[MXAntian]

The bug

MNEME_DB_PATH is silently ignored whenever a server is listening on the default port.

The recall request body carries a query and filters — it does not carry a database path. The CLI fallback forwards the path (passThroughDbEnv); the HTTP fast path cannot. So with a DB pinned and a server up, the two paths answer from different databases, and which one you get depends on whether a process happens to be running.

Not theoretical

Multiple agent runtimes share one machine here, each with its own DB on its own port:

port 18792: {"ok":true,"version":"2.10.0","embeddingConfigured":true}
port 18794: {"ok":true,"version":"2.10.0","embeddingConfigured":true}
port 18800: {"ok":true,"version":"2.8.0","embeddingConfigured":false}

Three DBs, one of them a different build entirely. The hardcoded default is the first. A hook pinned to agent B's DB gets agent A's memories.

It has been failing in the suite this whole time

This is the standing red in locations.test.mjs → "hook silent when no alias / no memory hit". It was never flaky. The test pins TOKENMEM_DB_PATH to an empty temp DB; the hook asks the live server instead, and three production memories come back:

🔧 [mneme tool-recall] ... found 3 memory hit(s) ...
[id:7734 ★8] ...  [id:7655 ★8] ...  [id:7936 ★7] ...

It passes on a machine with no server up — the suite is green exactly where the bug cannot bite.

The rule

A caller that names a DB means THAT DB. An explicit MNEME_HTTP_URL is the caller saying "that server serves the DB I named" and still wins. Absent that, a pinned DB turns the fast path off and we spawn — slower and correct.

Nothing changes for normal operation, where no DB path is set at all (verified: no MNEME_DB_PATH / TOKENMEM_DB_PATH in the live environment, so the fast path stays on).

Changes

file
hooks/prompt-recall.mjs, hooks/tool-recall-pre.mjs	resolveHttpUrl(), duplicated in both because these hooks are meant to be individually copyable — matching the existing intEnv() convention
hooks/hooks.test.mjs	two cases pinning both halves of the rule

The first new case goes red without this change on any machine with a server on the default port; the second guards the escape hatch from regressing the other way.

Verification

locations.test.mjs   50 passed / 1 failed  ->  51 passed / 0 failed
hooks.test.mjs       10 checks             ->  12 checks
full suite           262 passed / 0 failed

🤖 Generated with Claude Code