Installation

Engram is distributed as a single binary.

Homebrew on macOS and Linux

brew install gentleman-programming/tap/engram

Upgrade later with:

brew update && brew upgrade engram

Windows

Recommended options for technical users:

1. go install github.com/Gentleman-Programming/engram/cmd/engram@latest
2. Build from source
3. Download the release zip from GitHub Releases

If antivirus flags a prebuilt binary, treat that as a distribution-trust issue, not evidence of malicious behavior. Building locally is the cleanest workaround.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Gentleman-Programming/engram.git
cd engram
go install ./cmd/engram

Requirements

• Go 1.24+ only if you build from source
• no runtime dependency stack
• no Docker, no Node.js, no Python requirement for the binary itself

Important paths

• default data directory: ~/.engram
• default database: ~/.engram/engram.db
• Windows default data directory: %USERPROFILE%\.engram

Environment variables you will care about first

• ENGRAM_DATA_DIR to override the data directory
• ENGRAM_PORT to override the HTTP server port
• ENGRAM_PROJECT to override project detection in MCP mode

For the full variable list and platform-specific path details, see the reference section.