Quickstart

Connect 1 agent, bring some history in, and run a first lookup. About 5 minutes.

Before you start#

Install Onadit. The steps below use the command line. Rift.app does the same things with buttons, and rift onboard walks you through steps 1 to 3 in one go.

The package does not put rift on your PATH. Run this first, in the terminal you will use:

export PATH="$HOME/.rift/bin:$PATH"

1. Bring some history in#

Ask ChatGPT, Claude or Grok for an export of your data. It arrives as a zip. Then:

rift import ~/Downloads/chatgpt-export.zip

The default source is ChatGPT. For another one, name it:

rift import ~/Downloads/claude-export.zip --source claude_web

You can also drop the zip into ~/Library/Application Support/Rift/data/inbox/. More in Import.

2. Find something#

rift search "pricing" --top-k 3

Search works by keyword out of the box. Nothing leaves your Mac.

3. Connect an agent#

rift mcp install --client claude-code

Use claude-desktop, codex or cursor for the others, or --all for every one found on this Mac. Restart the tool so it picks the change up. More in Connect an agent.

Then ask the agent something only your history can answer:

In the agent

Use Rift. What did I decide about pricing, and when?

It should call rift_context_pack or rift_search and answer with the passage and its source.

4. Make it a habit#

Add 1 line to CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the agent looks before it starts:

Before a task, call rift_context_pack with a 1-line description of it.

5. Optional: turn Capture on#

Capture files your new Claude Code and Codex sessions every hour. It is off until you turn it on, because it needs 2 things that send text out of your Mac:

Search by meaning, which sends text to Voyage to be embedded.
Claude Code or Codex, signed in, which reads each new session to judge and summarise it.

Search by meaning is a switch in Rift.app, under Privacy. Then turn Capture on from the command line:

rift onboard --advanced --enable-capture

Read Capture and What leaves your Mac first.

Check it#

rift status

The MCP: line shows which tools are connected, and the Memory: line shows how many conversations Onadit holds.

Last updated 12 October 2026. This page is also available as Markdown, and every page is listed in llms.txt.