rag-memory 0.5.0

PostgreSQL pgvector-based RAG memory system with MCP server

RAG Memory

A production-ready PostgreSQL + pgvector RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system that works as both an MCP server for AI agents and a standalone CLI tool.

What Is This?

RAG Memory gives AI agents and developers a powerful memory system for storing and retrieving documents semantically. It combines vector search with full document retrieval, allowing you to find the right information and get the complete context.

Two ways to use it:

1. MCP Server - Connect AI agents (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor) with 11 tools
2. CLI Tool - Direct command-line access for testing, automation, and bulk operations

Key capabilities:

• Semantic search across documents with vector embeddings
• Web crawling and documentation ingestion
• Document chunking for large files
• Collection management for organizing knowledge
• Full document lifecycle (create, read, update, delete)
• Cross-platform configuration system

Getting Started

🚀 Recommended: Use the Claude Code Slash Command

If you have Claude Code or Claude Desktop:

1. Run the command: /getting-started
2. Follow the interactive guide that will:
   • Explain what RAG Memory does
   • Help you choose MCP server, CLI, or both
   • Guide you through installation and configuration
   • Test your setup with sample data

This is the easiest way to get started!

📦 Manual Installation

For end users (install from PyPI):

# Install globally
uv tool install rag-memory

# Start database (requires cloning repo for docker-compose.yml)
git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/rag-memory.git
cd rag-memory
docker-compose up -d

# Run any command - first-run wizard will prompt for config
rag status

The first time you run any rag command, an interactive wizard will prompt you for:

• DATABASE_URL (defaults to local Docker: postgresql://raguser:ragpass@localhost:54320/rag_poc)
• OPENAI_API_KEY (get from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)

Configuration is saved to ~/.rag-memory-env with secure permissions.

For developers (clone and develop):

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/rag-memory.git
cd rag-memory

# Install dependencies
uv sync

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your DATABASE_URL and OPENAI_API_KEY

# Start database
docker-compose up -d

# Run CLI (uses .env in current directory)
uv run rag status

CLI Commands

Database & Status

rag init                      # Initialize database schema
rag status                    # Check database connection and stats

Collection Management

rag collection create <name> [--description TEXT]
rag collection list
rag collection info <name>    # View stats and crawl history
rag collection delete <name>

Document Ingestion

Text:

rag ingest text "content" --collection <name> [--metadata JSON]

Files:

rag ingest file <path> --collection <name>
rag ingest directory <path> --collection <name> --extensions .txt,.md [--recursive]

Web Pages:

# Analyze website structure first
rag analyze https://docs.example.com

# Crawl single page
rag ingest url https://docs.example.com --collection docs

# Crawl with link following
rag ingest url https://docs.example.com --collection docs --follow-links --max-depth 2

# Re-crawl to update content
rag recrawl https://docs.example.com --collection docs --follow-links --max-depth 2

Search

# Basic search
rag search "query" --collection <name>

# Advanced options
rag search "query" --collection <name> --limit 10 --threshold 0.7 --verbose --show-source

# Search with metadata filter
rag search "query" --metadata '{"topic":"python"}'

Document Management

# List documents
rag document list [--collection <name>]

# View document details
rag document view <ID> [--show-chunks] [--show-content]

# Update document (re-chunks and re-embeds)
rag document update <ID> --content "new content" [--title "title"] [--metadata JSON]

# Delete document
rag document delete <ID> [--confirm]

MCP Server for AI Agents

RAG Memory exposes 11 tools via Model Context Protocol (MCP) for AI agent integration.

Quick Setup

1. Install globally:

uv tool install rag-memory

2. Start database:

git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/rag-memory.git
cd rag-memory
docker-compose up -d

3. Configure your AI agent:

Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rag-memory": {
      "command": "rag-mcp-stdio",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-your-api-key-here",
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgresql://raguser:ragpass@localhost:54320/rag_poc"
      }
    }
  }
}

4. Restart your AI agent (quit and reopen)

5. Test: Ask your agent "List available RAG collections"

Available MCP Tools (11 Total)

Core RAG (3 tools):

• search_documents - Semantic search across knowledge base
• list_collections - Discover available collections
• ingest_text - Add text content with auto-chunking

Document Management (4 tools):

• list_documents - Browse documents with pagination
• get_document_by_id - Retrieve full source document
• update_document - Edit existing documents (triggers re-chunking/re-embedding)
• delete_document - Remove outdated documents

Advanced Ingestion (4 tools):

• get_collection_info - Collection stats and crawl history
• analyze_website - Sitemap analysis for planning crawls
• ingest_url - Crawl web pages with duplicate prevention
• ingest_file - Ingest from file system

See docs/MCP_SERVER_GUIDE.md for complete tool reference and examples.

Configuration System

RAG Memory uses a three-tier priority system for configuration:

1. Environment variables (highest priority) - Set in your shell
2. Project .env file (current directory only) - For developers
3. Global ~/.rag-memory-env (lowest priority) - For end users

For CLI usage: First run triggers interactive setup wizard

For MCP server: Configuration comes from MCP client config (not files)

See docs/ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md for complete details.

Key Features

Vector Search with pgvector

• PostgreSQL 17 + pgvector extension
• HNSW indexing for fast approximate nearest neighbor search
• Vector normalization for accurate cosine similarity
• Optimized for 95%+ recall

Document Chunking

• Hierarchical text splitting (headers → paragraphs → sentences)
• ~1000 chars per chunk with 200 char overlap
• Preserves context across boundaries
• Each chunk independently embedded and searchable
• Source documents preserved for full context retrieval

Web Crawling

• Built on Crawl4AI for robust web scraping
• Sitemap.xml parsing for comprehensive crawls
• Follow internal links with configurable depth
• Duplicate prevention (crawl mode vs recrawl mode)
• Crawl metadata tracking (root URL, session ID, timestamp)

Collection Management

• Organize documents by topic/domain
• Many-to-many relationships (documents can belong to multiple collections)
• Search can be scoped to specific collection
• Collection statistics and crawl history

Full Document Lifecycle

• Create: Ingest from text, files, directories, URLs
• Read: Search chunks, retrieve full documents
• Update: Edit content with automatic re-chunking/re-embedding
• Delete: Remove outdated documents and their chunks

Architecture

Database Schema

Source documents and chunks:

• source_documents - Full original documents
• document_chunks - Searchable chunks with embeddings (vector[1536])
• collections - Named groupings
• chunk_collections - Junction table (N:M relationship)

Indexes:

• HNSW on document_chunks.embedding for fast vector search
• GIN on metadata columns for efficient JSONB queries

Python Application

src/
├── cli.py                 # Command-line interface
├── core/
│   ├── config_loader.py   # Three-tier environment configuration
│   ├── first_run.py       # Interactive setup wizard
│   ├── database.py        # PostgreSQL connection management
│   ├── embeddings.py      # OpenAI embeddings with normalization
│   ├── collections.py     # Collection CRUD operations
│   └── chunking.py        # Document text splitting
├── ingestion/
│   ├── document_store.py  # High-level document management
│   ├── web_crawler.py     # Web page crawling (Crawl4AI)
│   └── website_analyzer.py # Sitemap analysis
├── retrieval/
│   └── search.py          # Semantic search with pgvector
└── mcp/
    ├── server.py          # MCP server (FastMCP)
    └── tools.py           # 11 MCP tool implementations

Documentation

• .reference/OVERVIEW.md - Quick overview for slash command
• .reference/MCP_QUICK_START.md - MCP setup guide
• docs/ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md - Configuration system explained
• docs/MCP_SERVER_GUIDE.md - Complete MCP tool reference
• CLAUDE.md - Development guide and CLI reference

Prerequisites

• Docker & Docker Compose - For PostgreSQL database
• uv - Fast Python package manager (curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh)
• Python 3.12+ - Managed by uv
• OpenAI API Key - For embedding generation (https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)

Technology Stack

• Database: PostgreSQL 17 + pgvector extension
• Language: Python 3.12
• Package Manager: uv (Astral)
• Embedding Model: OpenAI text-embedding-3-small (1536 dims)
• Web Crawling: Crawl4AI (Playwright-based)
• MCP Server: FastMCP (Anthropic)
• CLI Framework: Click + Rich
• Testing: pytest

Cost Analysis

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small: $0.02 per 1M tokens

Example usage:

• 10,000 documents × 750 tokens avg = 7.5M tokens
• One-time embedding cost: $0.15
• Per-query cost: ~$0.00003 (negligible)

Extremely cost-effective for most use cases.

Development

Running Tests

uv run pytest                          # All tests
uv run pytest tests/test_embeddings.py # Specific file

Code Quality

uv run black src/ tests/               # Format
uv run ruff check src/ tests/          # Lint

Troubleshooting

Database connection errors

docker-compose ps                      # Check if running
docker-compose logs postgres           # View logs
docker-compose restart                 # Restart
docker-compose down -v && docker-compose up -d  # Reset

Configuration issues

# Check global config
cat ~/.rag-memory-env

# Re-run first-run wizard
rm ~/.rag-memory-env
rag status

# Check environment variables
env | grep -E '(DATABASE_URL|OPENAI_API_KEY)'

MCP server not showing in agent

• Check JSON syntax in MCP config (no trailing commas!)
• Verify both DATABASE_URL and OPENAI_API_KEY in env section
• Check MCP logs: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log (macOS)
• Restart AI agent completely (quit and reopen)

See docs/ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md troubleshooting section for more.

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details.

Support

For help getting started:

• Run /getting-started slash command in Claude Code
• Read .reference/OVERVIEW.md
• Check docs/ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md

For MCP server setup:

• See .reference/MCP_QUICK_START.md
• Read docs/MCP_SERVER_GUIDE.md

For issues:

• Check troubleshooting sections above
• Review documentation in docs/ directory
• Check database logs: docker-compose logs -f

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Built with PostgreSQL + pgvector for production-grade semantic search.