Atheneum

Embedded graph database for agent coordination — episodic memory, knowledge persistence, and session accountability across coding sessions.

Part of the grounded-coding ecosystem. Used as the storage layer inside envoy.

Ecosystem

grounded-coding ── install + Claude Code plugin (skills, hooks, MCP)
       │
       ├── magellan   ── code graph indexer (symbols, call graph, CFG)
       ├── llmgrep    ── semantic code search over magellan graphs
       ├── mirage     ── CFG analysis (paths, loops, dominance)
       ├── splice     ── span-safe refactoring
       │
       ├── envoy      ── HTTP coordination server (messaging, agent registry)
       │     └── atheneum  ◀── YOU ARE HERE
       │           └── sqlitegraph  ── SQLite graph engine
       │
       └── envoy-hook ── Claude Code hook binary (session + tool call logging)

Atheneum is the persistence layer. It stores what agents discovered, what sessions did, what tasks exist, and what knowledge is worth keeping — so the next agent doesn't start from scratch.

Install

cargo add atheneum

Atheneum is a library. Production use is via agent-envoy which exposes all endpoints over HTTP (envoy binary). Direct embedding is for custom runtimes.

What's New In 0.11.0

• seed_memory: a token-bounded, concept-grouped summary of the knowledge base. atheneum-mcp regenerates it on every session connect and folds it into the server instructions and navigate/query_memory/search tool descriptions, so a connecting client already knows what's in memory.
• update_memory and upsert_memory_by_concept (add_memory): patch a memory or its owning concept in place instead of every correction becoming a new row.
• lint/maintain: deterministic graph-health lint (orphans, broken wikilinks, stale superseded_by edges) plus a mutating pass that rewires, stubs, or resolves what it finds.
• dream-semantic (semantic_consolidation): merges closely-related or redundant concepts via a local language-model prompt with a lexical-similarity fallback.
• Memory pinning (pin/unpin) and TTL-based archival via maintain.
• models-list + swap-guard config: discovers what's loaded on a local model server before running model-dependent operations, so they don't force an unwanted swap on a shared GPU.
• Optional dashboard web UI (web-ui feature, off by default).
• Query tracing (navigate --trace, trace-get) for replaying past navigation queries.

What's New In 0.10.0

• Native extract-decisions now ships inside the crate behind the extract feature, with both Ollama-backed and --heuristic backfill modes.
• sessions-recent can hide noisy non-repo buckets with repeatable --exclude-project.
• Lexical search now reranks mixed corpora toward authoritative wiki/discovery documents instead of changelog and transcript noise.
• The standard release gate now works from the repo root with checked-in deny, gitleaks, and semgrep config.

Quickstart

use atheneum::AtheneumGraph;
use std::path::Path;

let graph = AtheneumGraph::open(Path::new("atheneum.db"))?;

// Record a session
graph.record_session(atheneum::graph::SessionParams {
    session_id: "abc-123".into(),
    agent_name: "claude-main".into(),
    project: "my-project".into(),
    tool: "claude-code".into(),
    trigger: "cli".into(),
    model: Some("claude-sonnet-4".into()),
    git_branch: Some("feat/auth".into()),
    git_head: None,
    parent_session_id: None,
})?;

// Store a discovery
use serde_json::json;
graph.store_discovery("claude", "Bug", "query_sessions", json!({
    "file": "src/graph/evidence.rs",
    "line": 547,
    "why": "anonymous ? params required when project is None and parent_id is Some",
    "project_id": "my-project"
}))?;

// Query recent sessions for a project
let sessions = graph.query_sessions("my-project", 3, None)?;
for s in &sessions {
    println!("{} {} {}tc", s.started_at, s.git_branch.as_deref().unwrap_or("?"), s.tool_call_count);
}

// Ingest a wiki article
let content = "---\ntitle: My Note\n---\n# My Note\nSee also [[Related Concept]].\n";
graph.ingest_wiki_page("my-note.md", content, None)?;

What It Stores

HTTP Access

When embedded in envoy, all atheneum operations are accessible over HTTP:

# Query recent sessions
curl "http://127.0.0.1:9876/atheneum/sessions?project=my-project&last=3"

# Store a discovery
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:9876/atheneum/discoveries \
  -H "X-Agent-Id: $GROUNDED_AGENT_ID" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"agent":"claude","discovery_type":"Decision","target":"auth","metadata":{"why":"..."}}'

# Get recent project context (for session bootstrap hooks)
curl "http://127.0.0.1:9876/atheneum/context?project=my-project&limit=6"

See envoy's API.md for the full HTTP reference.

Operator Queries

The CLI has direct observability commands for the read paths that operators use most:

# One session: summary + recent events + recent tool calls
atheneum session-trace ./atheneum.db --session sess-1 --limit 10

# Aggregate tool usage for that session
atheneum tool-usage ./atheneum.db --session sess-1 --limit 20

# Recent activity across the project
atheneum discoveries-recent ./atheneum.db --project envoy --limit 10
atheneum handoffs-recent ./atheneum.db --agent claude4 --limit 10
atheneum events-recent ./atheneum.db --type tool_call --limit 10
atheneum sessions-recent ./atheneum.db --project envoy --limit 10

All of these return JSON and are designed to replace routine direct SQLite reads.

Session Digest

session-digest emits a bounded, ranked plain-text bootstrap packet (tool calls, file writes, top files, decisions, open tasks, thread anchors) so a new session can ground on what prior sessions in the same project did. It computes activity from event_log (the sessions ledger columns are usually zero), falls back across all projects when the --project filter is empty, and truncates to a token budget. --json emits the structured report.

atheneum session-digest ./atheneum.db --project envoy --last 3 --tokens 500

Decision Capture

Claude Code chat transcripts carry the structured-choice signals that are genuinely decisions — AskUserQuestion (a human-answered choice), ExitPlanMode (a plan approved for execution), TaskCreate, and TodoWrite. Atheneum captures those as first-class Decision discovery rows so the graph holds the decision chain, not just the chat text.

Model: each captured decision stores source (askuser / exitplan / taskcreate / todowrite), chosen, alternatives, and rationale in the discovery metadata, scoped to the session that made it. Dedup key is session_id + sequence + target + source, so a decision is captured once even if the same transcript is scanned repeatedly.

Three layers, one shape:

# Backfill: a standalone operator script runs a local LLM (Ollama qwen3.5)
# over each transcript and stores decision-shaped turns via `atheneum
# store-discovery`. One session, or --all (resumable).
extract-decisions <session-id>                 # one session, store
extract-decisions --all                       # every transcript (resumable)
extract-decisions --all --dry-run             # preview everything, store none
extract-decisions <session-id> --model qwen3.5 --project atheneum

# Live: the atheneum watcher tails transcripts in a loop, captures the
# Tier-1 structured signals deterministically (no LLM).
atheneum watch-decisions ./atheneum.db --interval 2 --project atheneum

# Observe: the decisions captured for a session (any source)
atheneum chat ./atheneum.db --session <session_id> --only-decisions
atheneum discoveries-recent ./atheneum.db --session <session_id> --type Decision --limit 50

A fourth, highest-fidelity layer ships as the plugin/atheneum-decisions/ Claude Code companion plugin: a record-decision skill that records a decision as the model makes it (source = "skill"), a /decision <target> <chosen> [rationale] manual fallback, and a non-blocking Stop-gate that reminds you to record decisions. The skill/command layer dedups on (session_id, target, source, chosen) via store-discovery --dedup (it has no stable transcript sequence); see MANUAL.md for the install command.

extract-decisions is the one-shot backfiller for decisions that lack a Tier-1 structured signal. It ships two ways: a ~/.local/bin operator script (the default, no special build needed) and a native atheneum extract-decisions subcommand (a Rust port, behind the extract feature — --features extract or --all-features). The subcommand has two user-picked backends: the default local Ollama LLM (qwen3.5, source = "llm-extract") and a rule-based --heuristic mode (no LLM, no network, source = "heuristic") that catches decision-shaped sentences with an explicit rationale clause — lower recall + some false positives, zero deps. Both backends store each decision as a Decision discovery linked into the session thread (caused_by / led_to) for free — the script shells out to atheneum store-discovery, the subcommand stores in-process via graph.store_discovery. Pick the backend per run with --heuristic / --mode llm|heuristic / ATHENEUM_EXTRACT_MODE. atheneum watch-decisions is the always-on deterministic detector (--once runs a single cold-cursor scan, safe for cron). The watcher is detect-only at the Tier-1 layer — the SessionStop sync-claude-transcript hook still owns full transcript ingest at session end. A Decision row from any source (backfill script, watcher, or manual store_discovery) is visible to chat --only-decisions and session-digest, deduped across sources by the same key.

HopGraph

HopGraph is an optional retrieval mode: embeddings find the door, graph walk retrieves the room.

For grounded agent workflows, the default path is still direct graph traversal plus typed SQL reads. HopGraph exists for fuzzy human-style lookup when approximate vector entry points are useful enough to justify the extra index cost.

1. A text query is embedded and matched against the lexical index to find entry-point entities.
2. From each hit, a BFS walk expands the subgraph — following only allowed edge types (e.g., Explains, Wikilink).
3. The result is truncated to a token budget so it fits in a context window.

use atheneum::graph::{AtheneumGraph, hopgraph_query, EdgeType};
use std::path::Path;

let graph = AtheneumGraph::open(Path::new("atheneum.db"))?;

// Token-budgeted HopGraph query — walk only Explains + Wikilink edges
let views = graph.hopgraph_query(
    "session accountability",
    3,        // k: max entry points
    2,        // depth: BFS depth
    Some(&[EdgeType::Explains, EdgeType::Wikilink]),
    2000,     // max_tokens per view
    None,     // project_id
)?;

for view in &views {
    println!("entry: {} ({} entities, {} edges)",
        view.entry_id, view.entities.len(), view.edges.len());
}

// Switch to neural embeddings (requires ollama + nomic-embed-text)
#[cfg(feature = "neural-embed")]
{
    use atheneum::graph::OllamaEmbedder;
    graph.set_embedder(Box::new(OllamaEmbedder::nomic_embed_text()));
    graph.build_search_index()?; // rebuild with new dimension
}

Discovery Consolidation

// Merge all Discovery entities for a target into a single Knowledge entity
let knowledge_id = graph.consolidate_discoveries("query_sessions", Some("my-project"))?;

// Consolidate all targets at once
let results = graph.consolidation_pass(Some("my-project"))?;
for (target, kid) in &results {
    println!("{} → knowledge {}", target, kid);
}

Bridge Wiki to Code Symbols

// Link wiki [[wikilinks]] to magellan-indexed code symbols
graph.link_wiki_to_symbols(
    "/path/to/magellan.db",
    "claude",
    Some("my-project"),
)?;

Features

CLI

INGEST:
  init <db>                               Initialize a new graph database
  sync-wiki <db> <dir> [project]          Ingest .md files as wiki pages
  sync-journal <db> <dir> [project]       Ingest .md files as journal sections
  sync-logseq <db> <root> [project]       Recursively ingest Logseq pages/ and journals/
  sync-claude-transcript <db> <jsonl> [project] [agent]  Import Claude transcript
  store-discovery <db> <agent> <type> <target> [meta.json]  Store a discovery
  add-edge <db> <from> <to> <edge-type> [data.json]        Create a relation

TASKS:
  task-create <db> <title> [desc] [--project P]    Create a new task
  task-list <db> [--project P] [--status S]        List tasks (default: non-archived)
  task-update <db> <task-id> <status>              Update task status
  task-done <db> <task-id>                         Mark task as DONE
  task-archive <db> <task-id>                      Archive a task

MEMORY:
  memory-store <db> <key> <content> [--scope S] [--confidence N] [--project P]  Store a memory
  memory-get <db> <key> [--scope S] [--project P]      Retrieve memory by key
  memory-list <db> [--scope S] [--project P] [--offset N] [--limit N]  List memories (paginated, default limit 1000)
  memory-update <db> --id N [--content C] [--importance N] [--tags a,b --replace-tags]  Patch an existing memory in place
  pin <db> --id N                                   Pin an entity (always in seed_memory, cache-eviction immune)
  unpin <db> --id N                                 Unpin an entity

LIBRARIAN:
  lint <db-path> [--stale-days N]                   Graph-health check: orphans, broken wikilinks, stale superseded_by edges
  maintain <db-path> [--apply] [--stale-days N] [--rewire-threshold F] [--broken-link-mode <stub|sever>]  Rewire orphans, stub/sever broken links, resolve contradictions
  models-list <db-path>                             List models loaded on a local model server
  dashboard <db-path> [--port N]                     Web dashboard server (feature: web-ui)

DREAM:
  dream <db> [--scope S] [--project P] [--dry-run|--auto-merge]  Reflective memory consolidation
  dream-semantic <db> [--apply]                     Merge closely-related/redundant concepts (local-model prompt, lexical fallback)

QUERY & NAVIGATION:
  search <db> <query> [--k N] [--project P] [--max-tokens N]         Lexical search (optional HNSW candidate index with --features semantic-search)
  navigate <db> <query> [--k N] [--depth N] [--project P] [--kind K] [--max-tokens N]  Search then walk subgraphs
  thread <db> <query> [--k N] [--depth D=3] [--tokens T=1500] [--project P] [--json]  Walk a decision chain (caused_by/led_to edges)
  chat <db> --session <id> [--tokens T] [--direction recent|chrono] [--kinds K] [--role R] [--search Q] [--only-decisions] [--walk] [--offset N --limit L] [--json]  Token-budgeted walk of a session's chat records (or just its decisions)
  watch-decisions <db> [--once] [--interval S=2] [--config-dir D]... [--project P] [--agent A] [--dry-run]  Live-tail transcripts, capture structured decisions
  extract-decisions <db> [--all|<session-id>] [--dry-run] [--force] [--project P] [--agent A] [--model M] [--transcripts-dir D] [--max-chars N] [--ollama-url U] [--heuristic|--mode llm|heuristic] [--verbose]  Backfill decisions (LLM or --heuristic; feature: extract)
  wiki-search <db> <query> [--project P] [--limit N]  Full-text search over wiki pages (FTS5, falls back to name match)
  decision-search <db> <query> [--project P] [--limit N]  Content search over Decision discoveries (target/chosen/why)
  seed-memory <db> [--project P] [--tokens N]       Token-bounded, concept-grouped knowledge-base summary
  trace-get <db> --id N                             Replay a past navigate --trace query
  query-wiki <db> <path>                            Query a wiki page by path
  query-journal <db> <path>                         Query journal sections by path
  query-knowledge <db> <target> [--project P] [--max-tokens N]       Aggregated knowledge
  query-sessions <db> [--project P] [--offset N] [--limit N]  Session history
  query-events <db> [--session <id>] [--type <t>] [--offset N] [--limit N]  Event log
  session-digest <db> [--project P] [--last N] [--tokens T] [--json]  Bounded bootstrap digest
  session-trace <db> --session <id> [--limit N]     Session summary plus recent events
  tool-usage <db> --session <id> [--limit N]        Tool breakdown for one session
  discoveries-recent <db> [--project P] [--agent A] [--session S] [--type T] [--limit N]  Recent discoveries (filter by session and/or type)
  handoffs-recent <db> [--project P] [--agent A] [--limit N]     Recent handoffs
  events-recent <db> [--session ID] [--type T] [--limit N]       Recent events
  sessions-recent <db> [--project P] [--agent A] [--limit N] [--exclude-project P ...]     Recent sessions (hide non-repo project buckets)
  list-pages <db> [--project P] [--offset N] [--limit N]  List wiki pages (default limit 1000)
  entity <db> <id>                                  Print entity as JSON
  edge <db> <id>                                    Print edge as JSON
  neighbors <db> <id> [--depth N]                   One-hop edges or BFS subgraph
  graph-stats <db>                                  Graph topology counts

MAINTENANCE:
  reindex <db>                                      Rebuild optional HNSW human-search index
  consolidate <db> [target] [--project P]           Merge discoveries into Knowledge

sync-logseq recursively ingests <wiki-root>/pages/**/*.md as wiki pages and <wiki-root>/journals/**/*.md as journal sections. Wiki [[links]] become first-class wikilink graph edges so navigate and neighbors can traverse article relationships.

sync-claude-transcript imports a local Claude Code transcript JSONL into Atheneum's session graph. It records prompt/chat summaries, observed tool calls, accessed file edges for Read/Edit/Write, and session token/cache totals. Re-running the command on the same append-only transcript imports only new lines.

Requirements

• Rust 1.75+
• SQLite 3.35+ with JSON1 (bundled via rusqlite)

Related

• envoy — HTTP server exposing atheneum over REST
• grounded-coding — Claude Code plugin using this ecosystem
• magellan — code graph indexer
• sqlitegraph — underlying SQLite graph engine

Resilience

The wiki_pages_fts FTS5 index self-heals on open. If an external SQLite writer (system sqlite3, Python, another tool) leaves the FTS5 shadow tables in an inconsistent state, AtheneumGraph::open() detects the corruption, recreates the virtual table and triggers on fresh connections, and rebuilds the index from wiki_pages. This keeps sync-wiki, search-wiki, and backfill-wiki working without manual repair.

License

GPL-3.0-only — see LICENSE.