Use Palimem with Copilot IDE

GitHub Copilot in supported IDEs (VS Code, Visual Studio, and compatible hosts) can load MCP servers from .vscode/mcp.json. Palimem uses the same ai-memory connect vscode helper as VS Code + Copilot Agent.

Prerequisites

IDE with Copilot MCP support
Node.js 18+
Repository cloned and Node dependencies installed:
Terminal window
```
cd app && npm install
```

Recommended install

From your repository root:

node app/scripts/ai-memory.js connect vscode \
  --project-root "$(pwd)" \
  --data-dir .ai-memory/data

This writes a servers.memory-service stdio entry to .vscode/mcp.json.

Config block

Same VS Code MCP schema as the VS Code + Copilot Agent page — top-level servers object with type: "stdio".

Verification

Smoke test (non-interactive):

bash examples/copilot-ide/demo/copilot-ide-smoke.sh

This delegates to the VS Code Copilot Agent smoke and verifies memory_status plus all eleven tools over stdio MCP.

In your IDE, call tools/list (11 tools), then memory_status with scope and namespace — expect ok: true and index_status.state: "current".

Agent prompt

Set up Palimem as governed local memory for this IDE project.

- Project: Palimem (spec v1.7.0)
- Run: node app/scripts/ai-memory.js connect vscode --project-root "$(pwd)" --data-dir .ai-memory/data
- Verify: tools/list (11 tools), then memory_status — expect ok and index_status current

Use local data directory .ai-memory/data. Do not enable cloud services.

Troubleshooting

MCP server not listed

Reload the IDE after writing .vscode/mcp.json.

ENOENT on memory-service-mcp.js

Run cd app && npm install.

Existing entry refused

Re-run with --replace.

Same config as VS Code Copilot Agent

Both harnesses share connect vscode and the same smoke surface. See the VS Code + Copilot Agent page for full CLI options and config samples.

Next steps

VS Code + Copilot Agent — full install and config reference
Copilot CLI — terminal Copilot with MCP
MCP tools reference