# What memex is

> A knowledge base your assistants read, propose notes to, and work from.

Page: https://docs.memex.tools/what-is-memex

memex keeps the notes you and your assistants decide are worth keeping. Every assistant you connect can read them and propose new ones. By default, nothing an assistant writes counts until you approve it in [Review Inbox](https://docs.memex.tools/review-inbox).

![Notes in memex, with the assistant that wrote each one](https://docs.memex.tools/images/notes.jpg)

## What a note is

- A note is plain Markdown with a title, tags and links to other notes.
- Search finds notes by exact words and by meaning. See [Find notes](https://docs.memex.tools/find-notes).
- Every change is recorded. A note's **History** lets you go back to any version, and the [Activity log](https://docs.memex.tools/activity-log) shows who changed what.

## What an assistant can do

An assistant you connect reads your notes and answers from them. When you agree something is worth keeping, it proposes a note, or an edit to one. The proposal waits for you in Review Inbox.

> **Deletes always wait**
>
> No assistant can delete or merge notes on its own. It can only propose it, and you decide. See [Agent or curator](https://docs.memex.tools/agents-and-curators).

## Your notes stay yours

Everything downloads as Markdown files whenever you want, one note or all of them. See [Export notes](https://docs.memex.tools/export).

> **Self-hosted memex**
>
> memex also runs on your own computer, with your notes in a Docker volume there. See [memex.tools or self-hosted memex](https://docs.memex.tools/self-hosted).

## Next steps

- [First steps](https://docs.memex.tools/first-steps): Connect an assistant, send it one message, and approve the first note it saves.
- [Connect an assistant](https://docs.memex.tools/connect): The address every assistant connects to, and which steps to follow for yours.

> **Tip:** memex does nothing on its own. It has no scheduler and no background pass; every change comes from you or an assistant you connected.

## Related

- [First steps](https://docs.memex.tools/first-steps): Connect an assistant, send it one message, and approve the first note it saves.
- [Review Inbox](https://docs.memex.tools/review-inbox): Approve, amend or reject what your assistants wrote, one at a time or several at once.
- [Agent or curator](https://docs.memex.tools/agents-and-curators): What an assistant may change without you, depending on its role.
- [Export notes](https://docs.memex.tools/export): Download one note, a selection, or everything as Markdown files.