MAXential Thinking MCP

A structured, persistent reasoning workspace for AI. Provides 20 tools for building thought chains, exploring alternatives through branching, revising earlier thinking, searching reasoning history, and persisting sessions across context window resets and server restarts.

AI's built-in reasoning is ephemeral — when context windows fill, thinking gets compressed or lost. Complex problems need exploration of multiple approaches, backtracking when paths fail, and the ability to resume where you left off. MAXential externalizes reasoning into a workspace that persists, branches, and survives.

Origin

Forked from Anthropic's sequential-thinking MCP server, which provided a single tool with 9 parameters. Its schema included branching parameters (branch_from_thought, branch_id) but had no tools to create, switch, or manage branches — the parameters were effectively inert.

MAXential replaced that single tool entirely and built 20 purpose-specific tools across three releases:

Version	What was built
v2.0	Replaced the single tool with 11 focused tools: core thinking (think, revise, complete), full branch management (branch, switch_branch, list_branches, get_branch, close_branch, merge_branch), and navigation (get_thought, get_history)
v2.2	Added 5 organization tools: tag, search, export, visualize, reset
v2.3	Added 4 session persistence tools with SQLite storage: session_save, session_load, session_list, session_summary

Tools

Core Thinking

Tool	What it does
think	Add a thought to the reasoning chain. Thoughts are numbered and persisted automatically.
revise	Revise a previous thought when earlier thinking was flawed or incomplete. The original is preserved with revision history.
complete	Mark the thinking chain complete with a final conclusion.
reset	Clear the current session and start fresh.

Branching

Tool	What it does
branch	Create a new reasoning branch to explore an alternative path without losing the main thread.
switch_branch	Switch context to a different branch, or back to main.
list_branches	List all branches with their status and thought counts.
get_branch	Retrieve complete details of a specific branch.
close_branch	Close a branch with an optional conclusion.
merge_branch	Merge insights from a branch back into main. Strategies: conclusion_only, full_integration, summary.

Navigation

Tool	What it does
get_thought	Retrieve a specific thought by its number.
get_history	Get thought history, optionally filtered by branch.

Organization

Tool	What it does
tag	Add or remove semantic tags on a thought (e.g., hypothesis, evidence, decision, finding).
search	Search thoughts by content text or by tags.
export	Export the thinking chain as markdown or JSON.
visualize	Generate ASCII or Mermaid diagrams of the thought structure and branches.

Session Persistence

Tool	What it does
session_save	Name and describe the current session for later retrieval.
session_load	Restore a saved session — all thoughts, branches, and tags are loaded back into memory.
session_list	Browse available sessions, most recently updated first.
session_summary	Generate a compressed summary of a session for token-efficient context loading.

Sessions are automatically persisted to SQLite as you work. Every think, branch, tag, and revise call writes through to disk in real time. Sessions survive server restarts, context window resets, and new conversations — pick up where you left off.

What the original provides vs. what MAXential provides

Capability	Anthropic sequential-thinking	MAXential Thinking
Interface	1 tool, 9 parameters	20 focused tools
Branching	Parameters in schema, no implementation	Full lifecycle: create, switch, list, inspect, merge, close
Revision	Not supported	Revise any thought, original preserved with history
Persistence	None — lost on server restart	SQLite — survives restarts, context resets, new conversations
Tagging	Not supported	Semantic tags on any thought
Search	Not supported	Search by content or tags
Export	Not supported	Markdown, JSON, Mermaid diagrams, ASCII visualization
Navigation	Not supported	Retrieve any thought by number, browse filtered history

Browsing session history

Session data is stored in a standard SQLite database at .maxential/thinking.db. There are several ways to browse past reasoning sessions:

Through the tools themselves — ask AI to use session_list to browse sessions, session_load to restore one, or session_summary for a compressed overview. AI can format, search, and summarize session content conversationally.

With a SQLite browser — open .maxential/thinking.db in any SQLite viewer (VS Code/VSCodium extensions, DB Browser for SQLite, or similar). The schema is straightforward:

Table	Contains
sessions	Session ID, name, description, status, timestamps
thoughts	Every thought with its number, content, branch, revision links
branches	Branch metadata, status, conclusions, merge history
tags	Semantic tags attached to thoughts

From the terminal:

sqlite3 .maxential/thinking.db "SELECT name, status, datetime(created_at/1000, 'unixepoch', 'localtime') as created FROM sessions ORDER BY updated_at DESC LIMIT 10;"

Installation

Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Add to your MCP configuration:

Claude Desktop config location:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "maxential-thinking": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bam-devcrew/maxential-thinking-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

From source

git clone https://github.com/BAM-DevCrew/MAXential-Thinking-MCP.git
cd MAXential-Thinking-MCP
npm install
npm run build

Then configure:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "maxential-thinking": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/MAXential-Thinking-MCP/dist/src/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Configuration

Persistence

Session data is stored in SQLite. By default, the database is created at .maxential/thinking.db in the working directory.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "maxential-thinking": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bam-devcrew/maxential-thinking-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "MAXENTIAL_DB_PATH": "/path/to/your/thinking.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

MAXENTIAL_DB_PATH value	Behavior
(not set)	.maxential/thinking.db in working directory
/path/to/file.db	Use explicit file path
:memory:	In-memory only — no persistence across restarts

If SQLite initialization fails (permissions, native module issues), the server falls back to in-memory mode automatically — it never crashes.

Add .maxential/ to your project's .gitignore to keep session data out of version control.

Logging

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "maxential-thinking": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bam-devcrew/maxential-thinking-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "MAXENTIAL_LOG_FILE": "/path/to/error.log"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage

You don't call these tools directly — you ask your AI to use MAXential thinking, and it calls the tools as part of its reasoning. Here are examples of what that looks like in practice.

Working through a decision:

use maxential thinking for this - should we use REST or GraphQL for the new API?

AI builds a thought chain analyzing the question, branches to explore each approach separately, adds thoughts with tradeoffs, merges the findings, and reaches a conclusion. The entire reasoning process is numbered, structured, and persisted.

Exploring multiple approaches:

think through the auth redesign using maxential - I want to see branches for JWT, session tokens, and OAuth

AI creates three branches, reasons through each approach independently, then merges the insights back to compare. You can ask it to switch between branches, close dead ends, or dig deeper into a specific path.

Resuming previous thinking:

load up that session where you analyzed our database optimization options

AI browses saved sessions, finds the match, restores it with all thoughts, branches, and tags intact, and continues reasoning from where it left off — even across different conversations.

Reviewing past reasoning:

search your maxential thinking history for anything tagged as a decision

AI searches across the session's tagged thoughts and returns the results. You can also ask it to export the full chain as markdown, or generate a diagram of the thought structure.

Getting a quick summary:

give me a summary of that session - just the key findings, keep it short

AI generates a compressed summary of the session's conclusions, tagged highlights, and branch results — useful for loading context without replaying the full chain.

Development

npm install          # Install dependencies
npm run build        # Build TypeScript
npm run watch        # Watch mode
npm test             # Run tests with coverage
npm run test:unit    # Unit tests only
npm run test:integration  # Integration tests only

License

MIT

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at github.com/BAM-DevCrew/MAXential-Thinking-MCP