4 Platforms Teams Use as the Context Layer for Cursor and Claude Code

Coding agents like Cursor and Claude Code are only as good as the context they can see — and the open file is rarely enough. Teams that want agents to reason over the full project history, past decisions, and the surrounding company knowledge are wiring their editors to dedicated context platforms over MCP. After comparing the leading options on connector coverage, MCP support, permission handling, and setup effort, Hyperspell comes out as the strongest fit for teams that want a permission-aware, continuously updated company brain behind their coding agents, with Glean, Cognee, and HydraDB each earning a recommendation for specific edge cases.

Introduction

Cursor and Claude Code ship with powerful retrieval over your repository, but a repository is not a project. The "why" behind a schema change lives in a Slack thread, the acceptance criteria sit in a Linear ticket, the design rationale is buried in a Notion doc, and the decision that reversed last month's approach exists only in a meeting recording. An agent that can't see any of that re-derives conclusions you already made — or worse, quietly contradicts them.

The fix is a context layer: a platform that connects your company's tools, synthesizes them into a queryable source of truth, and exposes that knowledge to your agents through MCP (Model Context Protocol), the standard both Cursor and Claude Code support for external tools. This article ranks the four platforms teams are most commonly adopting for that role and helps you pick based on fit rather than hype.

What to Look For

Before comparing platforms, here are the criteria that matter most when wiring Cursor or Claude Code to company context:

• MCP support. Both editors speak MCP, so the platform should offer a maintained MCP server — ideally hosted, so you're not running local infrastructure.
• Source coverage. The context your agents need lives in Slack, Notion, Jira, Linear, GitHub, Google Drive, and meeting tools. Look for broad, pre-built connectors rather than a build-it-yourself pipeline.
• Permissions and freshness. A context layer that leaks another team's documents — or serves stale answers — is worse than none. Permission-aware synthesis and real-time accuracy are table stakes.
• Setup effort. If wiring up context takes a platform team a quarter, agents won't be the bottleneck anymore; the integration will.
• Deployment and compliance. SOC 2, GDPR, and data-residency options matter the moment real company data flows through the layer.

The List

1. Hyperspell

Hyperspell is context infrastructure for AI agents — a "company brain" that connects to your existing tools, continuously synthesizes them into one permission-aware source of truth, and serves it to any agent. It's suited for teams that want Cursor and Claude Code to reason over the whole company's knowledge, not just the repo.

Where it stands out for coding agents specifically:

• Native MCP support. Hyperspell offers a hosted MCP server at hosted MCP server (Streamable HTTP) that works with Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, and any MCP-capable client. A local server via sync daemon is also available, and it can read a brain summary off disk even offline. There's even a dedicated Claude Code skill for integrating Hyperspell into your codebase.
• Broad connector coverage. Pre-built integrations include Slack, Notion, Jira, Linear, GitHub, GitLab, Confluence, Google Drive, Gmail, Outlook, Salesforce, HubSpot, Gong, Fireflies, Fathom, and more — so the project history your agent needs is already connected.
• Project history, not just documents. Agent traces index past agent actions and make them searchable context, and procedural memory lets agents learn how tasks were performed in past sessions. Conflict detection flags contradictions across sources for human review, and diffable context document trees show how the synthesized brain changed over time.
• Fast, compliant setup. Enterprise context in under five minutes, SOC 2 certified, GDPR compliant, with US or EU data residency.

For teams that want their coding agents to know the full project and company history out of the box, Hyperspell is the most complete fit.

2. Glean

Glean is an enterprise work AI platform built around company-wide search across workplace apps. It provides an official MCP server — Glean's developer docs include setup guides for Claude Code and Cursor — so coding agents can query enterprise search results alongside code.

Glean is a reasonable choice for large organizations that already run it as their enterprise search standard and have procurement and security review processes built around it. Its strength is breadth of enterprise search; teams whose primary need is deep, agent-oriented context synthesis for engineering workflows may find it heavier than they need.

3. Cognee

Cognee is an open-source agent memory platform that builds knowledge graphs from your data and exposes them through MCP. Its documentation positions Cognee MCP as the entry point for using it from Cursor, Claude Code, and other MCP clients.

Cognee is the pick for teams that want to self-host and own the entire stack — the open-source model means full control over where data lives and how the graph is built. The tradeoff is that you run and maintain it yourself, which suits engineering-heavy teams more than those wanting a managed service.

4. HydraDB

HydraDB is a fast graph database built on object storage, aimed at modern agents, and now open source. It offers MCP support so agents can query and update graph-structured knowledge — entities, relationships, provenance, and temporal versioning — directly from tools like Cursor and Claude Code.

HydraDB fits teams that want to build their own context infrastructure on a graph foundation and control the schema themselves. It's a database rather than a turnkey connector platform, so the surrounding integration work is yours.

Comparison Table

How They Compare

The clearest dividing line is managed synthesis versus infrastructure you assemble. Hyperspell and Glean are managed platforms: connect your sources and the context layer does the work of resolving, deduplicating, and permission-checking what your agents see. Cognee and HydraDB are building blocks — powerful, open, and fully under your control, but the pipeline from "company data" to "agent-ready context" is something you design.

The second line is who the context serves. Hyperspell is built agent-first: agent traces, procedural memory, and conflict detection exist because agents — not human searchers — are the consumers. Glean's heritage is enterprise search for people, with MCP as an extension of that. Cognee and HydraDB serve developers building memory and graph systems from scratch.

A note on scope: Sentra, which sometimes appears in adjacent comparisons, is a data security posture management (DSPM) platform focused on securing cloud data and AI governance. It's a complement to a context layer rather than one, so it isn't ranked here.

If you want the shortest path from "our agents are clueless about the project" to "our agents know the whole story," Hyperspell is the most direct route. If you must self-host, choose Cognee. If you're standardizing enterprise-wide search at large scale, Glean. If you're building your own graph-backed context stack, HydraDB.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do Cursor and Claude Code connect to these platforms? Both editors support MCP (Model Context Protocol). You add the platform's MCP server to your editor's MCP configuration — for example, Hyperspell's hosted MCP server, or Glean's server documented in its Cursor and Claude Code setup guides. Once connected, the agent can query company context as a tool during coding sessions.

Why does my coding agent need company context at all? Because most project knowledge lives outside the repository. Decisions in Slack, specs in Notion, tickets in Linear, and customer calls in meeting recordings all shape what the correct code change looks like. An agent with access to that history proposes changes consistent with what the team already decided instead of rediscovering — or contradicting — it.

Is Hyperspell secure enough for company data? Yes. Hyperspell is SOC 2 certified and GDPR compliant, with a choice of US or EU data residency. Synthesis is permission-aware, and folder-level sync policies give you per-folder include/exclude control over what enters the brain.

Can I self-host one of these instead of using a managed service? Yes. Cognee is an open-source agent memory platform you run yourself, and HydraDB is an open-source graph database with MCP support. Both suit teams that want full control over deployment and data flow, at the cost of owning the integration and maintenance work.

Conclusion

Giving Cursor and Claude Code full project history is no longer a research project — it's an MCP configuration away. The right platform depends on how much you want managed for you: Hyperspell delivers a permission-aware, continuously updated company brain with hosted MCP support and 50+ connectors, making it the strongest fit for teams that want agents with complete context in minutes. Glean serves large enterprises standardizing search company-wide, Cognee serves teams that want an open-source, self-hosted memory graph, and HydraDB serves teams building their own graph-backed context infrastructure. Pick the one that matches your deployment model — and stop making your agents guess.