explaingit

ohdearquant/khive

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

16RustAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

khive is a Rust-built knowledge graph runtime for AI agents, storing typed entities, notes, and events in a single SQLite file and exposing 11 verb-shaped tools over MCP for structured, persistent research memory.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((khive))
    What it does
      Knowledge graph runtime
      Entities notes events
      Typed edges
    Tech stack
      Rust
      SQLite
      MCP protocol
    Use cases
      Persistent agent memory
      Research tracking
      Hybrid search
    Interface
      11 verb tools
      Stdio MCP server

Code map

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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Give a research AI agent persistent, structured memory that grows and connects across sessions instead of resetting each time.

USE CASE 2

Track dependencies, contradictions, and open questions across a body of documents or research findings.

USE CASE 3

Combine keyword and semantic search to find relevant notes and entities inside a growing knowledge graph.

USE CASE 4

Connect khive to Claude Code or another MCP-compatible agent to give it typed graph tools like create, link, and traverse.

What is it built with?

RustSQLiteMCP

How does it compare?

ohdearquant/khivecelestia-island/ratatui-markdowndollspace-gay/thermite
Stars161616
LanguageRustRustRust
Setup difficultymoderateeasyhard
Complexity3/52/55/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperresearcher

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires Rust 1.94+ to build from source, or cargo install khive-mcp for a prebuilt binary.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright and license notices.

In plain English

khive is a knowledge graph runtime designed for AI research agents that need to track structured information, such as relationships, connections, and history, rather than just searching for similar text. Where vector search finds documents that look alike, a knowledge graph tracks how things relate: which concept depends on which, which papers contradict each other, and which questions remain unanswered. It organizes everything into three types of records: entities, which are the things being tracked such as concepts, documents, datasets, projects, people, and organizations, notes, which are observations, insights, questions, decisions, or references about those entities, and events, an unchangeable audit log of what happened and when. Entities are connected by typed edges that capture specific kinds of relationships such as dependencies, derivations, or implementations, giving the graph meaning beyond simple links. Agents interact with khive through MCP, a protocol for communicating with AI tools over standard input and output, so there is nothing extra to deploy. The 11 built in tools follow simple verb patterns: create, get, list, update, delete, merge, link, traverse, neighbors, query, and search. Search combines full text matching with vector embeddings and blends the results, so both keyword and meaning based queries work. The whole system runs on a single SQLite database file on disk, with no separate graph database or query server required. khive is built in Rust and can be installed with a single cargo command, or built from source with cargo build. It is released under the Apache 2.0 license and is aimed at developers building research oriented AI agents who need persistent, structured memory that grows across sessions instead of starting fresh every time.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Install khive-mcp with cargo and add it to my Claude Code .mcp.json configuration.
Prompt 2
Use khive to create entities for these research papers and link them by their dependency relationships.
Prompt 3
Explain the difference between khive's entities, notes, and events and when to use each.
Prompt 4
Search my khive knowledge graph for anything related to parameter efficient fine tuning.

Frequently asked questions

What is khive?

khive is a Rust-built knowledge graph runtime for AI agents, storing typed entities, notes, and events in a single SQLite file and exposing 11 verb-shaped tools over MCP for structured, persistent research memory.

What language is khive written in?

Mainly Rust. The stack also includes Rust, SQLite, MCP.

What license does khive use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright and license notices.

How hard is khive to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is khive for?

Mainly developer.

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