cortex/docs/web-ui.md

Web UI

Cortex includes an optional Blazor Server web UI for local browsing and testing.

It is not required for:

• Visual Studio MCP setup
• VS Code MCP setup
• any MCP client connection
• the core MCP server

Use it when you want to manually inspect projects, add memories, run searches, edit items, or soft-delete items without going through an MCP client.

Dev Web UI

Start:

.\scripts\deploy-web.ps1

Open:

http://localhost:5118

Stop:

.\scripts\stop-web.ps1

Test Web UI

Start:

.\scripts\deploy-test-web.ps1

Open:

http://localhost:5218

Stop:

.\scripts\stop-test-web.ps1

What It Can Do

• Create projects.
• Browse project memory counts.
• Add memories through category-specific forms for requirement, location, todo, and note.
• Search with one to four query texts within one project or all projects.
• Filter recent memories by category.
• Include or hide soft-deleted items.
• Edit active memories.
• Add and delete additional discoverability embeddings from the edit modal.
• Soft-delete active memories.

Architecture

The web UI runs as its own Docker container:

cortex-web

It uses the same database and embedding service as the MCP server:

cortex-db
cortex-embeddings

The test web UI uses:

cortex-test-web
cortex-test-db
cortex-test-embeddings

The web UI does not expose MCP. It is a browser interface over the same local memory system.

Docker Compose Profile

The web UI is behind the ui profile in Docker Compose. Normal MCP deployment does not start it.

The script handles the profile for you:

.\scripts\deploy-web.ps1

Manual equivalent:

docker compose --project-name cortex --profile ui up -d --build cortex-web