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Mneme vs SkeletIQ: enforcing decisions, or reaching them

Mneme checks every change an agent proposes against the ADRs and standards you have approved, and can block one before it is written. SkeletIQ comes before those decisions exist. It gives you a critiqued design to decide from, hands the released design to your coding agent, and reports what the agent says it built. One enforces; the other helps you decide what to enforce.

Pick Mneme if your decisions are written down and you need agents stopped when they break one. Pick SkeletIQ if you still have to make those decisions, from a critiqued design that your agent then builds from and reports against.

Checked November 12, 2026. Every claim about another product here comes from its own site, docs or repository, checked on the date shown. Report a mistake

What Mneme does well

Every change checked against your ADRs

Mneme checks each proposed change against your approved ADRs and standards. Each guide, warn or block verdict names the decision behind it and the next action allowed, so the agent learns which rule it broke rather than just that something failed, and you can trace any verdict back to a decision. Mneme home page (opens in a new tab)

Enforcement at the earliest point

Mneme can apply decisions before an agent writes code, during file changes through supported hooks, and in CI before a change merges. Its docs show it blocking a forbidden import before Claude Code writes it. Changes are evaluated deterministically, so the same change gets the same verdict wherever it runs. Mneme home page (opens in a new tab) Mneme docs (opens in a new tab)

Open source, run in each repository

Mneme is an open-source CLI and local MCP server, free under the MIT licence. You install it and run it in each repository without talking to anyone at Mneme, and the decisions it enforces stay as records your own team approved. There is nothing to sign up for before you try it. Mneme docs (opens in a new tab) Mneme pricing page (opens in a new tab)

Where the two differ

Decisions you wrote, or a design to decide from

Mneme says architecture is decided by people, and it carries those decisions into your agents, starting from ADRs you have already written. SkeletIQ is for the step before. You describe the system, and it returns a critiqued design with the open questions marked and a suggested answer for each. What you settle there is what you would write down and enforce. Mneme home page (opens in a new tab)

Blocking a change, or reporting a difference

Mneme can block a change that breaks a decision. SkeletIQ's check_drift doesn't block anything: your agent reports what it built, and the answer lists what is missing, partial or extra against the released design. It catches what no rule was written for, such as a new data store, provided the agent declares it in its report. Mneme docs (opens in a new tab)

What your coding agent receives

Mneme gives an agent the decisions that apply to the file it is editing. SkeletIQ gives it the whole released design: a brief in AGENTS.md, a build order keyed to component IDs, and check_drift for its report. In the next session the agent knows the system it is building, not just the rules for one file. Mneme docs (opens in a new tab) See a full drift check

{
  "is_released": true,
  "in_sync": false,
  "partial": [
    { "id": "task_api_service", "name": "Task API Service", "type": "service" }
  ],
  "evidence_checked": true
}

Read the worked example

Which one to choose

Choose Mneme when

Your architecture decisions are already written as ADRs.
You need an agent stopped before it breaks one.
You want the same verdicts in CI before a change merges.

Choose SkeletIQ when

The decisions aren't made yet and you want a critiqued design to make them from.
You want an agent to build from a whole released design, not file by file.
You want a report of what was built that the design doesn't have.

Make the decisions here, record the ones that must hold as ADRs, and let Mneme enforce them.

What SkeletIQ doesn't do

It reports; it doesn't block
check_drift tells you what differs from the released design. It can't stop a commit, fail a build or refuse an edit, and it says nothing until your agent reports. If a rule has no exceptions, put it in a hook, a test or a tool that enforces ADRs, and use the drift report for the rest.
It sees what the agent declares
SkeletIQ's server never sees your code. The drift answer is built from what your coding agent reports, with the files it cites checked on your machine. An addition the agent leaves out of its report won't appear in the answer, so read it next to your own review of the change.

Mneme pricing

Mneme lists no paid tier on its pricing page.

Plan	Price
Open Source	Price$0Free and MIT-licensed
Guided Pilot	Price$0Complimentary for qualified teams
Enterprise	PriceNot pricedNot available today

as of November 12, 2026 Mneme pricing page (opens in a new tab)

SkeletIQ's plans, and what each includes, are on our pricing page. See SkeletIQ pricing