ontorata/ratary

Build AI that remembers.
Ratary is the open-source AI Brain Platform — persistent memory,
structured knowledge, and intelligent retrieval for every model and agent you run.
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Ratary is where AI remembers. · Built by Ontorata
Quick start ·
Ecosystem ·
Architecture ·
How it works ·
Capabilities ·
Docs
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The problem
*Why does AI forget between sessions?*
Every AI session starts from zero.
Your model forgets yesterday's architecture decisions. Your agent drops customer context between runs. Your coding assistant can't recall why you chose Postgres over DynamoDB. Teams paste the same background into Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, and custom bots — and knowledge still drifts.
Vector databases store chunks. RAG pipelines retrieve documents. Agent frameworks orchestrate tools.
**None of them give AI a durable brain.**
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Why Ratary exists
*Why build a brain layer now?*
AI models are getting cheaper. Context windows are getting larger. Agents are getting capable.
**But AI still forgets.**
The bottleneck is no longer reasoning. It's **memory** — durable, structured, retrievable, and owned by you.
Every serious application eventually needed a database. Every serious AI system will need a **brain layer**: persistent intelligence that sits between your models and your storage — independent of any single vendor, IDE, or agent framework.
> **AI should remember.**
> **Developers should own that memory.**
Ratary exists to be that layer. Applications bring models. **Ratary brings the brain.**
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What Ratary is
*What is Ratary?*
Ratary is an **AI Brain Platform** — infrastructure that gives AI:
- **Persistent memory** — durable, owner-scoped, versioned
- **Structured knowledge** — metadata, relations, graph traversal
- **Intelligent retrieval** — hybrid search + bounded context assembly
- **Protocol access** — Ratary MCP, REST, optional gRPC
It sits **between** AI clients and storage. One brain, many surfaces — Cursor, Claude Code, custom agents, enterprise APIs, and remote MCP hosts.
The runnable deployment is **Ratary Server** — this repository. **Ratary** is the product; **Ratary Server** is what you clone and run.
**Bring your model. Ratary brings the memory.**
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Quick start
*How do I run Ratary Server locally?*
**Ratary** is the product. **Ratary Server** is the open-source deployment you run — ontorata/ratary (this repository). @ratary/sdk, @ratary/cli, and **Ratary MCP** connect to it; sibling Ontorata products use the same source of truth.
**Prerequisites:** Node.js 24 · **SQL metadata store** (pick one — **Postgres is the template default**)
Path A — PostgreSQL (npm + local or Docker)
Or use Docker: docker compose --profile postgres up --build — see docs/DOCKER.md.
Path B — Cloudflare D1
Details: **docs/GUIDE.md** · **docs/CONFIGURATION.md**
→ API http://localhost:9876 · Swagger /docs
**First REST call:** bootstrap once to get an API key (aic_...) — see GUIDE — First REST API key.
Full guide: **docs/GUIDE.md** · SDK & MCP examples in docs/examples/
npm packages (@ratary)
Client libraries ship on npm under the **@ratary** scope — product name, published by Ontorata. No server clone required for SDK, CLI, or hosted MCP.
| Package | Version | Install | Role |
|---------|---------|---------|------|
| @ratary/sdk | **1.1.0** | npm install @ratary/sdk | Typed REST client + client.admin.* |
| @ratary/cli | **1.1.0** | npm install -g @ratary/cli | Operator commands (admin, connectors) |
| @ratary/mcp-server | **1.1.3** | npx @ratary/mcp-server | IDE MCP → hosted API |
Set RATARY_BASE_URL and RATARY_API_KEY (aic_...). Details: **packages/README.md** · remote MCP install.
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Ecosystem
*Which repository owns what?*
The Visual architecture diagram shows **logical layers inside Ratary Server**. **This diagram** shows **repository and product relationships** — what ships in this repo, what connects to it, and what lives in sibling Ontorata repositories. Both views describe the same platform from different angles.
Throughout this README, **Ratary MCP** means the official memory MCP implementation (stdio in this repo · npm @ratary/mcp-server for hosted REST). It is not the same as **Ontorata MCP** (ecosystem gateway — separate repo).