CortexDB

CortexDB is a pure-Go, single-file AI memory and knowledge graph library. It uses SQLite as the storage kernel and exposes vector search, lexical search, RAG knowledge storage, agent memory workflows, RDF/SPARQL/RDFS/SHACL knowledge graph features, corpus-to-graph workflows, and MCP-aligned tool APIs.

It is designed for local-first AI agents that need durable memory without running a separate vector database, graph database, or MCP service stack.

Architecture

pkg/cortexdb
  Core public DB facade: vectors, text search, knowledge, memory, KnowledgeMemory, KG, tools, MCP.

pkg/memoryflow
  Agent memory workflow: transcript ingest, recall, wake-up context, diary, promotion.

pkg/graphflow
  Corpus-to-graph workflow: extraction schema, build, analyze, report, export, HTML.

pkg/importflow
  External structured-data import (CSV / MySQL-PG dumps) into RAG + knowledge-graph foundations, AI-assisted mapping optional.

pkg/graph
  Low-level graph engine: property graph, RDF triples/quads, SPARQL, RDFS, SHACL.

pkg/core
  SQLite storage, embeddings, FTS5, vector indexes, chat/session primitives.

Use pkg/cortexdb first. Reach for pkg/memoryflow when building agent memory UX, pkg/graphflow when building graph extraction/report pipelines, and pkg/graph only when you need low-level RDF or property graph control.

Install

go get github.com/liliang-cn/cortexdb/v2

Quick Start

package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/liliang-cn/cortexdb/v2/pkg/cortexdb"
)

func main() {
    db, err := cortexdb.Open(cortexdb.DefaultConfig("KnowledgeMemory.db"))
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer db.Close()

    ctx := context.Background()
    quick := db.Quick()

    _, _ = quick.Add(ctx, []float32{0.1, 0.2, 0.9}, "SQLite is a single-file database.")
    results, _ := quick.Search(ctx, []float32{0.1, 0.2, 0.8}, 1)

    if len(results) > 0 {
        fmt.Println(results[0].Content)
    }
}

Choose the Right Layer

Need vectors / collections / FTS5?      -> pkg/cortexdb / pkg/core
Need RAG knowledge storage/search?      -> pkg/cortexdb SaveKnowledge/SearchKnowledge
Need chat/session memory workflow?      -> pkg/memoryflow
Need RDF/SPARQL/RDFS/SHACL?             -> pkg/cortexdb knowledge graph APIs
Need corpus-to-graph/report/export?     -> pkg/graphflow
Need agent tools or MCP server?         -> db.GraphRAGTools() / db.NewMCPServer()
Need low-level graph control?           -> pkg/graph

High-Level Knowledge and Memory

_, _ = db.SaveKnowledge(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeSaveRequest{
    KnowledgeID: "apollo-plan",
    Title:       "Apollo launch plan",
    Content:     "Alice owns Apollo. Apollo ships on Friday.",
    ChunkSize:   24,
    Entities: []cortexdb.ToolEntityInput{
        {Name: "Alice", Type: "person", ChunkIDs: []string{"chunk:apollo-plan:000"}},
        {Name: "Apollo", Type: "project", ChunkIDs: []string{"chunk:apollo-plan:000"}},
    },
    Relations: []cortexdb.ToolRelationInput{
        {From: "Alice", To: "Apollo", Type: "owns"},
    },
})

resp, _ := db.SearchKnowledge(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeSearchRequest{
    Query:         "Who owns Apollo?",
    Keywords:      []string{"Apollo", "Alice", "owns"},
    RetrievalMode: cortexdb.RetrievalModeLexical,
    TopK:          3,
})
_ = resp.Context

Without an embedder, CortexDB uses lexical retrieval and planner-provided keywords. With an embedder, the same high-level APIs can use semantic or hybrid retrieval.

RAG benchmark coverage is available in pkg/cortexdb:

go test ./pkg/cortexdb -run '^$' -bench 'BenchmarkRAG' -benchmem

Reference run on Apple M2 Pro, -benchtime=3x:

MemoryFlow

pkg/memoryflow is the agent memory workflow layer. It stores raw transcript exchanges, recalls relevant context, assembles wake-up layers, appends diary entries, reconstructs transcripts, and optionally promotes durable facts to knowledge.

flow, _ := memoryflow.New(db, planner, extractor)

_, _ = flow.IngestTranscript(ctx, memoryflow.IngestTranscriptRequest{
    Transcript: memoryflow.Transcript{
        SessionID: "session-1",
        UserID:    "user-1",
        Source:    "chat",
        Turns: []memoryflow.TranscriptTurn{
            {Role: "user", Content: "Apollo ships on Friday."},
            {Role: "assistant", Content: "Captured."},
        },
    },
    Scope:     cortexdb.MemoryScopeSession,
    Namespace: "assistant",
})

layers, _ := flow.WakeUpLayers(ctx, memoryflow.WakeUpLayersRequest{
    Identity: "You are the Apollo project assistant.",
    Recall: memoryflow.RecallRequest{
        Query:     "startup context",
        SessionID: "session-1",
        Scope:     cortexdb.MemoryScopeSession,
        Namespace: "assistant",
    },
})
_ = layers

LLM-dependent behavior is interface-based:

type QueryPlanner interface {
    Plan(ctx context.Context, query string, state memoryflow.SessionState) (*cortexdb.RetrievalPlan, error)
}

type SessionExtractor interface {
    Extract(ctx context.Context, transcript memoryflow.Transcript, state memoryflow.SessionState) ([]memoryflow.PromotionCandidate, error)
}

MemoryFlow can also be wrapped with optional recall strategies. pkg/hindsight now provides a compatibility strategy plugin that enriches recall with bank/entity/keyword cues while leaving MemoryFlow as the default workflow:

flow, _ := memoryflow.New(
    db,
    planner,
    extractor,
    memoryflow.WithRecallStrategy(hindsight.NewStrategy(db, hindsight.StrategyOptions{
        BankID:      "apollo-agent",
        EntityNames: []string{"Apollo"},
        Keywords:    []string{"deadline"},
        UseKG:       true,
    })),
)

Knowledge Graph

CortexDB has an embedded RDF/KG layer on top of the same SQLite file:

• RDF terms, triples, and quads
• namespaces
• N-Triples / N-Quads / Turtle / TriG import and export
• practical SPARQL subset
• RDFS-lite materialized inference with provenance
• incremental RDFS inference refresh
• SHACL-lite validation

_, _ = db.UpsertKnowledgeGraph(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphUpsertRequest{
    Triples: []cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphTriple{
        {
            Subject:   graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/alice"),
            Predicate: graph.NewIRI(graph.RDFType),
            Object:    graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/Person"),
        },
        {
            Subject:   graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/alice"),
            Predicate: graph.NewIRI("https://schema.org/name"),
            Object:    graph.NewLiteral("Alice"),
        },
    },
})

result, _ := db.QueryKnowledgeGraph(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphQueryRequest{
    Query: `
PREFIX schema: <https://schema.org/>
SELECT ?name WHERE {
    <https://example.com/alice> schema:name ?name .
}
`,
})
_ = result

SPARQL support is a practical embedded subset. It includes SELECT, ASK, CONSTRUCT, DESCRIBE, INSERT DATA, INSERT ... WHERE, DELETE DATA, DELETE WHERE, DELETE ... INSERT ... WHERE, WITH, USING, GRAPH, OPTIONAL, UNION, MINUS, VALUES, BIND, FILTER, EXISTS, NOT EXISTS, REGEX, LANG, DATATYPE, COALESCE, IF, arithmetic, GROUP BY, HAVING, COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, SAMPLE, GROUP_CONCAT, ORDER BY, LIMIT, OFFSET, subqueries, and a constrained property path subset: ^pred, p|q, p+, p*.

RDFS-lite:

refresh, _ := db.RefreshKnowledgeGraphInference(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphInferenceRefreshRequest{
    Mode: cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphInferenceRefreshModeIncremental,
    Triples: []cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphTriple{
        {
            Subject:   graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/Employee"),
            Predicate: graph.NewIRI("http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#subClassOf"),
            Object:    graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/Person"),
        },
    },
})
_ = refresh

SHACL-lite:

report, _ := db.ValidateKnowledgeGraphSHACL(ctx, cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphSHACLValidateRequest{
    Shapes: []cortexdb.KnowledgeGraphTriple{
        {Subject: graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/PersonShape"), Predicate: graph.NewIRI(graph.RDFType), Object: graph.NewIRI(graph.SHACLNodeShape)},
        {Subject: graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/PersonShape"), Predicate: graph.NewIRI(graph.SHACLTargetClass), Object: graph.NewIRI("https://example.com/Person")},
    },
})
_ = report

SHACL-lite currently supports sh:targetClass, sh:targetNode, sh:datatype, sh:minCount, sh:maxCount, sh:minInclusive, sh:maxInclusive, sh:pattern, sh:class, sh:nodeKind, sh:in, and sh:message.

Knowledge graph benchmark coverage is available in pkg/graph:

go test ./pkg/graph -run '^$' -bench 'BenchmarkKnowledgeGraph' -benchmem

Reference run on Apple M2 Pro, -benchtime=3x:

These numbers are a local reference point, not a portability guarantee. The RDFS chain fixture and SPARQL subquery benchmark are intentionally stress-heavy and useful for tracking optimizer work. The suite also includes BenchmarkKnowledgeGraphRDFSIncrementalLocalRefresh to measure a more realistic localized change on a multi-component graph.

GraphFlow

pkg/graphflow is the corpus-to-graph workflow layer:

• canonical extraction schema: ExtractionResult, ExtractionNode, ExtractionEdge
• deterministic HeuristicExtractor
• LLM-backed extraction through JSONGenerator
• Build, Analyze, RenderReport
• Export to JSON/Markdown and ExportHTML

The library keeps model integration as an interface:

type JSONGenerator interface {
    GenerateJSON(ctx context.Context, systemPrompt string, userPrompt string) ([]byte, error)
}

The example examples/05_graphflow demonstrates openai-go/v3 with JSON Schema structured output. Configure it with .env:

OPENAI_API_KEY=...
OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://43.167.167.6:8080/v1
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-5.4

Then run:

go run ./examples/05_graphflow

Tools and MCP

For in-process tool calling:

tools := db.GraphRAGTools()
defs := tools.Definitions()
resp, err := tools.Call(ctx, "knowledge_graph_query", payload)
_ = defs
_ = resp
_ = err

For MCP:

server := db.NewMCPServer(cortexdb.MCPServerOptions{})
_ = server

Tool groups include:

• GraphRAG: ingest_document, search_text, expand_graph, build_context
• Knowledge/memory: knowledge_save, knowledge_search, memory_save, memory_search
• Knowledge graph: knowledge_graph_upsert, knowledge_graph_query, knowledge_graph_shacl_validate, knowledge_graph_infer_refresh
• KnowledgeMemory: knowledge_memory_recall, knowledge_memory_build_context_pack, knowledge_memory_reflect, knowledge_memory_consolidate
• Ontology/inference: ontology_save, apply_inference

memoryflow and graphflow also expose their own toolbox/MCP surfaces:

• memoryflow: memoryflow_ingest_transcript, memoryflow_recall, memoryflow_wake_up_layers, memoryflow_prepare_reply
• graphflow: graphflow_build, graphflow_analyze, graphflow_report, graphflow_export, graphflow_run

Use from other languages (gRPC sidecar)

The full facade is also served over gRPC by the cortexdb-grpc sidecar, with typed clients published for Rust, Python, and Node — give a Hermes (Python) or OpenClaw (Node) agent durable memory plus a SPARQL knowledge graph:

cargo add cortexdb-client    # Rust  (crates.io)
pip install cortexdb-client  # Python (PyPI)   — e.g. Hermes
npm install cortexdb-client  # Node   (npm)    — e.g. OpenClaw

All three clients mirror the same sub-client layout (knowledge, memory, graph, graphrag, tools, admin) and bearer-token auth.

Start the sidecar:

go install github.com/liliang-cn/cortexdb/v2/cmd/cortexdb-grpc@latest
CORTEXDB_PATH=my.db CORTEXDB_GRPC_TOKEN=s3cret cortexdb-grpc
# listening on 127.0.0.1:47821

Works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, e.g. Ollama: OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1 CORTEXDB_EMBED_MODEL=embeddinggemma CORTEXDB_EMBED_DIM=768.

From Rust:

use cortexdb_client::{proto, CortexClient};

let client = CortexClient::builder("http://127.0.0.1:47821")
    .token("s3cret")
    .connect()
    .await?;
client.knowledge().save_knowledge(proto::SaveKnowledgeRequest {
    knowledge_id: "k1".into(),
    content: "CortexDB from Rust over gRPC.".into(),
    ..Default::default()
}).await?;
let hits = client.knowledge().search_knowledge(proto::SearchKnowledgeRequest {
    query: "rust grpc".into(), top_k: 3, ..Default::default()
}).await?.into_inner();

Services: knowledge(), memory(), graph() (SPARQL/RDF/SHACL/inference/ontology), graphrag(), tools() (generic tool dispatch, same surface as MCP), admin().

From Python (Hermes-style agent memory):

from cortexdb_client import CortexClient, proto

with CortexClient.connect("127.0.0.1:47821", token="s3cret") as client:
    client.memory.SaveMemory(proto.SaveMemoryRequest(
        memory_id="m1", user_id="alice", scope="user",
        content="Alice prefers Python and dislikes heavy frameworks."))
    hits = client.memory.SearchMemory(proto.SearchMemoryRequest(
        query="what does the user like?", user_id="alice", scope="user", top_k=3))

From Node (OpenClaw-style agent memory):

const { CortexClient } = require('cortexdb-client');

const client = CortexClient.connect('127.0.0.1:47821', { token: 's3cret' });
await client.memory.SaveMemory({
  memoryId: 'm1', userId: 'alice', scope: 'user',
  content: 'Alice runs OpenClaw locally and prefers TypeScript.' });
const hits = await client.memory.SearchMemory({
  query: 'what stack does the user prefer?', userId: 'alice', scope: 'user', topK: 3 });

With the managed-server feature the Rust crate resolves (env → PATH → GitHub Releases download with sha256 verification) and spawns the sidecar itself on a random port with a fresh random token:

use cortexdb_client::sidecar::Sidecar;

let running = Sidecar::ensure().await?.spawn("my.db").await?;
let client = running.client().await?;

Notes: token auth rides plaintext gRPC — fine on localhost; add TLS or a reverse proxy for cross-machine use. v1 is single-node: one sidecar owns one SQLite file (multi-user apps use memory scopes / KG namespaces / collections inside the file). Proto contract lives in proto/cortexdb/v1/; clients live under clients/{rust,python,node}/.

Agent Skills (Hermes, OpenClaw, …)

Two agentskills.io-format skills under skills/ wire CortexDB in as the memory + knowledge-graph layer for an AI agent — install them straight from the agent's marketplace:

# OpenClaw (ClawHub)
clawhub skill install cortexdb-agent-memory

# Hermes / any agentskills.io client, from git or skills.sh
hermes skills install git:liliang-cn/cortexdb@main
npx skills add liliang-cn/cortexdb

skills/cortexdb-memory-hermes (Python) and skills/cortexdb-memory-openclaw (Node) each teach the agent to remember / recall, do RAG, and store and query an RDF/SPARQL knowledge graph, with a ready-to-use helper module under scripts/.

Optional Semantic Router

pkg/semantic-router remains available as an optional utility for routing user input to handlers or CortexDB tools before retrieval. It is not required by the main CortexDB, MemoryFlow, or GraphFlow paths.

For no-embedder setups, use the lexical router:

router, _ := semanticrouter.NewLexicalRouter(semanticrouter.WithSparseThreshold(0.1))
_ = router.Add(&semanticrouter.SparseRoute{
    Name:       "memory_save",
    Utterances: []string{"remember this", "save to memory"},
})
route, _ := router.Route(ctx, "please remember this preference")
_ = route.RouteName

Examples

The examples are intentionally small and architecture-oriented:

go run ./examples/01_core
go run ./examples/02_rag
go run ./examples/03_memoryflow
go run ./examples/04_knowledge_graph
go run ./examples/05_graphflow
go run ./examples/06_tools_mcp
go run ./examples/07_importflow
go run ./examples/08_self_knowledge_graph   # builds a KG of this project itself; qa_test.go answers questions from it

See examples/README.md for the selection guide.

Status

CortexDB is an embedded AI memory/KG library, not a drop-in replacement for full graph database products such as Fuseki, GraphDB, or Stardog. The goal is practical local-first storage and reasoning for agents: one file, Go APIs, tool/MCP surfaces, and enough RDF/SPARQL/RDFS/SHACL functionality to build useful memory and knowledge workflows.