SwarmMesh

Install • Quickstart • Features • CLI reference • Compare • FAQ

Shared context and memory for swarms of parallel AI agents, over a small protocol both Python and Node speak the same way.

swarmmesh demo: starting a mesh, registering an agent, writing context and memory, then querying memory back

Spin up ten coding agents on the same task and they cannot see what each other found. One agent rediscovers a bug another already fixed. Two agents overwrite the same file because neither knew the other touched it. SwarmMesh is a small server that sits alongside your existing agent framework and gives every agent process, in any language that can speak HTTP, a shared place to publish context and search memory.

It is not an orchestration framework. It does not schedule tasks, define agent roles, or route work between agents. Your existing framework (or your own code) keeps doing that. SwarmMesh only answers one question: how do independent agent processes read and write the same shared state.

Install

pip install swarmmesh-cli
# or
npm install -g swarmmesh-cli

Either gives you a swarmmesh command on your PATH.

See it work

This is a real terminal session, not a mockup: a Python-run mesh, a Node agent writing to it, and a Python agent reading back what the Node agent wrote. Two different languages, one shared mesh.

# Terminal 1: start a mesh (Python implementation, but either works)
$ swarmmesh serve --port 8420
INFO: Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:8420

# Terminal 2: a Node agent joins and writes
$ swarmmesh agent register node-agent-1 researcher --port 8420 --json
{ "agent_id": "node-agent-1", "role": "researcher", ... }

$ swarmmesh context set interop-demo status '"investigating flaky test"' \
    --agent-id node-agent-1 --port 8420 --json
{ "namespace": "interop-demo", "key": "status", "value": "investigating flaky test", ... }

$ swarmmesh memory write interop-demo \
    "found a race condition in the retry loop" --agent-id node-agent-1 --port 8420 --json
{ "namespace": "interop-demo", "text": "found a race condition in the retry loop", ... }

# Terminal 3: a Python agent joins the same mesh and reads it back
$ swarmmesh context get interop-demo status --port 8420 --json
{ "value": "investigating flaky test", "updated_by": "node-agent-1", ... }

$ swarmmesh memory query interop-demo "race condition" --port 8420 --json
{ "results": [{ "entry": { "text": "found a race condition in the retry loop" }, "score": 0.575 }] }

Every command above was re-run for real against both CLIs while writing this README: the Node CLI registered an agent and wrote context and memory against a Python-hosted mesh, and the Python CLI read it straight back, in the same run, over the real HTTP API, with the score above (0.575) reproduced exactly. No shared filesystem, no shared process, no translation layer. Just the protocol.

Quickstart

# Start a mesh (in-memory by default; add --persist ./mesh.db for SQLite storage)
swarmmesh serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8420

# From another terminal: register an agent
swarmmesh agent register agent-1 researcher

# Publish and read shared context
swarmmesh context set my-run phase '"planning"' --agent-id agent-1
swarmmesh context get my-run phase

# Write and search shared memory
swarmmesh memory write my-run "found a race condition in the retry loop" --agent-id agent-1
swarmmesh memory query my-run "race condition"

# Check what's on the mesh
swarmmesh status --json

This exact sequence was run end to end while writing this README and completed in a few seconds, start to finish, against the real swarmmesh-cli package installed from PyPI.

To build from source instead of installing from a registry:

# Python
git clone https://github.com/RudrenduPaul/swarmmesh.git
cd swarmmesh
pip install -e python/

# Node
cd swarmmesh/node
npm install
npm run build
npm link

Features

• A documented wire protocol. docs/protocol.md specifies every HTTP endpoint and WebSocket event, so any process that can speak HTTP and JSON can join a mesh. The two official CLIs are convenient clients, not the only valid ones.
• Two independent, interoperating implementations. Python (swarmmesh-cli on PyPI, FastAPI + Typer, 74 tests, 91% statement coverage) and Node (swarmmesh-cli on npm, Express + commander, 65 tests, 91.64% statement coverage) implement the protocol identically. Each package's own test suite runs independently in CI; cross-language interop (a Node client against a Python-hosted server and back) is demonstrated in the "See it work" section above and was re-run by hand against both real packages, not covered by an automated cross-language test in CI today.
• Real-time updates over WebSocket. /v1/events pushes context.updated, context.deleted, memory.written, agent.registered, and agent.deregistered frames so an agent can react the moment another agent changes shared state, instead of polling.
• Honest memory search. Memory queries use Okapi BM25 keyword ranking: real term-frequency scoring, computed locally with no extra dependencies and no network calls. It is not semantic or embedding search. A RankingBackend interface is a documented extension point if you want to plug in your own embedding-based scorer; SwarmMesh doesn't ship one.
• Pluggable storage. In-memory by default (process lifetime only), or --persist <path> for SQLite-backed storage that survives restarts.
• Agent-native by default. Every subcommand on both CLIs supports --json for structured, script-parseable output, and both ship a swarmmesh mcp subcommand that starts an MCP server over stdio so an MCP-capable agent (Claude or otherwise) can call SwarmMesh as a set of tools without shelling out.
• A deliberately small trust boundary. Both servers bind to 127.0.0.1 by default, not 0.0.0.0. There's no authentication in v1. See Security.

The number below is measured, not estimated. 50 sequential PUT /v1/context/{namespace}/{key} requests against a local Python-run server averaged 0.8ms round trip each (40ms total for 50 requests) on the machine this README was written on. This isn't a rigorous benchmark, includes curl's own process-spawn overhead per request, and will vary by machine, but it's a real number from a real run, not a guess. Reproduce it yourself with:

for i in $(seq 1 50); do curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_total}\n" \
  -X PUT "http://127.0.0.1:8420/v1/context/bench/key$i" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"value\":\"v$i\",\"agent_id\":\"bench\"}"; done

CLI reference

Both CLIs expose the same command tree. Flag names differ slightly between the two (Python uses Typer's --flag <value> style, Node uses commander's), but the commands and their behavior are identical. Output below is transcribed from running --help on each built CLI.

swarmmesh serve [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--persist PATH]
    Start a SwarmMesh coordination server.

swarmmesh status [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
    Show a mesh status snapshot (agent count, namespaces, entry counts, uptime).

swarmmesh mcp [--host HOST] [--port PORT]
    Start an MCP server over stdio, proxying tool calls to a running mesh.

swarmmesh agent register <agent_id> <role> [--metadata JSON] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
swarmmesh agent list [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
swarmmesh agent deregister <agent_id> [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]

swarmmesh context set <namespace> <key> <value> [--agent-id ID] [--ttl SECONDS] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
swarmmesh context get <namespace> <key> [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
swarmmesh context list <namespace> [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
swarmmesh context delete <namespace> <key> [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]

swarmmesh memory write <namespace> <text> [--agent-id ID] [--metadata JSON] [--id ID] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]
swarmmesh memory query <namespace> <query> [--top-k N] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--json]

Registering an agent, then swarmmesh status --json and setting/listing context on a running mesh

context set parses <value> as JSON, falling back to a plain string if it isn't valid JSON. context set ns key '"planning"' stores the string planning. So does context set ns key planning (no quotes), through the same string fallback.

MCP Server

SwarmMesh ships a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, on both the Python and Node packages, so an MCP-capable agent (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any other MCP client) can call SwarmMesh as a set of tools instead of shelling out to the CLI. The MCP server doesn't reimplement the protocol; it proxies each tool call over HTTP to a swarmmesh serve process you already have running.

# 1. Start a mesh
swarmmesh serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8420

# 2. In another terminal (or from an MCP client), start the MCP server
#    (stdio transport) pointed at that mesh:
swarmmesh mcp --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8420

mcp support is included by default in both packages (it's a core dependency, not an optional extra), so a plain pip install swarmmesh-cli or npm install -g swarmmesh-cli is all you need.

Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "swarmmesh": {
      "command": "swarmmesh",
      "args": ["mcp", "--host", "127.0.0.1", "--port", "8420"]
    }
  }
}

Both the Python and Node MCP servers expose the same ten tools, mirroring the SwarmMeshClient methods above:

Library API reference

Both packages export a typed client so you can call a mesh directly from your own agent code instead of shelling out to the CLI. Signatures below are grepped straight from source, not from memory.

Python (swarmmesh_cli.client.SwarmMeshClient):

class SwarmMeshClient:
    def __init__(self, base_url: str = DEFAULT_BASE_URL, timeout: float = 10.0) -> None: ...
    async def register_agent(self, agent_id: str, role: str, metadata: dict | None = None) -> dict: ...
    async def deregister_agent(self, agent_id: str) -> None: ...
    async def list_agents(self) -> dict: ...
    async def publish_context(self, namespace: str, key: str, value, agent_id: str, ttl_seconds: int | None = None) -> dict: ...
    async def get_context(self, namespace: str, key: str) -> dict: ...
    async def list_context(self, namespace: str) -> dict: ...
    async def delete_context(self, namespace: str, key: str) -> None: ...
    async def write_memory(self, namespace: str, text: str, agent_id: str, metadata: dict | None = None) -> dict: ...
    async def query_memory(self, namespace: str, query: str, top_k: int = 10) -> dict: ...
    async def get_status(self) -> dict: ...

Node / TypeScript (SwarmMeshClient from swarmmesh-cli):

class SwarmMeshClient {
  constructor(options?: SwarmMeshClientOptions);
  registerAgent(agentId: string, role: string, metadata?: Record<string, JsonValue>): Promise<Agent>;
  deregisterAgent(agentId: string): Promise<void>;
  listAgents(): Promise<Agent[]>;
  publishContext(namespace: string, key: string, value: JsonValue, agentId: string, ttlSeconds?: number): Promise<ContextEntry>;
  getContext(namespace: string, key: string): Promise<ContextEntry | null>;
  listContext(namespace: string): Promise<ContextEntry[]>;
  deleteContext(namespace: string, key: string): Promise<void>;
  writeMemory(namespace: string, text: string, agentId: string, metadata?: Record<string, JsonValue>): Promise<MemoryEntry>;
  queryMemory(namespace: string, query: string, topK?: number): Promise<MemoryQueryResult[]>;
  getStatus(): Promise<StatusSnapshot>;
}

The SwarmMesh protocol

The full specification lives in docs/protocol.md. The short version: a "mesh" is one running swarmmesh serve process. Agents are independent processes (coding agents, research agents, subprocess workers, anything that can make an HTTP request) that register with a mesh, then read and write namespaced shared context and memory through it.

The point of writing this down as a protocol instead of just shipping a library is that it means the two official CLIs aren't the only valid clients. A Python agent using swarmmesh_cli.client.SwarmMeshClient, a Node agent using the SwarmMeshClient from swarmmesh-cli, and a third agent written in a language with neither package can all register with the same mesh and see each other's context and memory, because they're all just calling the same documented HTTP endpoints and, optionally, subscribing to the same WebSocket event stream. Nothing about interop depends on a shared runtime, a shared process, or a shared filesystem.

How SwarmMesh compares

There's no other project doing exactly what SwarmMesh does, so this isn't an apples-to-apples table. It's here to be honest about what two real, comparable multi-agent projects actually offer versus what SwarmMesh actually offers, checked directly against their READMEs and source, not assumed from their names. Both are older, larger, and more established than SwarmMesh, which has 0 GitHub stars and no known users yet.

The honest read: swarms has real orchestration depth and a large community that SwarmMesh doesn't try to replace. feynman is a polished end-user research tool, not infrastructure you'd embed elsewhere. SwarmMesh's actual claim is narrower than either: a small, documented protocol two languages already speak the same way. It's worth exactly that much, no more.

What SwarmMesh is, and why it exists

Multi-agent setups increasingly mean several agent processes working the same problem in parallel, sometimes in the same language, sometimes not, sometimes spawned by different tools entirely. Orchestration frameworks solve the "what should each agent do and in what order" problem. SwarmMesh solves a narrower, adjacent problem: once those agents are running, how do they tell each other what they've found without a human relaying messages between terminals or agents silently duplicating each other's work.

SwarmMesh is infrastructure, not a framework. It doesn't care what orchestrator spawned your agents, if any. It exposes a small HTTP + WebSocket surface for shared context (structured key-value state, like a run's current phase) and shared memory (free-text notes agents leave for each other, searchable by keyword). You point your agents at a swarmmesh serve process the same way you'd point them at a Redis instance, and they have a shared place to read and write.

FAQ

Is this a replacement for LangGraph / CrewAI / AutoGen / <my orchestration framework>? No. SwarmMesh doesn't schedule agents, define workflows, or decide what happens next. It runs alongside whatever you use for that and gives the agents it spawns a shared context and memory layer. Point your orchestrator's agents at a swarmmesh serve process and keep using it for everything else.

How is this different from kyegomez/swarms or companion-inc/feynman? Both are larger, older projects solving different problems. swarms is an orchestration framework: it decides what agents run, in what order, and how they hand off work, and it does that at real depth. SwarmMesh doesn't do any of that; it only gives already-running agents a shared place to read and write state. feynman is a single research-agent product with a local workbench UI and its own SQLite-backed state, not a coordination layer other projects embed. Neither ships a documented cross-language wire protocol for shared agent memory the way SwarmMesh's docs/protocol.md does. Full side-by-side above in How SwarmMesh compares.

Is the memory search semantic / embedding-based? No. It's Okapi BM25 keyword ranking, the same family of algorithm search engines have used for decades, computed locally over term frequency. It won't find memory entries that are conceptually related but share no vocabulary with your query. If you need that, the RankingBackend interface is a documented extension point for wiring in your own embedding-based scorer. SwarmMesh doesn't ship one and won't silently call an embedding API on your behalf.

Can a Python agent and a Node agent really share state, or is that theoretical? This is the reason the project exists. Both CLIs implement the same wire protocol in docs/protocol.md, and the "See it work" section above is a real transcript of the Node CLI writing context and memory to a Python-hosted server, then the Python CLI reading it back over the network, re-verified while writing this README.

Does SwarmMesh persist data? Only if you ask it to. swarmmesh serve defaults to in-memory storage that's gone when the process exits. Pass --persist <path> for SQLite-backed storage that survives restarts.

Is there authentication? Not in v1. See Security below: this is a deliberate scope boundary, not an oversight.

What happens if two agents write to the same context key? Last write wins. PUT /v1/context/{namespace}/{key} overwrites whatever was there. Every write broadcasts a context.updated WebSocket event, so agents subscribed to that namespace find out immediately rather than polling. There's no merge or conflict resolution; if your agents need that, build it on top using distinct keys or your own versioning convention.

Can I use SwarmMesh as a library instead of the CLI? Yes. Both packages export a client: swarmmesh_cli.client.SwarmMeshClient in Python, SwarmMeshClient from swarmmesh-cli in Node. See Library API reference above for real method signatures.

Can I run this on more than one machine, and is it production-ready? Nothing stops a mesh from being reachable across a network; --host binds to any interface you point it at. But there's no authentication in v1 (see Security), so treat it like a local Redis instance, not a public-internet-facing service. It also has 0 known production users at this point, so evaluate accordingly.

Is it free to use commercially? Yes. SwarmMesh is MIT licensed, on both the Python and Node packages and the repository itself. Use it in a commercial product without asking permission or paying anything.

Security

Both the Python and Node servers bind to 127.0.0.1 by default, not 0.0.0.0. SwarmMesh is designed to run on localhost or inside a private network alongside the agents it coordinates. That's the same trust boundary as a local Redis instance or a SQLite file, not a public-internet-facing service.

Found a vulnerability? Please don't open a public issue. See SECURITY.md for the private disclosure process.

Contributing

SwarmMesh has two official implementations of the same protocol, kept behaviorally identical on purpose. See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup for both, the pull request process, and the ground rule that shapes everything in this README: no unverified claims. Every number here has to be reproducible from a real command.

License

MIT