OB1 Local HTTP

Problem

The canonical Open Brain stack assumes Claude Code can talk to a remote Supabase MCP server. In environments that disable MCP entirely -- corporate networks, air-gapped offices, restricted Claude Code builds -- that path is not available. This skill replaces it with curl calls to a LAN-resident Open Brain (see the local-brain-no-mcp recipe), keeping the same capture-and-recall behavior without any MCP protocol involvement.

When to Use

• The user wants to remember, record, save, capture, or note something.
• The user wants to search, recall, retrieve, find, or look up something they previously captured.
• The user wants to see recent thoughts (e.g. "what have I been thinking about", "show me today's notes").

When Not to Use

• The environment has a working remote Open Brain MCP connection -- prefer the canonical MCP-based capture/search tools.
• The required environment variables BRAIN_URL and BRAIN_ANON_KEY are not set on the dev host -- this skill cannot function without them; ask the user to follow local-brain-no-mcp's install instructions first.

Required Environment

On each dev host that will use this skill, the user must export:

export BRAIN_URL="http://<brain-host>:8000"   # Supabase Kong gateway
export BRAIN_ANON_KEY="eyJhbGciOi..."          # written by setup.sh

If either is missing, stop and tell the user. Do not guess values.

Process

Capture

When the user says something like "remember X" or "save this thought":

curl -fsS -X POST "$BRAIN_URL/functions/v1/capture" \
  -H "apikey: $BRAIN_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BRAIN_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"content":"<the thought>","metadata":{"source":"claude-code"}}'

Optional metadata fields: source, tags (array of strings), thread_id, anything else useful. The server fingerprints content and de-duplicates -- re-capturing identical text returns the existing id.

Search

When the user wants to recall:

curl -fsS -X POST "$BRAIN_URL/functions/v1/search" \
  -H "apikey: $BRAIN_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BRAIN_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"<what to find>","match_count":10,"match_threshold":0.65}'

match_threshold defaults to 0.7. Lower it to 0.5-0.65 for broader recall; raise to 0.8+ for precision. Cap match_count at 100.

Browse recent

When the user asks "what have I been thinking about" or wants a list rather than a similarity search:

curl -fsS "$BRAIN_URL/functions/v1/list?limit=20" \
  -H "apikey: $BRAIN_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BRAIN_ANON_KEY"

Output

• For captures: confirm the id and the de-dupe fingerprint to the user in one sentence. Don't paraphrase the captured content back at them.
• For searches: surface the top results with similarity scores and created_at timestamps. Order by similarity descending. If no results cross the threshold, say so plainly and suggest lowering it.
• For browse: a compact bullet list with truncated content (first ~120 chars) and timestamps.

Failure Modes

• HTTP 502 with "unable to reach Ollama": the brain host's Ollama service is down. Tell the user to docker compose ps on the brain host.
• HTTP 502 with "did you 'ollama pull...'": the embedding model isn't loaded. Tell the user to run the documented ollama pull step.
• HTTP 502 with "embedding-dim mismatch": the brain's EMBED_DIM env was changed after the volume was initialized. Tell the user to read the "one-way door" section of local-brain-no-mcp's README.
• HTTP 401 or 403: BRAIN_ANON_KEY is wrong or expired. Tell the user to check supabase-docker/docker/.env on the brain host.
• Network timeout: the brain host is unreachable. Tell the user to ping the brain host from this dev host.

Notes

• Never log or echo BRAIN_ANON_KEY -- it's a long-lived JWT.
• This skill never installs or invokes any MCP server, by design.
• The brain host generates embeddings itself; this dev host doesn't need Ollama or any model files.