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The Cognee Python SDK can connect to a remote Cognee instance using cognee.serve(). Once connected, all operations (remember, recall, forget, improve) route to the remote instance instead of running locally.

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Connect to Cognee Cloud

After login, the SDK stores credentials at ~/.cognee/cloud_credentials.json. Subsequent calls to cognee.serve() reconnect without re-authenticating until the token expires.

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Connect to any instance

For self-hosted or staging environments, pass the URL and API key directly:
Or use environment variables:

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Local-to-local connections

Connect to a Cognee backend on the same machine or local network:
Start the local server with cognee serve before connecting.

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Usage after connection

Once connected, all SDK operations execute on the remote instance:
The local UI in Cognee Cloud automatically detects running local instances on localhost:8000 and shows their connection status.

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Push a prebuilt graph instead of raw data

Connecting with serve() and re-running remember() makes the remote instance rebuild the knowledge graph. If you have already built the graph locally and want to avoid re-deriving it (and the LLM cost that comes with it), use cognee.push() instead. It exports the dataset’s graph as a COGX archive and imports it on the remote instance, preserving your local entities and relationships:
The same operation is available from the terminal as cognee push.