"
✅ SVG card generated → ./recall_share_git_log.svg

Generates a gorgeous, shareable SVG image of any command for tweets, blog posts, or documentation.

☁️ Sync — E2E Encrypted Cross-Device Sync

$ recall sync           # Sync vault across all your machines

Uses GitHub Gists as a zero-infrastructure backend. Your vault is encrypted before it leaves your device — even GitHub cannot read your data.

⌨️ Hotkey Integration

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+Space`	Inline search — never leave your prompt
`Ctrl+E`	Explain command at current prompt
`Ctrl+K`	Open vault browser

🔌 Plugin System — Pure WASM Sandbox

Extend Recall without touching your file system or network:

recall plugin install my-plugin.wasm
recall plugin list
recall plugin run my-plugin

Plugins run in a pure WebAssembly (WASI) sandbox via wazero. Zero file system access. Zero network access. Zero environment variable leakage.

Privacy & Security

Recall was designed from the ground up to be privacy-first. Here's exactly how:

Guarantee	Implementation
Nothing leaves your machine	Zero network calls in core binary. `recall sync` uses E2E encryption before upload.
Vault encrypted at rest	AES-256-GCM via SQLCipher. Key stored in OS keyring with file-based fallback.
Secrets never stored	50+ pattern filter blocks `password=`, `token=`, JWTs, API keys, PATs, Stripe keys, hex strings, env exports.
FTS5 injection hardened	All search queries sanitized — operator injection is not possible.
Crash-safe	SIGTERM/SIGINT handlers wipe any in-memory sensitive data before exit.
Rate limited	50ms minimum capture interval prevents flood/DoS from scripts.
Plugin isolation	WASM sandbox — plugins cannot access FS, network, or env vars.
Open source	Every line is auditable at github.com/Om-Rohilla/recall.

All Commands

Command	Description
`recall "query"`	Search by intent (main command)
`recall explain "cmd"`	Break down any command with safety warnings
`recall vault`	Browse your personal command vault (interactive TUI)
`recall stats`	Usage statistics, streaks, and top patterns
`recall wrapped`	Weekly Terminal Wrapped summary
`recall roast`	Playful roast of your CLI habits
`recall share "cmd"`	Generate a shareable SVG card of a command
`recall suggest-aliases`	Get smart alias suggestions from your patterns
`recall compose`	Interactively build complex commands
`recall sync`	E2E encrypted cross-device sync via GitHub Gists
`recall init`	First-time setup — vault creation + shell hook install
`recall import-history`	Import existing shell history into vault
`recall export`	Export vault backup (encrypted)
`recall import`	Import vault backup
`recall config`	View and edit configuration
`recall plugin list\|install\|run`	Manage WASM plugins
`recall version`	Show version and build info
`recall completion`	Generate shell completion scripts

Run recall --help or recall <command> --help for full flag reference.

How It Works

Recall uses a 4-stage local scoring pipeline — no LLM, no API, no cloud:

Query: "find big files"
    ↓
1. Intent Extraction — tokenize, expand synonyms, detect category
    ↓
2. Candidate Fetch — FTS5 full-text search across vault + 500+ knowledge base entries
    ↓
3. Multi-Signal Scoring:
   • Text relevance   (30%) — TF-IDF + trigram matching
   • Intent match     (25%) — does it accomplish the stated goal?
   • Personal freq    (20%) — how often YOU use this command
   • Context match    (15%) — same project/directory/git branch?
   • Recency          (10%) — recently used commands rank higher
    ↓
4. Rank → Present top result with confidence score

Response time: <10ms. Everything runs locally against an embedded SQLite database with FTS5 full-text search. No model inference. No API round-trips.

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Language	Go 1.24+
CLI framework	Cobra
TUI	Bubbletea + Lipgloss
Storage	SQLite + FTS5 (via go-sqlcipher, AES-256)
Encryption	AES-256-GCM (SQLCipher) + Argon2id (exports)
Key storage	OS keyring (zalando/go-keyring)
Sync backend	GitHub Gists (E2E encrypted)
Plugin runtime	wazero (pure WASM/WASI)
Config format	TOML
Shell hooks	Bash / Zsh / Fish
Release	GoReleaser + Homebrew tap

Single static binary. No runtime dependencies. No Docker. No daemons.

Project Structure

recall/
├── main.go                # Entry point
├── cmd/                   # All CLI commands (Cobra)
│   ├── search.go          # Main intent search
│   ├── vault.go           # TUI vault browser
│   ├── explain.go         # Command explainer
│   ├── compose.go         # Interactive composer
│   ├── share.go           # SVG card generator
│   ├── sync_cmd.go        # E2E encrypted sync
│   ├── stats.go           # Usage statistics
│   ├── wrapped.go         # Weekly wrapped
│   ├── roast.go           # CLI habit roast
│   ├── suggest.go         # Alias suggestions
│   ├── plugin_cmd.go      # WASM plugin manager
│   └── ...
├── internal/
│   ├── capture/           # Shell hook → parse → secret-filter → store
│   ├── intelligence/      # Scoring engine + knowledge base
│   ├── vault/             # SQLite + FTS5 + AES-256 encryption
│   ├── context/           # Git, project, session detection
│   ├── explain/           # Command decomposition
│   ├── compose/           # Interactive wizard
│   └── ui/                # Bubbletea TUI components
├── pkg/
│   ├── shell/             # Hook generation & installation
│   ├── config/            # TOML configuration
│   ├── plugin/            # WASM sandbox runner
│   ├── logging/           # Structured logging
│   └── errors/            # Typed error handling
├── data/
│   └── knowledge.json     # 500+ curated command knowledge base entries
├── scripts/
│   ├── install.sh         # One-line installer
│   └── hooks/             # recall.bash / recall.zsh / recall.fish
├── tests/                 # Integration + security test suite
└── .goreleaser.yaml       # Multi-platform release configuration

Comparison

                    HIGH PERSONALIZATION
                           ▲
                           │
                    Recall ★  ← you are here
                           │
          Navi ●           │           ● Warp AI
                           │
     ──────────────────────┼──────────────────────►
     OFFLINE / PRIVATE     │     CLOUD / CONNECTED
                           │
          tldr ●           │           ● Copilot CLI
                           │
          fzf ●            │           ● cheat.sh
                           │
                    LOW PERSONALIZATION

Feature	Recall	tldr	fzf	Warp	Copilot CLI
Search by intent	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅
100% offline	✅	Partial	✅	❌	❌
Learns your patterns	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌
Context-aware	✅	❌	❌	Partial	❌
< 10ms response	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Free forever	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Privacy-first	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Encrypted vault	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Explain commands	✅	Partial	❌	✅	✅
Plugin system	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how:

git clone https://github.com/Om-Rohilla/recall.git
cd recall
go mod tidy
go test -tags sqlite_fts5 ./...
CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -tags sqlite_fts5 -o recall .
./recall "test query"

Highest Impact Contributions

Knowledge Base — Add entries to data/knowledge.json (one entry = instant value for all users)
Secret Filter Patterns — Expand internal/capture/filter.go with new sensitive data patterns
Shell Hook Edge Cases — Improve scripts/hooks/ for unusual bash/zsh/fish configurations
Bug Reports — Open issues with exact reproduction steps and OS/shell version

Development Requirements

Go 1.24+
GCC (for CGO / SQLCipher)
libsqlite3-dev (Linux only)

Roadmap

Phase 1: CLI skeleton, vault, shell hooks, basic search
Phase 2: Multi-signal scoring, context detection, 500+ knowledge base
Phase 3: Explain mode, compose mode, interactive TUI
Phase 4: Bubbletea TUI, hotkey integration, alias suggestions
Phase 5: AES-256 encryption, export/import, Fish shell support
Phase 6: GoReleaser CI/CD, Homebrew tap, multi-platform binaries
Phase 7: Security hardening — FTS5 injection prevention, 50+ secret filter patterns, rate limiting, crash-safe signal handling
Phase 8: Ghost Cloud Sync (E2E), recall share SVG cards, recall roast, zero-I/O DB locking, WASM plugin sandbox — v1.0 Production Release
Phase 9: Windows support, ripgrep-based search fallback, plugin marketplace

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

Stop Googling commands. Start recalling them.

Install Recall — it takes 30 seconds.

⬇️ Download Latest Release | 🐛 Report a Bug | 💬 Discussions

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 101 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
cmd		cmd
data		data
docs		docs
internal		internal
pkg		pkg
scripts		scripts
tests		tests
.envrc		.envrc
.gitignore		.gitignore
.goreleaser.yaml		.goreleaser.yaml
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
PROJECT_AUDIT.md		PROJECT_AUDIT.md
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
USER_GUIDE.md		USER_GUIDE.md
go.mod		go.mod
go.sum		go.sum
main.go		main.go
main_linux.go		main_linux.go
recall_usage.md		recall_usage.md

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⚡ Recall

The Problem

Installation

Homebrew (macOS / Linux) — Recommended

One-Line Install Script

Download Binary

Build From Source

Requirements

Quick Start

Features

🔍 Intent Search — Describe What You Want

🌍 Context-Aware — Knows Where You Are

🔐 Command Vault — AES-256 Encrypted

🧠 Explain Mode — Understand Any Command

💡 Smart Aliases — Auto-Generated From Your Patterns

📦 Compose Mode — Build Commands Interactively

📊 Stats & Wrapped — Know Your Terminal Habits

🔗 Share — Generate Beautiful Command Cards

☁️ Sync — E2E Encrypted Cross-Device Sync

⌨️ Hotkey Integration

🔌 Plugin System — Pure WASM Sandbox

Privacy & Security

All Commands

How It Works

Tech Stack

Project Structure

Comparison

Contributing

Highest Impact Contributions

Development Requirements

Roadmap

License

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