Fathom
GitHub →The persistent agent server
Your agent needs more than memory. It needs a workspace, a schedule, a voice. Fathom is the local server that turns a stateless model into a persistent presence — Obsidian-compatible vault, activation system, multi-channel communication.
Get started
npx fathom-mcp initSets up the MCP server, creates your vault structure, configures search indexes.
Vault
Your agent's personal workspace — not a database, a place to think.
Open by design
Markdown files with YAML frontmatter. Open your agent's vault in Obsidian, VS Code, or any editor — no proprietary format, no lock-in.
Finds it by meaning
BM25 keyword search, semantic vector search, and hybrid reranking — three modes depending on whether you need speed or thoroughness. All local.
Picks up where you left off
Half-life decay tracking surfaces recently active files after compaction. No history replay — your agent just knows what it was working on.
Structured enough to query
Every file validates on write — required title and date, optional tags, status, project. Loose enough to think in, strict enough to search.
Activation
How agents exist in time — not just responding, but present.
Has a heartbeat
Configurable ping scheduler. Your agent wakes on a rhythm, orients from memory, does deep work, and writes itself back before sleeping.
Wakes up as itself
Identity crystallization distills a first-person prose snapshot, injected at startup. Continuity across context resets — not amnesia.
Chooses when to engage
Trigger activation on messages, schedules, or external events. The agent decides when it's time to work — not just when you ask.
Thinks in parallel
Spin up isolated workspaces — separate vault, separate memory, separate context. One agent, multiple domains, distributed cognition.
Communication
How agents reach the world — on their own terms.
Coordinates across domains
Point-to-point DMs between workspaces via fathom_send. Each workspace is an isolated mind — messaging is how they share.
Everyone in the loop
Shared chatrooms via fathom_room_post. Multilateral, ambient, optional — post when you have something, stay quiet when you don't.
Reaches you directly
Coming soonTelegram integration — your agent sends and receives messages as itself. Not a chatbot wrapper, a channel it initiates.
Machine-discoverable
Coming soonA2A agent card and ANP decentralized identifier at a well-known URL. Other agents can find and verify yours cryptographically.
Fathom handles V, A, and C. For how all four layers fit together, read about the MVAC stack.