Quick start

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Contorium lets you ask your project.

It is a local Cognitive Interaction Layer (CIL) on a Project Intelligence Layer (PIL). Ask what happened, why a decision was made, or what comes next — then switch between Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and VS Code without re-explaining your architecture.

You use it by: installing one entry point (IDE, MCP, or CLI), opening a folder workspace, then Ask · Capture · Transfer as you work with AI.

Ask your project (CIL)

Question Where it routes
What happened this week? Project History
Why was MCP added? Decision Center
What should I do next? Action Engine (suggestions only)
Tell me everything about auth Knowledge Graph
What was state last Friday? Time Travel (Snapshot)
Surface How to ask
CLI contorium ask "Why was MCP added?"
MCP Agent calls ask_project
IDE Command palette → Ask Contorium… · Cortex panel

CIL suggests and explains. It never executes tasks for you.

Choose your entry point

If you… Start with
Code in VS Code / Cursor IDE extension
Use Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor Agent MCP server
Work in the terminal or CI CLI

All three share the same .contora/ folder in your project. You can add more later.

Daily workflow

IDE + AI chat

  1. Install the extension → open a folder (not a single file).
  2. Set Current focus in the Contorium sidebar.
  3. Use Ask Contorium… or Cortex (History · Decisions · Ask) to explore project understanding.
  4. Starting a new AI chat? Confirm the handoff prompt (Y/n) or use Transfer Context from the sidebar.

MCP + AI agent

  1. Run the one-line MCP setup for your host.
  2. Open Codex / Claude / Cursor in your project — MCP starts automatically.
  3. Ask via ask_project or use inspect_* / transfer_* when the agent needs structured facts.

Terminal

contorium init .
contorium ask "What is this project about?"
contorium health .
contorium transfer context --copy

See the CLI guide for the full command list.

Three things to remember

  1. Open a folder — Contorium needs a project root, not a lone file.
  2. Ask, don't re-prompt — use contorium ask or ask_project instead of pasting long explanations.
  3. Local-first — everything lives in .contora/ inside your repo. No cloud account.

What Contorium is not

  • Not an AI agent or code generator
  • Not a project manager or task runner
  • Not a cloud service

CIL suggests. PIL records. Neither executes work for you.

Next steps