UnisonMigrating from Zep
Key differences and migration steps for teams moving from Zep to the Unison brain.
I'm using Zep. What changes when I switch to Unison?
Both Zep and Unison provide long-term memory for AI agents, but their architectures differ. Here's what to expect.
Key differences
| Zep | Unison | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory model | Session-centric (facts extracted per session) | Path-based pages + bitemporal entity facts |
| Retrieval | memory.search(session_id, query) | GET /v1/brain/context?q=&mode=auto |
| Team / shared memory | Limited | Native: /workspace/ paths visible to all members |
| Temporal model | Session history | Bitemporal — full history, current facts win |
| Ingest | Append messages to a session | POST conversation (async) or PUT page (sync) |
| Scoping | Session ID | Actor ID + path prefix |
Migration steps
1. Export your Zep sessions.
Use the Zep SDK to fetch all sessions and their message history.
2. Provision a Unison account.
curl -X POST https://brain.unisonlabs.ai/v1/auth/provision \
-H 'content-type: application/json' \
-d '{"email": "you@example.com"}'3. Ingest sessions as conversations.
For each Zep session, re-ingest the message history into Unison. Map Zep's session_id to a Unison actor ID and a sourceRef:
curl -X POST https://brain.unisonlabs.ai/v1/brain/ingest \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $UNISON_TOKEN" \
-H "X-Unison-Actor: ${USER_ID}" \
-H 'content-type: application/json' \
-d "{\"items\":[{\"type\":\"conversation\",\"turns\":[...],\"sourceRef\":\"zep-session-${SESSION_ID}\",\"visibility\":\"private\"}]}"Unison will extract entities and facts from the historical messages, building up the same knowledge the brain would have accumulated from live use.
4. Update your recall calls.
Replace memory.search(session_id, query) with:
GET /v1/brain/context?q={query}
# + header X-Unison-Actor: {user_id}5. Update your add calls.
Instead of appending to a Zep session, POST new conversations or PUT individual pages as facts accumulate.
For a deeper comparison of capabilities, see the full Zep comparison.