createIndex() now consults the 'diskann' provider before 'hnsw':
1. config.index.type === 'diskann' → require the provider, throw if absent.
2. Auto-engage when ALL of:
- 'diskann' provider registered (cortex plugin loaded)
- storage.getBinaryBlobPath('_diskann/main') returns a local path
(cloud adapters return null → silently stay on HNSW)
- metadataIndex has a stable idMapper
3. config.index.type === 'hnsw' → force the historical in-memory engine.
4. Fall back to the cortex 'hnsw' provider, then brainy's TS HNSWIndex.
migrateToDiskAnn(options): builds the new index in parallel from the
current vector set, samples queries to verify recall ≥ recallTarget
against the old index, atomically swaps if recall passes. Throws and
leaves the old index in place otherwise.
migrateToHnsw(): always-available reverse path. Both preserve
canonical storage (entity JSON, metadata index) — only the search
engine changes.
The orchestration is generic — it works against any registered
'diskann' provider, not tied to any specific implementation. Brainy
without cortex falls back to HNSW; cloud-storage users transparently
stay on HNSW.
Adds the plugin-side surface for the new billion-scale index option:
- plugin.ts: DiskAnnProvider type alias (mirrors HnswProvider's shape
so cortex's DiskANN wrapper is a drop-in for the 'hnsw' factory).
- coreTypes.ts: HNSWConfig.type ('hnsw' | 'diskann') for explicit
engine selection, plus HNSWConfig.diskann for the build-time tuning
knobs (pqM, pqKsub, maxDegree, searchListSize, alpha, mmap
adjacency).
No algorithm code here — the implementation lives in the cortex
plugin. Brainy without cortex continues to use HNSW exactly as before.
Brainy now has a complete reference SQ4 (4-bit per dimension, 8× compression
vs float32) quantization layer in src/utils/vectorQuantization.ts: quantizeSQ4,
dequantizeSQ4, distanceSQ4Js, serializeSQ4, deserializeSQ4 — all byte-for-byte
identical to cortex's Rust quantize_sq4 / dequantize_sq4 / cosine_distance_sq4.
The pack format mirrors cortex exactly:
- Two nibbles per byte. High nibble = vector[2i], low nibble = vector[2i+1].
- Odd-dim vectors place the final value in the high nibble and pad the low
nibble with 0. Packed length = ceil(dim / 2).
- Zero-range vectors (all values identical) map every nibble to 8 (midpoint
of [0, 15]) — both reference impls produce 0x88 bytes.
The active-fn dispatch pattern matches SQ8: distanceSQ4Js is the pure-JS
reference; distanceSQ4 routes through a swappable activeSQ4Distance slot;
setSQ4DistanceImplementation(fn) swaps in cortex's SIMD Rust distance when the
distance:sq4 provider is registered. brainy.ts wires the provider in init,
same shape as the existing SQ8 wiring (~14 LOC). The dispatch path is the
single point of integration so HNSW search code never needs to know whether
it's running on JS or native.
Serialization adds a uint32 dim field after min/max (12-byte header total) —
SQ8 doesn't need it because the packed length equals dim, but SQ4's packed
length rounds up so dim must be recorded explicitly to disambiguate the
trailing pad nibble.
Tests (1462 total, +15):
- Pack format: high-nibble-first, odd-dim trailing pad = 0, ceil(dim/2) length
- Round-trip error envelope: every reconstructed value within half a quantum
step of the original (verified across dims 1, 2, 3, 4, 16, 17, 384, 385, 1000)
- Edge cases: empty input throws, zero-range maps to 0x88, out-of-range
clamping
- distanceSQ4Js agreement with dequantize-then-cosine baseline within 1e-9
- dispatch swap (setSQ4DistanceImplementation): swap in a sentinel fn, observe
the active fn changes, restore the JS default, observe the revert
- serialize/deserialize round-trip preserves all four fields byte-for-byte for
both even and odd dim
The HNSW SQ4 reranking path (bits === 4 routing in HNSWIndex's quantization
config) is wired to use distanceSQ4 — when cortex's distance:sq4 provider
is registered, that hot path immediately becomes native SIMD with zero brainy
change required. Cross-language byte-format parity tests run in the cortex
test suite (paired release brainy 7.28.0 + cortex 2.5.0).
BlobStorage.write() in `auto` compression mode now consults the new
`BlobWriteOptions.mimeType` and skips zstd for MIME types known to be
already heavily compressed — JPEG, PNG, WebP, MP4, WebM, MP3, ZIP, PDF,
Office formats, etc. Gzip/zstd over these formats wastes CPU for no
measurable byte savings; the payload entropy is already near maximal,
so the output is the same size or slightly larger plus the cost of
running the compressor.
The denylist `ALREADY_COMPRESSED_MIME_TYPES` is a conservative set of
well-known formats. False negatives (compressing something we should
have skipped) waste CPU; false positives (skipping something we could
have compressed) waste a few percent of bytes. The denylist favours
CPU-cycle safety because the formats listed here are the ones where
gzip/zstd is reliably a net loss.
The policy applies only to `auto` mode. Explicit `'zstd'` and `'none'`
are honoured because the caller is asserting the choice. The new
`isAlreadyCompressedMimeType()` is exported for consumers that want to
make the same decision before calling `write()`.
VFS / consumer wiring (pass mimeType from VFS through to BlobStorage)
is part of the 2.5.0 #27 storage unification work — when that lands,
every media upload through VFS will engage this policy automatically.
For now consumers opt-in by passing `mimeType` in BlobWriteOptions.
Tests (1447 total, +10):
- isAlreadyCompressedMimeType helper: canonical types, case-insensitive
+ parameter stripping, false-on-missing.
- write() auto-mode: image/jpeg + video/mp4 + application/zip all skip
compression (metadata.compression === 'none'); text/plain is allowed
through to zstd (either 'zstd' or 'none' depending on optional dep).
- Read decompresses transparently regardless of write-side decision.
- Explicit compression options bypass the policy.
Cortex registers a graph:compression provider exposing `encode`/`decode`
for HNSW connection lists (delta-varint, ~4× smaller edges than the
JSON-UUID-array shape brainy has persisted since the beginning). This
wires the consumer side without changing the saveHNSWData/getHNSWData
adapter signatures.
Architecture:
- NEW ConnectionsCodec (src/hnsw/connectionsCodec.ts) — translates between
UUID-keyed Map<level, Set<UUID>> and a single compact per-node buffer
via the provider + stable EntityIdMapper. Custom wire format:
[count: u8] [[level: u8] [len: u32 LE] [bytes...]]*. One blob per node
regardless of level count, so the storage I/O is identical to the
legacy path (one saveHNSWData call) plus a single saveBinaryBlob.
- HNSWIndex changes — a `connectionsCodec: ConnectionsCodec | null` field
with `setConnectionsCodec()` setter. THREE save sites (deferred flush,
immediate-mode entity persist, immediate-mode neighbor updates) now go
through a single `persistNodeConnections(nodeId, noun)` helper: when the
codec is wired AND the storage adapter exposes saveBinaryBlob, it
encodes the connections, stores them at `_hnsw_conn/<nodeId>`, and
records `connections: {}` in saveHNSWData as the marker. Otherwise the
legacy JSON-array path is taken. TWO load sites use a matching
`restoreNodeConnections` helper that tries loadBinaryBlob first and
falls back to the legacy hnswData.connections field on miss / decode
error. Format convergence is lazy: pre-2.4.0 nodes still load via the
legacy path, then write the compressed form on next dirty save.
- brainy.ts wireConnectionsCodec — runs alongside wireMmapVectorBackend
during init. Activates when (a) the graph:compression provider is
registered and (b) the metadata index exposes its idMapper. Unlike the
mmap-vector backend, this layer engages on EVERY brainy 7.25.0
adapter — the blob primitive itself is universal; only the codec
presence gates activation.
- Provider interface GraphCompressionProvider in plugin.ts — encode +
decode static signatures. Brainy depends on the interface; cortex's
registered { encode: encodeConnections, decode: decodeConnections }
satisfies it structurally.
Tests (1437 total, +4 vs prior tip):
- tests/unit/hnsw/connections-codec.test.ts — 4 unit tests with a JSON
mock provider: single-level round-trip, empty-Map round-trip (one-byte
buffer), multi-level fan-out round-trip, and silent-drop of UUIDs the
decoding idMapper no longer knows. The real cross-language byte
format is exercised when cortex 2.4.0 wires its delta-varint
encode/decode in.
This completes the brainy half of the 2.4.0 storage foundation: stable
ids (#23), mmap vectors (#24), graph link compression (#25), and
column-store interchange (#26). Coordinated release as brainy 7.26.0 +
cortex 2.4.0 follows.
Brainy's JS ColumnStore.flushBuffer now writes segment payloads + the
per-field DELETED bitmap via the binary-blob primitive (saveBinaryBlob) at
the cortex-shared key convention `_column_index/<field>/L<level>-NNNNNN`
(suffix-free; adapter appends its own). Byte-for-byte identical to what
cortex's NativeColumnStore writes — JS and native engines now read each
other's segments with no envelope re-encoding.
Closes the gap that the cortex 2.3.1 read-side fallback opened: cortex was
reading both formats but the JS engine was still WRITING the legacy
{_binary, base64} envelope, so a fresh JS write always required the cortex
fallback to kick in (and migrate lazily on first read). With this commit
JS writes natively in the unified format, and cortex's fallback only
fires on indexes persisted by older brainy releases.
Backward compat:
- ColumnStore.loadSegmentCursor tries the raw blob first, then falls back
to the legacy `{_binary, base64}` envelope at the `.cidx` object-path.
Indexes written by pre-2.4.0 brainy keep loading correctly.
- ColumnStore.init's DELETED-bitmap load has the same dual-format read.
- Adapters without the binary-blob primitive (custom adapters that didn't
follow the 7.25.0 surface) fall through to the legacy envelope writer
too, so writes still succeed there.
Tests (1433 total, +5 vs prior tip):
- tests/unit/indexes/columnStore/column-store-interchange.test.ts —
pins down the contract: (1) flush writes the raw blob, NO legacy
envelope; (2) DELETED bitmap likewise; (3) a legacy-format on-disk
segment loads correctly via the fallback; (4) legacy DELETED bitmap
ditto; (5) round-trip in the new format.
- All 101 existing ColumnStore tests pass — the new write path is
exercised by the existing lifecycle tests (MemoryStorage has the blob
primitive, so the new branch fires).
Cortex already registers the vectorStore:mmap provider (its Rust
NativeMmapVectorStore), but brainy has never consumed it — preloadVectors
and getVectorSafe still go straight to storage.getNounVector for every id,
even when an mmap layer is available. This wires the consumer end.
Architecture:
- NEW MmapVectorBackend (src/hnsw/mmapVectorBackend.ts) — bridges brainy's
UUID-keyed vector reads to a int-slot mmap file via the
vectorStore:mmap provider. Slots are addressed by the stable int id
from the post-2.4.0 #1 EntityIdMapper (the foundation this depends on).
Auto-grows the file (doubling) when a write lands beyond capacity, so
HNSWIndex never has to think about sizing. The class never touches
per-entity storage — it owns only the mmap layer.
- HNSWIndex changes — adds a vectorBackend field + a setVectorBackend
setter. The vector read paths (preloadVectors, getVectorSafe) try the
mmap layer first; on a storage fallback hit, they LAZILY write back into
the mmap slot. An upgraded install converges to the zero-copy fast path
under live traffic — no big-bang migration step. The legacy per-entity
path is preserved and still used when no backend is set.
- brainy.ts wiring — a new private wireMmapVectorBackend() runs once
during init, after plugin activation + metadataIndex setup. It activates
the backend only when (a) the vectorStore:mmap provider is registered,
(b) the storage adapter resolves a real local path via
getBinaryBlobPath(), and (c) the metadata index exposes its idMapper.
Cloud adapters return null on (b) and the backend is silently skipped;
HNSWIndex's behaviour is then identical to pre-2.4.0.
- Provider interfaces in plugin.ts — VectorStoreMmapProvider and
VectorStoreMmapInstance document the contract cortex's class fulfils
(the class IS the provider — static factory methods). Brainy depends on
the interfaces, not on cortex; the structural match is verified when
cortex 2.4.0 picks up this brainy release.
Tests (1428 total, +11 vs pre-2.4.0):
- tests/unit/hnsw/mmap-vector-backend.test.ts — 6 unit tests with an
in-memory mock provider. Covers round-trip, batch reads with interleaved
misses, slot stability (no re-slotting on overwrite), file growth without
data loss, idempotent open, and null returns for unwritten slots. The
real perf integration with cortex's NativeMmapVectorStore is exercised
when cortex 2.4.0 wires this in.
- tests/unit/utils/entity-id-mapper-stability.test.ts — moved here from
tests/regression/ (which is NOT in the unit-config include glob, so the
five #23 tests were not actually being run by npm test). The unit
config matches tests/unit/**/*.test.ts.
The 2.4.0 #2 follow-up will be the chunked-segment layout for remote
storage adapters (S3 / R2 / GCS) where a single growing file doesn't fit
immutable objects. For 2.4.0 release: local-FS only.
Previously metadataIndex.rebuild() called idMapper.clear() which reset nextId
to 1 and renumbered every UUID by re-insertion order. Any consumer that had
persisted int-keyed data against the old map was silently invalidated — and
2.4.0's vector mmap store (#20), graph link compression (#21), and column-store
JS↔native interchange all need persisted int indices that survive a rebuild.
Remove the unconditional clear() in rebuild(). The rebuild already re-iterates
every entity via idMapper.getOrAssign(uuid), which returns the existing int
unchanged for known UUIDs. Stale UUID→int entries for entities no longer in
storage persist as harmless memory overhead; a dedicated prune step can be
added if it ever matters.
clearAllIndexData() — the explicit nuclear recovery path — keeps its existing
idMapper.clear() call (renumbering is intentional there), and now logs a
prodLog.warn making it explicit that any persisted int-keyed data is invalidated
and must be rebuilt from canonical sources.
Strengthened the EntityIdMapper class JSDoc to document the stability guarantee
as a contract — append-only getOrAssign, monotonic nextId, remove() leaves
permanent holes, rebuild() never renumbers, only clear() does.
Added tests/regression/entity-id-mapper-stability.test.ts pinning down the
five-point contract: (1) single-rebuild stability; (2) many-rebuild stability;
(3) post-rebuild adds get fresh monotonic ints; (4) removes leave permanent
holes — new entities never recycle; (5) clearAllIndexData() explicitly
renumbers (the documented destructive path).
Foundation for 2.4.0 #2-#4. Full test suite (62 files, 1417 tests) green.
The native SQ8 distance hook renamed the original distanceSQ8 to distanceSQ8Js
and added a dispatcher in its place, but left the old function's doc block
orphaned above distanceSQ8Js (two consecutive comments, the first dangling).
Merge them into one accurate block on distanceSQ8Js with dash-notation params.
Native accelerators (cortex) register providers for metadataIndex, graphIndex,
hnsw, entityIdMapper, cache, columnStore, and aggregation. Until now the exact
method/property surface brainy calls on each was implicit — a provider could
drop a member brainy depends on and only fail at runtime when that path ran.
This defines and exports the provider contracts from the stable
@soulcraft/brainy/plugin entrypoint:
- MetadataIndexProvider, GraphIndexProvider, HnswProvider,
EntityIdMapperProvider, CacheProvider — each typed as exactly the surface
brainy calls (optional/feature-detected members like HNSW setPersistMode and
enableCOW are intentionally excluded).
- Re-exports ColumnStoreProvider and AggregationProvider (and the aggregate
types) from the same entrypoint so a plugin author can import the whole
provider surface from one place.
Brainy's own baseline classes now `implements` these contracts
(MetadataIndexManager, GraphAdjacencyIndex, HNSWIndex, EntityIdMapper,
UnifiedCache), so the interfaces can never silently diverge from what brainy
ships — and any provider that declares `implements` gets a compile error the
moment brainy starts requiring a new member.
The embeddings/embedBatch providers stay typed by the existing EmbeddingFunction
(no duplicate interface added). Type-only changes; no runtime behavior change.
Adds a swappable sort:topK seam for the find() result-ranking hot path. Brainy
ranks candidate results by relevance score then slices to offset+limit; for large
candidate sets that is an O(N log N) full sort even though only the page is kept.
New utils/resultRanking.ts exposes rankIndicesByScore (top-K index selection) with a
JS default (sortTopKIndicesJs) that is byte-identical in ordering to the previous
results.sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score) + slice: descending by score, stable ties
by original index (ES2019+ stable sort semantics). setSortTopKImplementation lets a
native provider (e.g. cortex's Rust partial-sort) replace it; the provider returns
indices into a scores array and only has to match the JS index ordering.
brainy.ts resolves the sort:topK provider in init() (same pattern as distance:sq8)
and wires both relevance-score sort sites in find() through rankIndicesByScore +
reorderByIndices. rankIndicesByScore validates a native provider's output (length,
range, no duplicates) and falls back to JS on any inconsistency, so a query never
returns wrong or duplicated results. No provider registered = unchanged JS behavior.
Tests: unit coverage of the dispatcher (JS ordering vs Array.sort across 200 random
trials incl. ties, provider routing, and fallback on bad/throwing providers) plus
find() integration proving ranking routes through a registered provider, that the
provider and JS fallback produce identical ids/scores on the same data, and that
pagination requests k = offset + limit with descending ordering.
Makes distanceSQ8 swappable via setSQ8DistanceImplementation and wires brainy.ts to
install a registered 'distance:sq8' provider (e.g. cortex's Rust SIMD), with the JS
distanceSQ8Js as the default fallback. The provider signature is byte-compatible with
the native cosineDistanceSq8, so HNSW SQ8 reranking transparently uses native distance
when cortex is loaded. Native==JS numeric equivalence is asserted by the cross-language
parity suite.
Replaces localeCompare / raw relational operators with compareCodePoints (UTF-8
byte order) in the remaining persisted or native-facing comparison sites:
- SSTable sourceId sort + zone-map range check + binary search (graph LSM)
- COW TreeObject + RefManager name sorts (reproducible content hashes and ref
listings across environments)
- getSortedIdsForFilter (numeric-aware; code-point for strings) so the JS sort
fallback matches the native column store exactly
Deterministic across OS/Node/ICU and byte-identical to the native engine. No
migration: COW serialize/deserialize preserve stored order, so existing trees
keep their hashes; only new writes adopt code-point order.
Introduce a first-class binary-blob storage primitive on the StorageAdapter
contract and implement it across all storage backends. This stores opaque byte
payloads verbatim instead of base64-in-JSON, eliminating the ~33% inflation and
full-materialization cost of the JSON envelope. It unblocks zero-copy,
mmap-able column-store segments and batch vector I/O at billion scale.
New methods (declared abstract on BaseStorageAdapter, the class that implements
StorageAdapter, and added to the StorageAdapter interface):
saveBinaryBlob(key, data) raw write, atomic on real filesystems
loadBinaryBlob(key) exact bytes, or null if absent
deleteBinaryBlob(key) idempotent (missing is ignored)
getBinaryBlobPath(key) real local fs path where one exists, else null
Shared key -> location convention across every adapter: the key's
"/"-separated segments nest under a `_blobs/` prefix and are suffixed with
`.bin`, e.g. "graph-lsm/source/sstable-123" ->
"<root>/_blobs/graph-lsm/source/sstable-123.bin". Blobs are not branch-scoped
(COW): they are immutable producer-managed segments.
Per-adapter behavior:
- FileSystemStorage: writes under <rootDir>/_blobs via tmp+rename; returns the
real on-disk path so native code can mmap it directly. Path convention matches
the existing MmapFileSystemStorage subclass byte-for-byte.
- S3CompatibleStorage / R2Storage / GcsStorage / AzureBlobStorage: put/get/delete
raw octet-stream objects; getBinaryBlobPath returns null (remote stores have no
local path).
- MemoryStorage: defensive-copied Map<string, Buffer>; null path; cleared on
clear().
- OPFSStorage: stores raw bytes in the OPFS tree; null path.
- HistoricalStorageAdapter: read-only — save/delete throw; load resolves the
blob from the historical commit tree; null path.
Tests: tests/unit/storage/binaryBlob.test.ts exercises save/load round-trip
(byte-identical, incl. non-UTF8 bytes), overwrite, delete-then-load, load-missing,
and getBinaryBlobPath behavior for all eight adapters. Cloud adapters run against
in-memory client fakes that drive the real adapter code; OPFS runs against an
in-memory FileSystem Access API mock; the historical adapter commits a blob into
a real COW tree. 59 new tests; full unit suite (1398 tests) green.
Replace localeCompare (default-locale, non-deterministic across environments —
unsafe for a persisted sorted index) with UTF-8 byte / code-point order via a
shared compareCodePoints() helper. String ordering is now deterministic and
byte-identical to the native column store / aggregation sort, so results are the
same with or without the native accelerator. Covers the aggregate orderBy sort
and all 5 column-store comparison sites (tail buffer, merge sort, binary search).
Adds compareCodePoints unit tests.
Add 'percentile' (with a 'p' fraction in [0,1]) and 'distinctCount' to the
aggregation engine. Both are exact, computed from a per-metric value multiset
(MetricState.valueCounts) maintained incrementally and delete-safe; percentile
uses numpy-linear interpolation. The multiset is JSON-serializable so results
survive persistence. 35 aggregation unit tests pass.
- groupBy now supports { field, unnest: true }: an entity contributes once per
distinct element of an array field (tag frequency / faceted counts). Duplicate
elements on one entity count once; an empty/missing array joins no group. The
incremental add/update/delete paths fan out across the unnested groups.
- extractEntities/extractConcepts batch-embed the unique candidate spans in one
embedBatch call instead of one embed() per candidate (N sequential model calls);
falls back to per-candidate embedding if the batch fails. No behavior change.
New report APIs:
- brain.queryAggregate(name, params) returns the clean AggregateResult[] shape
({ groupKey, metrics, count }) directly, instead of the search-Result wrapper that
find({ aggregate }) returns.
- HAVING: find({ aggregate, having }) and queryAggregate filter groups by computed
metric values (e.g. revenue > 1000), complementing where (which filters group keys).
Evaluated per group: O(groups), independent of entity count.
Fixes (all reproducible on Node; surfaced under Cortex+Bun by Memory):
- Aggregate backfill-on-define: defining an aggregate over a store that already holds
matching entities returned []. It now backfills from existing entities on first query
(storage-agnostic via getNouns), so it works under durable backends that reopen
pre-populated. groupBy:['noun'] resolves to the entity type; find({ aggregate }) rows
expose groupKey/metrics/count at the top level.
- Multi-hop find({ connected: { depth, via } }) honors depth and via at every hop
(was 1-hop only, with verb filtering applied to hop 1 only); BFS bounded by limit.
- extractEntities no longer bleeds a neighbour's type indicator across candidates; each
candidate is typed by its own span. Also fixes the "Dr." title pattern.
Adds real-embedding regression tests; full unit suite green.
A lightweight tag is skipped by 'git push --follow-tags', so v$VERSION stayed
local-only and 'gh release create' failed at the end of the release. Use an
annotated tag (-a) so it pushes with the release commit.
Three advanced-API correctness fixes, all reproducible on Node (not Bun-specific):
- Entity/concept extraction returned []. SmartExtractor combined agreeing signals
with a weighted sum compared against an absolute 0.60 gate, so a confident
low-weight signal lost selection to a mediocre high-weight one that then failed
the gate, dropping the whole result. Select and gate on a normalized weighted
average instead. The public `confidence` option now controls the threshold (was
a dead hardcoded 0.60), and the embedding-signal timeout is raised 100ms -> 2000ms
so the neural signal is not silently dropped on slower runtimes.
- Multi-hop find({ connected }) returned only the 1-hop neighbour. executeGraphSearch
ignored depth/via; it now delegates to the depth-aware neighbors() BFS.
- find({ aggregate }) hid groupKey/metrics/count under .metadata, so callers
expecting AggregateResult saw empty rows. Expose those fields at the top level.
Adds real-embedding regression tests in tests/integration/advanced-apis-regression.test.ts.
Per the Cortex team's audit, the BR-CX-INTERFACE-GAP boot crash was a
build/install artifact (stale node_modules, lockfile drift, Docker cache,
bundler quirks), not a plugin-bundles-brainy version-skew issue. Cortex's
MmapFileSystemStorage extends FileSystemStorage and inherits all 6
multi-process helpers via the prototype chain at runtime; the dynamic
ESM import to @soulcraft/brainy is preserved in cortex's dist.
- Rewrote the hasStorageMethod() doc comment to credit the real cause.
- Updated the init-time warning to point operators at the actual fix:
clean install or container rebuild to refresh node_modules.
- New docs/concepts/storage-adapters.md documenting the inheritance
contract: extend FileSystemStorage to inherit the multi-process
helpers, override supportsMultiProcessLocking() -> true to activate.
Includes a minimum checklist for adapter authors.
- New docs/architecture/multiprocess-storage-mixin.md as a future-
direction note: extracting the 7 methods into a
MultiProcessSafeStorage interface/mixin is the architecturally clean
next step, deferred to v8 or until a second multi-process capability
lands.
No behavior changes. Ships with the next release.
Two production correctness defects fixed together so consumers can land
one upgrade.
BR-FIND-WHERE-ZERO — find() returned [] and stats() reported 0 entities
for any workspace whose data was written after the 7.20.0 column-store
refactor. Root cause: getStats() and the getIds() fallback still read
from the deleted sparse-index path. Separately, BaseStorage.getNounType()
was hardcoded to return 'thing', poisoning type-statistics.json with
every noun attributed to that bucket.
- MetadataIndex.getStats() reads from ColumnStore + idMapper.
- MetadataIndex.getIdsFromChunks() throws BrainyError(FIELD_NOT_INDEXED)
when neither store has the field. getIdsForFilter() catches per
clause, logs once, returns [].
- BaseStorage.nounTypeByIdCache populated in saveNounMetadata_internal
and consumed in saveNoun_internal. flushCounts() now persists the
Uint32Array counters too, so readers see fresh per-type counts.
- Self-heal at init: loadTypeStatistics() auto-rebuilds when the
poisoned signature is detected. rebuildTypeCounts() is now public for
use from `brainy inspect repair`.
- Dead state removed: dirtyChunks, dirtySparseIndices,
flushDirtyMetadata().
BR-DEFENSIVE-INTERFACE — 7.21.0 called supportsMultiProcessLocking()
unconditionally, crashing on older Cortex storage adapters that predate
the method. New hasStorageMethod(name) helper gates every new-method
call site. Older adapter triggers a one-line warning at init pointing
at the recommended plugin version.
Tests:
- new tests/integration/find-where-zero.test.ts (7 cases)
- new tests/integration/cortex-compat.test.ts (5 cases)
- multi-process-safety.test.ts updated to enforce correct counts
- 1329/1329 unit + 24/24 new integration tests passing
Filesystem storage now enforces single-writer, many-reader semantics.
A second writer on the same data directory throws at init time with the
holder's PID, hostname, and heartbeat — replacing the previous silent
stale-reads failure mode.
- New: `Brainy.openReadOnly()` — coexists with a live writer, every
mutation throws clearly.
- New: writer lock at `<rootDir>/locks/_writer.lock` with 10s heartbeat
and stale-detection (PID liveness + heartbeat freshness).
- New: cross-process flush-request RPC (filesystem-based, no signals)
so inspectors can force fresh state on demand.
- New: `brain.stats()`, `brain.explain(findParams)`, `brain.health()`
for operator-facing introspection.
- New: `brainy inspect` CLI with 13 subcommands (stats, find, get,
relations, explain, health, sample, fields, dump, watch, backup,
repair, diff), all read-only by default.
- Same-PID re-opens allowed with a warning (preserves test "simulate
restart" patterns).
- Storage instances passed directly via `storage: new MemoryStorage()`
are now honoured instead of silently falling through to the
filesystem auto-detect path.
Brainy + Cortex compose under this model — the lock covers both because
they share `rootDir`, Cortex segments are immutable mmap files, and
MANIFEST updates use atomic-rename.
Column store handles all writes and primary queries. Sparse index write
methods are unreachable:
Deleted: addToChunkedIndex (~103 lines), removeFromChunkedIndex (~37 lines),
splitChunkDeferred (~82 lines), getValueChunkFilename + makeSafeFilename
(~20 lines). Total: ~240 lines of dead write-path code.
Sparse index read methods kept as migration fallback for existing workspaces.
Will be deleted once lazy migration (buildFromStorage) ships.
Adds a per-field sorted column store (Lucene doc values + roaring bitmap
architecture) that replaces the MetadataIndex sparse index internals for
both filtering and sorting. One system for all field types with exact
precision — no bucketing, no per-entity storage reads.
Column store: binary .cidx segment format, in-memory tail buffers,
LSM-style compaction, k-way merge sort, multi-value support (__words__).
All queries (filter, range, sort, filtered sort) route through the column
store when data is available, falling back to sparse index otherwise.
Key unlocks:
- find({ orderBy: 'createdAt' }) works WITHOUT a filter (previously threw)
- find({ orderBy: 'metadata.price' }) works for custom numeric fields
- Exact timestamp precision (no 1-minute bucketing)
- O(K log S) sort independent of total entity count
New files: src/indexes/columnStore/ (types, format, tail buffer, cursor,
manifest, coordinator — ~700 lines). 101 new unit tests covering binary
format round-trips, CRC validation, sort, filter, range, deletion,
multi-segment merge, persistence, and multi-value (words) fields.
Deleted: metadataIndex-automatic-bucketing.test.ts (bucketing behavior
eliminated by exact-precision column store). Sparse index write path
removed from addToIndex/removeFromIndex. Sparse index legacy code still
present as dead code pending cleanup in next commit.
Preventive cleanup of sites that previously used dual-lookup patterns
(metadata[field] ?? entity[field]) or hardcoded timestamp if-chains
to read fields off HNSWNounWithMetadata. These worked today but were
fragile — the same failure mode that caused the orderBy sort bug
would have recurred the next time someone reordered or dropped a
lookup.
- AggregationIndex.computeGroupKey + getNumericField now route all
dimension and metric field lookups through resolveEntityField.
- improvedNeuralAPI._getItemsByTimeWindow + _clusterItemsByField
use resolveEntityField as the primary path, with item.data as a
legacy producer fallback. The type/nounType legacy branch is
preserved as-is since it handles storage format compatibility
rather than shape contract drift.
No behavior change for correct inputs. All aggregation and orderby
regression tests pass unchanged.
Cortex and other first-party plugins need a shared contract for reading
fields off HNSWNounWithMetadata. Exporting from /internals keeps a single
source of truth and prevents the shape contract from drifting between
packages.
Muse reported that find({ orderBy: 'createdAt' }) silently returned the
wrong order: getFieldValueForEntity read noun.metadata[field] for
timestamp fields, but getNoun() destructures standard fields to the top
level, so the read always returned undefined and the sort collapsed to
insertion order.
The fix introduces a single source of truth for reading fields off an
entity. STANDARD_ENTITY_FIELDS + resolveEntityField() in coreTypes.ts
encode the "standard fields top-level, custom fields nested" contract
in one place. getFieldValueForEntity now uses the helper and routes
through a named BUCKETED_INDEX_FIELDS set instead of a hardcoded
timestamp if-chain — filtered sort on createdAt/updatedAt now works.
Unfiltered orderBy is explicitly rejected with a clear error pointing
callers at the right pattern. A scalable, unfiltered-sort-capable
time-ordered segment index is tracked as a separate follow-up.
Root cause: metadata index failed to reconstruct after deploy restart
because the field registry file (__metadata_field_registry__) was lost
during an interrupted flush. init() silently assumed the workspace was
empty even though 5000+ entities existed on disk.
Fix 1 (root cause): init() now probes storage for entities when field
registry is missing. If entities exist, triggers rebuild instead of
silently skipping. Never trusts a missing registry as "empty."
Fix 2 (safety net): after rebuildIndexesIfNeeded(), verifies metadata
index entry count matches storage entity count. Forces second rebuild
if mismatch detected.
Fix 3 (prevention): flush() now always saves field registry and
EntityIdMapper, even when no dirty fields exist. These tiny files are
the critical link that init() needs to discover persisted indices.
Fix 5 (safe rebuild): rebuild() no longer deletes the field registry
file before rewriting. If rebuild fails partway, the registry survives
for the next init() to discover and re-trigger rebuild.
Fix 6 (collision guard): EntityIdMapper init() warns when mapper file
is missing but entities exist on disk, preventing silent ID collisions
from nextId starting at 1.
commit() previously defaulted captureState to false, creating commits
with NULL_HASH tree that could never be restored from. Now:
- flush() runs first to persist deferred HNSW nodes, count batches,
and index state before snapshotting
- captureState defaults to true, creating real content-addressed trees
- captureState: false still available for lightweight metadata-only commits
UnifiedCache.setMaxSize() allows runtime resizing of the cache maximum.
When the new limit is smaller than current usage, lowest-value items are
evicted until the cache fits. Used by Cortex's ResourceManager to
rebalance cache vs instance memory as brainy instances are created and
evicted in multi-tenant deployments.
Also adds getMaxSize() for observability.
