When a closet hit leads to a source file with many drawers, grep each
chunk for query terms and return the BEST-MATCHING chunk + 1 neighbor
on each side, instead of dumping the whole file truncated at
MAX_HYDRATION_CHARS. Result now includes drawer_index and
total_drawers so callers can request adjacent drawers explicitly.
Extracted from Milla's commit 935f657 which bundled drawer-grep with
closet_llm (deferred pending LLM_ENDPOINT refactor) and fact_checker
(separate PR). Ported only the searcher.py change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three features that close the gap between the architecture docs
and the actual codebase:
1. Entity metadata on drawers and closets
- _extract_entities_for_metadata() pulls names from known_entities.json
+ proper nouns appearing 2+ times
- Stamped as "entities" field in ChromaDB metadata
- Enables filterable search by person/project name
2. Day-based diary ingest (diary_ingest.py)
- ONE drawer per day, upserted as the day grows
- Closets pack topics atomically, never split mid-topic
- Tracks entry count in state file, only processes new entries
- Usage: python -m mempalace.diary_ingest --dir ~/summaries
3. BM25 hybrid search in searcher.py
- _bm25_score() keyword matching complements vector similarity
- _hybrid_rank() combines both signals (60% vector, 40% BM25)
- Catches exact name/term matches that embeddings miss
- Applied to both closet-first and direct drawer search paths
689/689 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The closet architecture was always part of MemPalace's design but
never shipped in the public codebase. This adds it.
Palace now has TWO collections:
- mempalace_drawers — full verbatim content (unchanged)
- mempalace_closets — compact AAAK-style index entries
How it works:
- When mining, each file gets a closet alongside its drawers
- Closet contains extracted topics, entities, quotes as pointers
- Closets pack up to 1500 chars, topics never split mid-entry
- Search hits closets first (fast, small), then hydrates the
full drawer content for matching files
- Falls back to direct drawer search if no closets exist yet
Files changed:
- palace.py: get_closets_collection(), build_closet_text(),
upsert_closet(), CLOSET_CHAR_LIMIT
- miner.py: process_file() now creates closets after drawers
- searcher.py: search_memories() tries closet-first search,
hydrates drawers, falls back to direct search
Backwards compatible — existing palaces without closets continue
to work via the fallback path. Closets are created on next mine.
689/689 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* refactor: add stage-1 backend abstraction seam
Introduce the first upstreamable storage seam for MemPalace without
bringing in the PostgreSQL spike or any benchmark artifacts.
This change adds a small backend package with:
- BaseCollection as the minimal collection contract
- ChromaBackend/ChromaCollection as the default implementation
It then routes the main runtime collection consumers through that seam:
- palace.py
- searcher.py
- layers.py
- palace_graph.py
- mcp_server.py
- miner.status()
Behavioral constraints kept for stage 1:
- ChromaDB remains the only backend and the default path
- no config/env backend selection yet
- no PostgreSQL code
- no benchmark or research files
- existing tests stay unchanged
Important compatibility details:
- read paths now call the seam with create=False so they still surface
the existing 'no palace found' behavior instead of silently creating
empty collections
- write paths keep create=True semantics through palace.get_collection()
- layers/searcher retain a chromadb module attribute so the existing
mock-based tests can keep patching PersistentClient unchanged
- ChromaBackend only creates palace directories on create=True, which
preserves mocked read-path tests that use fake read-only paths
Verification:
- python3 -m py_compile mempalace/backends/__init__.py mempalace/backends/base.py mempalace/backends/chroma.py mempalace/palace.py mempalace/searcher.py mempalace/layers.py mempalace/palace_graph.py mempalace/mcp_server.py mempalace/miner.py
- pytest -q # 529 passed, 106 deselected
* refactor: clean up stage-1 seam compatibility shims
Tighten the stage-1 backend abstraction branch after review.
This follow-up does three small things:
- keep the chromadb compatibility hook in searcher.py and layers.py,
but express it through the backends.chroma module so it no longer
reads like an accidental unused import
- fix the palace_graph.py helper alias to avoid the local name collision
flagged by ruff (imported helper vs local _get_collection wrapper)
- preserve the existing mock-based test patch points unchanged while
keeping the new backend seam intact
Why this matters:
- the direct form looked like a
dead import in review, even though it was intentionally preserving the
existing test seam ( and
)
- palace_graph.py had a real lint issue ( redefinition) that was
small but worth fixing before a public PR
Verification:
- /opt/homebrew/bin/ruff check mempalace/backends/__init__.py mempalace/backends/base.py mempalace/backends/chroma.py mempalace/palace.py mempalace/searcher.py mempalace/layers.py mempalace/palace_graph.py mempalace/mcp_server.py mempalace/miner.py
- pytest -q tests/test_layers.py tests/test_searcher.py
- pytest -q # 529 passed, 106 deselected
* docs: explain backend shim imports in search paths
Add short code comments in searcher.py and layers.py explaining why the
module-level `chromadb` alias remains after the stage-1 backend seam
refactor.
The alias is intentional: it preserves the existing mock patch points used
by the current test suite (`mempalace.searcher.chromadb.PersistentClient`
and `mempalace.layers.chromadb.PersistentClient`) while the runtime logic
now flows through the backend abstraction.
This keeps the public PR easier to review because the apparent "unused
import" now has an explicit reason next to it.
Verification:
- /opt/homebrew/bin/ruff check mempalace/searcher.py mempalace/layers.py
- pytest -q tests/test_layers.py tests/test_searcher.py
* refactor: reuse a default backend instance in palace helper
Tighten the stage-1 backend seam by promoting the default Chroma backend
adapter to a module-level singleton in `mempalace/palace.py`.
This keeps the stage-1 scope unchanged — Chroma is still the only backend
wired in this branch — but avoids constructing a fresh `ChromaBackend()`
object on every `get_collection()` call. The backend is stateless today,
so this is a readability/cleanup change rather than a behavioral one.
Why this helps:
- makes `palace.get_collection()` read like a real default factory instead
of an inline constructor call
- keeps the stage-1 branch a little cleaner before opening the public PR
- does not widen the backend surface or change any config/runtime behavior
Verification:
- python3 -m py_compile mempalace/palace.py
- pytest -q tests/test_miner.py tests/test_layers.py tests/test_searcher.py
- pytest -q # 529 passed, 106 deselected
* fix: harden read-only seam behavior and update seam tests
Preserve the stage-1 backend abstraction while closing the real read-path
regression surfaced in PR review.
What changed:
- make ChromaBackend.get_collection(create=False) fail fast when the palace
directory does not exist instead of letting PersistentClient create it as a
side effect
- update miner.status() to call get_collection(..., create=False) so status
keeps the historical 'No palace found' behavior
- remove the temporary chromadb shim aliases from layers.py and searcher.py
now that the tests patch the seam directly
- add focused tests for the new backends package, including ChromaCollection
delegation and ChromaBackend create=True/create=False behavior
- retarget layer/searcher tests to patch the backend seam instead of patching
chromadb.PersistentClient inside production modules
- add a regression test that status() does not create an empty palace when the
target path is missing
Verification:
- ruff check .
- uv run pytest -q
- uv run pytest -q tests/test_backends.py tests/test_cli.py tests/test_mcp_server.py tests/test_layers.py tests/test_searcher.py tests/test_miner.py
Notes:
- the separate benchmark/slow/stress layer was started as a soak but not used
as the merge gate for this PR branch
* refactor: drop duplicate mcp collection cache declaration
Remove a redundant `_collection_cache = None` assignment in
`mempalace/mcp_server.py` left over after the stage-1 backend seam refactor.
This does not change behavior; it only trims review noise in the MCP server
module after the read-path hardening pass.
Verification:
- ruff check mempalace/mcp_server.py
- uv run pytest -q tests/test_mcp_server.py
---------
Co-authored-by: Sergey Kuznetsov <sergey@iterudit.com>
- Remove palace_path from _no_palace() error response (prevents
leaking filesystem paths to the LLM)
- Replace str(e) with generic 'Internal tool error' in MCP dispatch
catch block (full error is still logged server-side via stderr)
- Replace sys.exit(1) with return in searcher.search() CLI function
(prevents process termination if called from library context)
- Remove unused sys import from searcher.py
Findings: #12 (HIGH), #5 (MEDIUM), #15 (LOW)
Includes test infrastructure from PR #131.
92 tests pass.
Igor Lins e Silva