memo

README

memo

Your brain's task stack. When you get pulled into something new, push it onto the stack so you don't lose track of what you were doing before.

• Never lose track of what you were doing before a distraction
• Instant commands via in-memory daemon
• Timestamped log of all work sessions for later review

Install

Homebrew

brew tap mattmanning/tap
brew install memo

Go

go install github.com/mattmanning/memo@latest

From source

git clone https://github.com/mattmanning/memo.git
cd memo
go build -o memo

Usage

memo push "fix auth bug"
# Started: fix auth bug

memo push "review PR #42"
# Paused: fix auth bug
# Started: review PR #42

memo
# review PR #42 (working for 12m)

memo switch
# Paused: review PR #42
# Resuming: fix auth bug

memo queue "update docs"
# Queued: update docs

memo pop
# Done: fix auth bug (25m)
# Resuming: review PR #42

memo drop
# Dropped: review PR #42 (3m)
# Resuming: update docs

memo log
# [2026-02-20 14:30] pushed     "fix auth bug" (worked 12m)
# [2026-02-20 14:42] switched   "review PR #42" (worked 3m)
# [2026-02-20 14:55] popped     "fix auth bug" (worked 13m)

memo history
# fix auth bug
#   Started:  2026-02-20 14:30
#   Finished: 2026-02-20 14:55
#   Duration: 25m

memo stack launches an interactive TUI for choosing which task to work on. Use arrow keys to pick a task and press enter to move it to the top of the stack.

memo stack
# → review PR #42 (working for 3m)
#   update docs

How it works

A tiny daemon runs in the background, holding your task stack in memory for fast commands. It starts automatically on first use and communicates over a Unix socket at ~/.memo/memo.sock.

State is persisted to ~/.memo/state.json on every change, so nothing is lost if the daemon is killed. A log of completed tasks is appended to ~/.memo/log.jsonl.

Commands

Command	Description
memo	Show the current task
memo stack	Interactive task reorder (or show full stack if non-interactive)
memo push <description>	Push a new task onto the stack
memo pop	Complete the current task and resume the previous one
memo drop	Abandon the current task and resume the previous one
memo switch	Swap the top two tasks
memo queue <description>	Add a task to the bottom of the stack
memo log	Show all task activity (pushes, pops, switches)
memo history	Show completed tasks with start/finish times and durations
memo --help	Show help

Data

All data is stored in ~/.memo/:

~/.memo/
├── memo.sock    # Unix socket for daemon communication
├── memo.pid     # Daemon process ID
├── state.json   # Current task stack
└── log.jsonl    # Timestamped work sessions