diff --git a/src/hooks/session-notifications.ts b/src/hooks/session-notifications.ts
index f11746e76..4d2818993 100644
--- a/src/hooks/session-notifications.ts
+++ b/src/hooks/session-notifications.ts
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@ import { readStdin } from "../utils/stdin.js";
 import { drainSessionStart, registerRule } from "../notifications/index.js";
 import { bumpSessionCount } from "../notifications/state.js";
 import { referralInviteRule } from "../notifications/rules/referral-invite.js";
+import { embeddingsNudgeRule } from "../notifications/rules/embeddings-nudge.js";
+import { embeddingsStatus } from "../embeddings/disable.js";
 import { log as _log } from "../utils/debug.js";
 
 const log = (msg: string) => _log("session-notifications", msg);
@@ -27,6 +29,7 @@ const log = (msg: string) => _log("session-notifications", msg);
 // on, for signed-in users (see rules/referral-invite.ts). localMinedRule
 // remains in the tree but unregistered.
 registerRule(referralInviteRule);
+registerRule(embeddingsNudgeRule);
 
 interface SessionStartInput {
   session_id?: string;
@@ -61,7 +64,7 @@ async function main(): Promise<void> {
   const sessionCount = bumpSessionCount(sessionId);
 
   const creds = loadCredentials();
-  await drainSessionStart({ agent: "claude-code", creds, sessionId, source, sessionCount });
+  await drainSessionStart({ agent: "claude-code", creds, sessionId, source, sessionCount, embeddingsStatus: embeddingsStatus() });
 }
 
 main().catch((e) => { log(`fatal: ${e?.message ?? String(e)}`); process.exit(0); });
diff --git a/src/hooks/shared/recall-gate.ts b/src/hooks/shared/recall-gate.ts
index ca61796b3..a3e889ca2 100644
--- a/src/hooks/shared/recall-gate.ts
+++ b/src/hooks/shared/recall-gate.ts
@@ -134,32 +134,4 @@ export const RECALL_THRESHOLD: number = (() => {
   return Number.isFinite(n) && n > 0 && n <= 1 ? n : DEFAULT_RECALL_THRESHOLD;
 })();
 
-// Common words carry no recall signal — matching them would surface noise.
-const STOPWORDS = new Set([
-  "the", "and", "for", "are", "but", "not", "you", "your", "with", "this", "that",
-  "have", "has", "had", "was", "were", "can", "could", "should", "would", "will",
-  "does", "did", "what", "why", "how", "when", "where", "which", "who", "into",
-  "from", "they", "them", "then", "than", "there", "here", "out", "get", "got",
-  "use", "using", "used", "make", "made", "want", "need", "please", "let", "add",
-  "fix", "run", "set", "all", "any", "our", "its", "his", "her", "now", "new",
-  "some", "more", "most", "such", "only", "also", "just", "like", "able", "via",
-]);
 
-/**
- * Extract salient lower-cased keywords from a prompt for the lexical fallback.
- * Keeps identifier-ish tokens (snake_case, dotted, paths), drops stopwords and
- * sub-3-char tokens, de-dupes, and caps the count.
- */
-export function extractKeywords(prompt: string | undefined | null, max = 8): string[] {
-  const raw = (prompt ?? "").toLowerCase().match(/[a-z0-9][a-z0-9_./-]{2,}/g) ?? [];
-  const out: string[] = [];
-  const seen = new Set<string>();
-  for (const tok of raw) {
-    const w = tok.replace(/[._/-]+$/, ""); // trim trailing separators
-    if (w.length < 3 || STOPWORDS.has(w) || seen.has(w)) continue;
-    seen.add(w);
-    out.push(w);
-    if (out.length >= max) break;
-  }
-  return out;
-}
diff --git a/src/notifications/index.ts b/src/notifications/index.ts
index 650eba653..2da915bed 100644
--- a/src/notifications/index.ts
+++ b/src/notifications/index.ts
@@ -76,6 +76,11 @@ export interface DrainOptions {
    * entry point via bumpSessionCount so rules stay IO-free.
    */
   sessionCount?: number;
+  /**
+   * Pre-read embeddings status — populated by the hook entry point so rules
+   * stay IO-free. When absent, treated as "enabled" (no nudge fired).
+   */
+  embeddingsStatus?: import("../embeddings/disable.js").EmbeddingsStatus;
   /**
    * Delivery override. When set, the claimed notifications are handed to
    * this function instead of the per-agent adapter in delivery/index.ts.
@@ -115,6 +120,7 @@ export async function drainSessionStart(opts: DrainOptions): Promise<void> {
       localSkillsCount: opts.localSkillsCount ?? null,
       latestInsightEntry: opts.latestInsightEntry ?? null,
       sessionCount: opts.sessionCount,
+      embeddingsStatus: opts.embeddingsStatus,
     };
 
     const fromRules = evaluateRules("session_start", ctx);
diff --git a/src/notifications/rules/embeddings-nudge.ts b/src/notifications/rules/embeddings-nudge.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ebed08770
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/notifications/rules/embeddings-nudge.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+/**
+ * Embeddings nudge — a one-time SessionStart banner telling users that
+ * semantic memory search is off because embeddings are not enabled.
+ *
+ * Embeddings default to off (`embeddings.enabled` is seeded `false` in
+ * ~/.deeplake/config.json on first read, see user-config.ts), and the
+ * transformers deps ship separately via `hivemind embeddings install`. So on
+ * a fresh install `embeddingsStatus()` reports "user-disabled" even though
+ * the user never chose anything, and the semantic half of memory search is
+ * silently inactive. The status enum cannot tell that default apart from a
+ * deliberate `hivemind embeddings disable`, so the rule fires on every
+ * non-enabled state and relies on the stable dedupKey to show at most once.
+ */
+
+import type { Rule } from "../types.js";
+import type { EmbeddingsStatus } from "../../embeddings/disable.js";
+
+export const embeddingsNudgeRule: Rule = {
+  id: "embeddings-nudge",
+  trigger: "session_start",
+  evaluate({ embeddingsStatus }) {
+    // Undefined means the entry point did not provide a status (older
+    // harness wiring); treat as enabled and stay quiet.
+    if (embeddingsStatus === undefined || embeddingsStatus === "enabled") return null;
+    return {
+      id: "embeddings-nudge",
+      severity: "warn",
+      title: "Semantic memory search is off — embeddings not enabled",
+      body: "Run `hivemind embeddings install` to enable semantic search over your team's memory. Until then, memory search is keyword-only.",
+      // Stable key → shown once, ever.
+      dedupKey: { v: 1 },
+    };
+  },
+};
+
+// Extend NotificationContext with the embeddings status field.
+// Declared here to keep the rule self-contained; the hook entry point
+// populates it before calling drainSessionStart.
+declare module "../types.js" {
+  interface NotificationContext {
+    /** Pre-read embeddings status — populated by the hook entry point so the
+     *  rule stays IO-free. Undefined when the entry point doesn't provide it
+     *  (e.g. older test harnesses); treated as "enabled" (no nudge). */
+    embeddingsStatus?: EmbeddingsStatus;
+  }
+}
diff --git a/tests/claude-code/notifications-embeddings-nudge.test.ts b/tests/claude-code/notifications-embeddings-nudge.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d15584f01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/claude-code/notifications-embeddings-nudge.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+import { describe, it, expect } from "vitest";
+
+import { embeddingsNudgeRule } from "../../src/notifications/rules/embeddings-nudge.js";
+import type { NotificationContext } from "../../src/notifications/types.js";
+
+function ctx(over: Partial<NotificationContext>): NotificationContext {
+  return { agent: "claude-code", creds: null, state: { shown: {} }, ...over };
+}
+
+const EXPECTED_BODY =
+  "Run `hivemind embeddings install` to enable semantic search over your team's memory. Until then, memory search is keyword-only.";
+
+describe("embeddingsNudgeRule", () => {
+  it("fires when transformers are not installed", () => {
+    const n = embeddingsNudgeRule.evaluate(ctx({ embeddingsStatus: "no-transformers" }));
+    expect(n).not.toBeNull();
+    expect(n!.id).toBe("embeddings-nudge");
+    expect(n!.severity).toBe("warn");
+    expect(n!.title).toBe("Semantic memory search is off — embeddings not enabled");
+    expect(n!.body).toBe(EXPECTED_BODY);
+    expect(n!.dedupKey).toEqual({ v: 1 });
+  });
+
+  it("fires on the default install, where the flag is seeded false and reads as user-disabled", () => {
+    const n = embeddingsNudgeRule.evaluate(ctx({ embeddingsStatus: "user-disabled" }));
+    expect(n).not.toBeNull();
+    expect(n!.body).toBe(EXPECTED_BODY);
+  });
+
+  it("stays silent when embeddings are enabled", () => {
+    expect(embeddingsNudgeRule.evaluate(ctx({ embeddingsStatus: "enabled" }))).toBeNull();
+  });
+
+  it("stays silent when embeddingsStatus is not provided (treat as enabled)", () => {
+    expect(embeddingsNudgeRule.evaluate(ctx({}))).toBeNull();
+  });
+});
diff --git a/tests/shared/recall.test.ts b/tests/shared/recall.test.ts
index 0d3c7f17f..e241858f4 100644
--- a/tests/shared/recall.test.ts
+++ b/tests/shared/recall.test.ts
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ import { describe, it, expect, vi } from "vitest";
 import {
   shouldRecall,
   passesThreshold,
-  extractKeywords,
   proactiveRecallDisabled,
   parsePositive,
   RECALL_THRESHOLD,
@@ -492,25 +491,6 @@ describe("recallTopHit — focused semantic query", () => {
   });
 });
 
-describe("extractKeywords — lexical fallback keyword extraction", () => {
-  it("keeps salient/identifier tokens, drops stopwords and short tokens", () => {
-    const kw = extractKeywords("why does the parser throw a TypeError in column_streamers.hpp?");
-    expect(kw).toContain("parser");
-    expect(kw).toContain("typeerror");
-    expect(kw).toContain("column_streamers.hpp");
-    expect(kw).not.toContain("the");
-    expect(kw).not.toContain("why"); // stopword
-  });
-  it("de-dupes and caps the count", () => {
-    const kw = extractKeywords("cache cache cache redis redis storage storage provider bucket byoc extra", 4);
-    expect(kw.length).toBe(4);
-    expect(new Set(kw).size).toBe(kw.length);
-  });
-  it("returns few/no keywords for terse input (can't meet the lexical bar)", () => {
-    expect(extractKeywords("ok go").length).toBeLessThan(2);
-  });
-});
-
 describe("recordRecallEvent — always-on JSONL sink", () => {
   let home: string;
   beforeEach(() => { home = mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), "recall-ev-")); setFakeHome(home); });