Sugar - Hermes memory provider plugin

Sugar as a first-class Hermes memory provider: durable, local-first agent memory in SQLite on your machine, with project and global scopes and guideline-aware search. No cloud, no API key, nothing leaves the machine.

What it gives Hermes

Automatic recall - each turn, Sugar searches memory and injects relevant decisions, error patterns, and guidelines into context (cached and refreshed in the background between turns).
Tools the agent can call:
- sugar_store - save a decision, preference, error pattern, research finding, or outcome (scope project or global)
- sugar_search - semantic + keyword search across both scopes
- sugar_list_recent - browse recent memories by type
7 memory types - decision, preference, error_pattern, research, outcome, guideline, file_context - the same vocabulary Sugar uses in Claude Code, OpenCode, and via the sugar mcp memory MCP server.

Install

hermes plugins install sugar

Requires the sugarai package in the same Python environment as Hermes:

pip install sugarai==3.10.1

Then activate it as the memory provider:

hermes memory setup   # choose "sugar"
# or set in config.yaml:
#   memory:
#     provider: sugar

Restart the gateway afterwards (hermes gateway restart).

Configuration

Settings live in $HERMES_HOME/sugar.json (created via hermes memory setup or save_config), with env-var fallbacks:

Key	Env var	Default	Meaning
`project_dir`	`SUGAR_PROJECT_DIR`	auto-detect	Directory whose `.sugar/memory.db` is the project store; empty = walk up from the working directory like Sugar's own tooling
`sync_turns`	`SUGAR_SYNC_TURNS`	`false`	Opt-in compact per-turn notes (deliberate `sugar_store` calls are preferred)
`search_limit`	`SUGAR_SEARCH_LIMIT`	`5`	Memories recalled per turn

Where data lives

Global store: ~/.sugar/memory.db (cross-project guidelines and knowledge)
Project store: nearest .sugar/memory.db at or above the working directory (or project_dir if configured)
Memory is yours and local. Sugar is AGPL-3.0-or-later.