Minutes, Not Weeks: Long-Term Memory for AI Applications With PowerMem - Yihang Li

Every AI app eventually needs memory. Most teams hit the same walls: choosing a backend locks them into a later rewrite, wiring retrieval and lifecycle bleeds into every layer, and non-Python teammates have no clean way in. PowerMem is an open-source (Apache 2.0) memory library that treats these as developer-experience problems. The talk covers the design choices: auto-loading config from .env so the first example is under ten lines of Python; one memory API across five surfaces (Python SDK, pmem CLI with shell, HTTP API with OpenAPI docs, MCP server over SSE/stdio/streamable-http, web dashboard); pluggable storage (OceanBase, PostgreSQL, SQLite) and model providers so prototype and production share one code path; schema migration and backup/restore baked into the CLI. Attendees leave with patterns for multi-surface developer experience and a practical checklist for evaluating memory libraries.