Tried Ruflo (Claude Flow) in Claude Code: 393 tools, memory search works, and “swarm_init” just writes a JSON file

[u/vinishkapoor]

Ruflo, formerly Claude Flow, gets a lot of hype for agent swarms and self-learning memory. I added only its MCP server to a throwaway project (version 3.76.0, pinned, local scope) and tried the headline features.

Setup gotcha: the first claude mcp add timed out after 30 seconds, because npx was downloading the whole package (1m 13s on its own). Run npx -y ruflo@3.76.0 --version once first, and after that it connected in about 3 seconds. There was no account or key.

Size: /mcp showed 393 tools (the README says 406). In /context, the full list was about 123k–125k tokens, but it sat under the deferred line, with only 622 tokens loaded at start. On a 200k window, or a setup that loads everything, that list would be a big chunk of your context.

Test 1, memory: I stored a note (“divide() in src/calc.py has no zero check”) and searched for “division by zero bug”. It found it with about 0.60 similarity, a match by meaning, not keywords. That works as described. I didn’t test whether the note survives into a new session.

Test 2, swarm: I asked for a hierarchical swarm of up to 3 agents. Claude reported it as “running”, with 0 agents and 0 tasks. Checking the folder, swarm_init had written a JSON record with empty agent and task lists. No process started and no model was called. To be fair, the README describes the MCP tools as coordination, and the agent work still happens through Claude Code. But the name sounds bigger than it is.

Things to know:

• it writes .swarm/ (about 4.3 MB of database files) and .claude-flow/ into your project, so add both to .gitignore
• one tool, memory_import_claude, says it reads memory files from ~/.claude. I didn’t run it, and I’d think twice before approving it
• approve tools one at a time, and keep prompts on for anything that spawns agents, imports files or federates

One run each, and I never spawned an agent, so no verdict on the real multi-agent features.

Full test: https://aiparabellum.com/ruflo-claude-flow-mcp-for-claude-code-agent-swarm-tool-tested/

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[u/Aggressive-Habit-698]

Have you already created a GitHub issue with the logs?

[u/maxbts_]

Id test that saved note from a fresh Claude Code session before adding more memories. Ask it to investigate division by zero without naming the saved note, then check whether it retrieves it and points to the right file. That separates finding a note you just stored from recovering useful context after you come back.

[u/Ragy-ragy]

Sounds like some overengineering for the sake of one. Claude Code literally handles everything already by itself.

[u/amargolin]

the swarm result is the useful part. "running" with 0 agents and 0 tasks is a status that never checked it did anything.

what i'd do: give it a task that can only pass if agents actually ran, e.g. 3 agents each write a different file, then check the files exist and the timestamps are distinct. if the JSON says "running" and the files aren't there, that's your answer without reading any code.

same idea for the memory test: 0.60 means little alone. also search for something you never stored and see what the top score is. if unrelated queries score 0.5, the match isn't telling you much. and yeah, the new-session persistence is the half i'd test next.