libkit

libkit is a toolkit for the retrieval half of RAG. It ingests documents (PDF, Markdown, Office), chunks and embeds them, stores everything in a single DuckDB file, and answers queries with hybrid search (vector + full-text, fused with RRF) plus optional reranking and attribute weighting.

There's no generation here — libkit gives you the building blocks to stand up a knowledge base for an LLM skill or an MCP service, with sensible defaults and an "it just works" entry point.

from libkit import Library

lib = await Library.open("corpus.duckdb")        # smart defaults
await lib.ingest("paper.pdf")                      # → chunk → embed → store
hits = await lib.query("how does cache eviction work?", limit=5)
for h in hits:
    print(h.score, h.chunk.text[:80])

Why libkit

• Async-first, batteries-included. Library.open() wires up a recommended embedder, the standard loader map, persistent caching, and adaptive request coalescing — every piece overridable.
• Hybrid retrieval. Dense vector search and DuckDB full-text BM25 run in parallel and fuse with Reciprocal Rank Fusion; an optional cross-encoder reranker and per-query attribute weighting refine the ranking.
• One file, no services. Documents, chunks, vectors, and the FTS index all live in a single DuckDB database. No external vector DB to run.
• Generic metadata. Four auto-filled top-level fields (source_url, content_type, title, date) plus a free-form metadata JSON column; filters and weights work over both.
• Pluggable backends. Loaders, embedders, and rerankers are injected as protocol-conforming instances — bring your own, or use the bundled adapters (OpenAI, DeepInfra, vLLM, local MLX/torch, Cohere, ZeroEntropy, Datalab, pdfmux, LibreOffice).
• Strictly typed. Ships py.typed; pyright-checked.

Install

pip install libkit            # or: uv add libkit

libkit's core is pure-Python with a small dependency set. Heavier or service-specific backends are opt-in extras:

pip install "libkit[pdf,cohere,mcp]"

Some embedders/loaders call hosted APIs (OpenAI, DeepInfra, Cohere, ZeroEntropy, Datalab) and read their keys from the environment (OPENAI_API_KEY, DEEPINFRA_API_KEY, DATALAB_API_KEY, …).

Quickstart

import asyncio
from libkit import Library, QueryWeights


async def main():
    # Smart defaults: remote bulk-ingest embeddings, local interactive query
    # embeddings, caching, and coalescing. db_path is the only requirement.
    lib = await Library.open(
        "corpus.duckdb",
        embedding="auto",        # "auto" | "local" | "remote"
        model="qwen3_600m",
    )

    # Ingest. Idempotent on content hash; the loader is chosen by extension.
    # The four top-level fields are auto-filled; override any via metadata=,
    # and add arbitrary keys (stored in the metadata JSON).
    await lib.ingest("paper.pdf", metadata={"doc_type": "paper", "author": "Smith"})
    await lib.ingest("notes.md")

    # Batch ingest yields a result per document as it finishes.
    async for r in lib.ingest_batch(["a.pdf", "b.pdf", "c.md"]):
        if r.error:
            print("failed:", r.path, r.error)

    # Hybrid query with optional recency/attribute weighting and filters.
    results = await lib.query(
        "how does the cache eviction work?",
        limit=8,
        weights=QueryWeights(recency=0.2, attributes={"doc_type": {"paper": 1.5}}),
        filters={"author": "Smith"},
    )
    for r in results:
        print(f"{r.score:.3f}  {r.chunk.source_url}\n      {r.chunk.text[:100]}")

    await lib.close()


asyncio.run(main())

Full control

Library.open() is a convenience over an explicit, frozen LibraryConfig:

from libkit import Library, LibraryConfig
from libkit.embedders import default_embedder
from libkit.loaders import MarkdownLoader

lib = Library(
    LibraryConfig(
        db_path="corpus.duckdb",
        embedder=default_embedder(embedding="remote"),
        loaders={".md": MarkdownLoader()},
        chunk_size_tokens=512,
        chunk_overlap_tokens=64,
    )
)

Serve over MCP

from libkit import Library
from libkit.mcp import serve_mcp        # requires the `mcp` extra

lib = await Library.open("corpus.duckdb")
await serve_mcp(lib)                     # exposes ingest/query/get/list/delete tools

How it works

ingest → load (PDF/MD/Office → Markdown) → chunk → embed → DuckDB
query  → embed query → [vector top-k ‖ FTS top-k] → RRF fuse
         → optional rerank → attribute weighting → results

See docs/DESIGN.md for the full design — schema, the adaptive-concurrency pipeline, caching, and the correctness invariants.

Status

libkit is at 0.1 — the API is usable and tested, but may still shift before 1.0. Issues and PRs welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT © Sam Quigley