Citadel
Local-first encrypted memory for AI agents. Zero-LLM ingest, SQL/vector search, MCP, and cryptographic forgetting.
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Citadel is a local-first encrypted memory engine for AI agents, built on an embedded SQL/vector database. It stores raw conversations without LLM-based ingest, recalls with hybrid retrieval, and supports cryptographic forgetting by destroying keys.
Quick Start
Install for Python with pip install citadeldb or the browser with npm install @citadeldb/wasm, or try it with no install in the live playground. Each Rust example below lists the crates it uses.
Memory
Uses the citadeldb and citadeldb-mem crates (enable citadeldb-mem's candle-embed feature). bge_large loads a local BGE-large model; other presets (bge_small, e5_large, ...) or a custom Embedder work too.
use std::sync::Arc;
use citadel::DatabaseBuilder;
use citadel_mem::{AtomInput, CandleEmbedder, MemoryEngine, RecallQuery};
// Encrypted store (per-atom keys enable cryptographic forgetting)
let db = DatabaseBuilder::new("memory.db")
.passphrase(b"secret")
.enable_region_keys(true)
.create()?;
let mem = MemoryEngine::open(Arc::new(db))?;
// Local embedding model
let embedder = Arc::new(CandleEmbedder::bge_large("/path/to/model")?);
mem.create_encrypted_region("chat", embedder)?;
// Remember raw turns (no LLM)
mem.remember("chat", AtomInput::new("fact", "Alice's cat is named Mochi"))?;
let berlin = mem.remember("chat", AtomInput::new("fact", "Alice lives in Berlin"))?;
// Recall by relevance
for hit in mem.recall("chat", RecallQuery::by_text("where does Alice live?", 5))? {
println!("{:.3} {}", hit.score, hit.text);
}
// Cryptographic forgetting: destroy the atom's key
mem.forget_atom("chat", berlin)?;SQL and key-value
Uses the citadeldb and citadeldb-sql crates.
use citadel::DatabaseBuilder;
use citadel_sql::Connection;
let db = DatabaseBuilder::new("my.db")
.passphrase(b"secret")
.create()?;
let conn = Connection::open(&db)?;
conn.execute("CREATE TABLE users (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL);")?;
conn.execute("INSERT INTO users (id, name) VALUES (1, 'Alice');")?;
let result = conn.query("SELECT * FROM users;")?;
// Key-value API
let mut wtx = db.begin_write()?;
wtx.insert(b"key", b"value")?;
wtx.commit()?;
let mut rtx = db.begin_read();
assert_eq!(rtx.get(b"key")?.unwrap(), b"value");
// Named tables
let mut wtx = db.begin_write()?;
wtx.create_table(b"sessions")?;
wtx.table_insert(b"sessions", b"token-abc", b"user-42")?;
wtx.commit()?;
// In-memory (no file I/O - useful for testing and WASM)
let mem_db = DatabaseBuilder::new("")
.passphrase(b"secret")
.create_in_memory()?;CLI
citadel --create my.db
citadel> CREATE TABLE users (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL);
citadel> INSERT INTO users (id, name) VALUES (1, 'Alice'), (2, 'Bob');
citadel> SELECT * FROM users;
+----+-------+
| id | name |
+----+-------+
| 1 | Alice |
| 2 | Bob |
+----+-------+
citadel> .backup mydb.bak
citadel> .verify
citadel> .stats
citadel> .audit verify
citadel> .rekey
citadel> .compact clean.db
citadel> .dump users
# P2P sync
citadel> .keygen
citadel> .listen 4248 <KEY> # Terminal A
citadel> .sync 127.0.0.1:4248 <KEY> # Terminal BMemory benchmarks
Citadel is scored on the LoCoMo and LongMemEval long-term-memory benchmarks. Execution speed against unencrypted SQLite across 58 head-to-head benchmarks is under Speed benchmarks.
LoCoMo - gpt-4o-mini reader and judge (the field's standard setup):
| Memory system | Score | Memory built with |
|---|---|---|
| Citadel | 85.5% | no LLM - raw turns |
| Full context (no retrieval) | 72.9% | - |
| Mem0 (graph) | 68.4% | LLM facts + graph |
| Mem0 | 66.9% | LLM fact-extraction |
| Zep / Graphiti | 66.0% | LLM knowledge graph |
| LangMem | 58.1% | LLM-managed |
| OpenAI memory | 52.9% | LLM-managed |
Competitor scores as published in the Mem0 paper (arXiv 2504.19413), at the same gpt-4o-mini reader and judge.
LongMemEval (arXiv 2410.10813) oracle split, official CoT prompt and gpt-4o-2024-08-06 judge:
| Reader | Overall | Task-averaged |
|---|---|---|
| gpt-4o | 90.6% | 89.3% |
| gpt-4o-mini | 82.2% | 83.0% |
Oracle = retrieval-complete (the evidence sessions are in context), so this measures the reader ceiling on Citadel's retrieved memory. The gpt-4o reader exceeds the LongMemEval paper's own gpt-4o oracle score (0.870). Protocol and per-question audit in citadel-membench.
Encrypted memory engine
The same encrypted pages that hold SQL tables also hold memory. Three crates make up the memory engine:
- citadeldb-vector - a
VECTOR(N)SQL type, distance operators (<->L2,<#>inner,<=>cosine), and a PRISM-backed filtered ANN index that reads through the encrypted page store. - citadeldb-mem - the memory engine (regions, atoms, edges) with hybrid recall and cryptographic forgetting: an atom or region is erased by destroying its key, at whole-store, per-region, and per-atom granularity.
- citadeldb-mcp - a Model Context Protocol server exposing a Citadel memory region (encrypted by default) to any MCP client (Claude Desktop, IDEs) as recall/remember/link/evolve/forget/verify tools.
Zero-LLM memory path
citadeldb-mem uses no LLM at ingest or retrieval: it stores raw conversation content
and recalls with embeddings, BM25 keyword matching, and a cross-encoder reranker.
Remembering costs zero tokens, recall is deterministic, and the conversation is never
sent to an LLM to build or search the memory. The score above uses a gpt-4o-mini reader and judge; with a
gemini-3.5-flash reader the same encrypted retrieval scores 90.6% (mean of 3 runs). Protocol,
per-question audit, and a comparison with published systems are in
citadel-membench.
Agent runtime
- citadeldb-ai - an autonomous agent runtime (ReAct + Reflexion, tool registry, budget caps, pluggable LLM backends) that uses citadeldb-mem for persistence.
Features
- Encrypted at rest - AES-256-CTR + HMAC-SHA256 per page, verified before decryption
- SQL - JOINs, subqueries, CTEs (recursive + WITH-DML), UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT, window functions, views, materialized views, triggers, TEMP tables, generated columns (STORED + VIRTUAL), constraints, full FK actions, UPSERT, RETURNING, JSON/JSONB (14 Postgres operators + SQL/JSON path language), full-text search, prepared statements with plan caching, and a queryable system catalog. Full list under SQL
- ACID - Copy-on-Write B+ tree, shadow paging, no WAL. Snapshot isolation with concurrent readers
- P2P sync - Merkle-based table diffing over Noise-encrypted channels with PSK auth
- CLI - SQL shell with tab completion, syntax highlighting, dot-commands (.backup, .verify, .rekey, .sync, .dump, ...)
- 3-tier key hierarchy - Passphrase -> Argon2id -> Master Key -> AES-KW -> REK -> HKDF -> DEK + MAC
- Cryptographic forgetting - Erase data by destroying its key, not by overwriting: whole-store, and per-region / per-atom via citadeldb-mem. A forgotten region or atom is unrecoverable
- FIPS 140-3 - PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 + AES-256-CTR when compliance requires it
- Audit log - HMAC-SHA256 chained, tamper-evident
- Hot backup - Consistent snapshots via MVCC, no write blocking
- Overflow pages - Large values handled transparently, no size limits
- Cross-platform - Windows, Linux, macOS. Python, C FFI (37 functions), and WebAssembly bindings
- 5,000+ tests - Unit, integration, torture tests across 20 crates
Speed benchmarks
Single-threaded, durability off (pure engine overhead). Most benchmarks run on 100K rows of (id INTEGER PK, name TEXT, age INTEGER); per-benchmark queries and schemas are in Methodology. Ratio = SQLite / Citadel time (higher is faster). Two-run medians.
Execution speed
Every iteration computes its result: writes, and reads whose parameters rotate per iteration or whose shape re-executes against the storage engine.
Benchmark Citadel SQLite Ratio
----------------------------------------------------------
correlated_scalar 12.8 us 19.8 ms 1,549x
full_outer_join 14.1 us 21.8 ms 1,540x
view_filter 21.6 us 1.83 ms 85x
filter 23.2 us 1.84 ms 80x
join_param 1.55 us 34.8 us 22x
join 14.2 us 97.7 us 6.89x
union 28 us 150 us 5.35x
delete_returning 48.8 us 171 us 3.50x
update_returning 46.6 us 150 us 3.23x
insert_returning 61.1 us 174 us 2.84x
truncate 20.8 us 58.7 us 2.83x
fts_match 2.91 ms 8.03 ms 2.76x
json_extract 12.2 ms 32.7 ms 2.68x
sort_paginate_pk 5.62 us 14.7 us 2.61x
upsert_returning 67.2 us 175 us 2.61x
window_agg 29.5 ms 76.5 ms 2.59x
upsert_dedup 13 us 32.8 us 2.52x
fts_phrase 4.19 ms 9.73 ms 2.32x
savepoint_create 349 ns 748 ns 2.14x
window_rank 63.4 ms 130 ms 2.05x
insert_select 543 us 1.1 ms 2.03x
delete 35 us 69.9 us 2.00x
scan 4.97 ms 9.54 ms 1.92x
savepoint_rollback 1.28 ms 2.28 ms 1.78x
wide_proj_2col 501 us 842 us 1.68x
upsert_mixed 35.5 us 59.1 us 1.66x
savepoint_nested 197 us 326 us 1.66x
wide_proj_full 4.59 ms 7.53 ms 1.64x
update 17.9 us 28.3 us 1.58x
wide_proj_pk 319 us 480 us 1.51x
upsert_counter 35.8 us 53.7 us 1.50x
insert 35.4 us 51.9 us 1.47x
upsert_all_new 35.6 us 51.4 us 1.44x
covered_count 257 us 359 us 1.40x
with_dml 80.5 us 107 us 1.34x
fk_cascade_delete_only 63.5 us 80.7 us 1.27x
insert_gen_virtual 48.5 us 55 us 1.13x
wide_proj_3col 1.11 ms 1.23 ms 1.11x
insert_gen_stored 51.3 us 56.2 us 1.10x
covered_range 67.7 us 74.4 us 1.10x
fk_cascade 80.7 us 87.3 us 1.08x
update_gen_propagate 44.6 us 45.2 us 1.01x42 execution benchmarks. Citadel is faster on all 42. Geometric mean speedup: ~3.4x.
Memoized repeat-reads
Deterministic read-only statements re-executed with identical parameters against unchanged data are served from a generation-keyed result cache. Any commit invalidates the cache, and the first execution after a write recomputes at execution speed. SQLite has no result cache and re-executes every query.
Benchmark Citadel SQLite Ratio
----------------------------------------------------------
correlated_in 103 ns 1.97 s 19,208,388x
fts_rank 219 ns 42.5 ms 194,338x
correlated_exists 102 ns 6.89 ms 67,712x
jsonb_contains 1.09 us 27.7 ms 25,273x
sort_nocase 213 ns 3.31 ms 15,532x
cte 668 ns 6.13 ms 9,179x
sort 312 ns 2.76 ms 8,853x
group_by 1.27 us 10.7 ms 8,411x
sum 468 ns 1.97 ms 4,214x
distinct 1.11 us 4.08 ms 3,675x
recursive_cte 105 ns 122 us 1,165x
partial_index_point 103 ns 12.6 us 122x
view_point 121 ns 12.7 us 105x
point 121 ns 12.5 us 104x
count 457 ns 21.6 us 47x
select_gen_virtual 1.05 us 18.1 us 17x16 memoized benchmarks. Geometric mean speedup: ~3,700x.
Citadel-only (no direct SQLite equivalent)
Fixed-parameter reads; every benchmark except json_table is served from the result cache on repeat execution.
Benchmark Citadel
-------------------------------
json_table 9.25 ms
lateral 1.46 us
date_sort 1.10 us
date_extract 473 ns
date_groupby 242 ns
date_range_scan 102 ns
date_arith 100 nsIndex speedups (citadel-internal)
Rotating probes; both arms measure execution speed.
Benchmark Without index With index Speedup
---------------------------------------------------------------
json_gin 4.70 ms 3.49 us 1,347x
fts_index 1.37 s 2.98 ms 461xMethodology
H2H benchmarks:
- correlated_in -
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM ref_table WHERE ref_table.val = t.age) - full_outer_join -
SELECT a.id, b.data FROM a FULL OUTER JOIN b ON a.id = b.a_id - count -
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t - correlated_scalar -
SELECT a.id, (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM b WHERE b.a_id = a.id) FROM a - point -
SELECT * FROM t WHERE id = 50000 - group_by -
SELECT age, COUNT(*) FROM t GROUP BY age - partial_index_point -
SELECT * FROM t WHERE email = ? AND deleted_at IS NULL - cte -
WITH filtered AS (SELECT ... WHERE age < 50) SELECT age, COUNT(*) FROM filtered GROUP BY age - view_point -
SELECT * FROM v WHERE id = 50000 - truncate -
TRUNCATE TABLE t - insert_returning -
INSERT INTO t (id, val) VALUES (...) RETURNING id, val - upsert_returning -
INSERT ... ON CONFLICT (id) DO UPDATE SET c = c + 1 RETURNING c - view_filter -
SELECT * FROM v WHERE age = 42 - filter -
SELECT * FROM t WHERE age = 42 - window_agg -
SELECT SUM(age) OVER (ORDER BY id ROWS 50 PRECEDING) FROM t - jsonb_contains -
SELECT id FROM users WHERE data @> '{"role":"admin"}'::jsonb - savepoint_create -
BEGIN; SAVEPOINT sp; RELEASE sp; COMMIT - sort -
SELECT * FROM t ORDER BY age LIMIT 10 - upsert_counter -
INSERT ... ON CONFLICT (id) DO UPDATE SET c = c + 1 - window_rank -
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY age ORDER BY id) FROM t - delete_returning -
DELETE ... WHERE id = ? RETURNING id, val - upsert_dedup -
INSERT ... ON CONFLICT (id) DO NOTHING - json_extract -
SELECT data ->> 'name' FROM users - delete -
DELETE FROM t WHERE id = ? - update -
UPDATE t SET age = age + 1 WHERE id BETWEEN 10000 AND 10099 - covered_range -
SELECT age, id FROM t WHERE age = ?on an indexed column, parameter rotating per iteration - covered_count -
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t WHERE age >= ?on an indexed column, parameter rotating per iteration - sort_paginate_pk -
SELECT id, name FROM t WHERE id > ? ORDER BY id LIMIT 20, parameter advancing per iteration - join_param -
SELECT a.val, b.data FROM a JOIN b ON b.a_id = a.id WHERE a.id = ?, parameter rotating per iteration - correlated_exists -
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ref_table WHERE ref_table.id = t.id) - savepoint_nested -
BEGIN; SAVEPOINT sp1; ... ; RELEASE/ROLLBACK TO sp1; COMMIT - with_dml -
WITH d AS (DELETE FROM src RETURNING *) INSERT INTO archive SELECT * FROM d - distinct -
SELECT DISTINCT age FROM t - insert_select -
INSERT INTO sink SELECT id, val FROM a - savepoint_rollback -
BEGIN; INSERT 1K rows; SAVEPOINT sp; INSERT 10K rows; ROLLBACK TO sp; COMMIT - update_returning -
UPDATE t SET c = c + ? WHERE id = ? RETURNING c - insert -
INSERT INTO t (id, val) VALUES (?, ?) - scan -
SELECT * FROM t - wide_proj_pk -
SELECT id FROM wide(24-column table: 3 INT keys, 8 INT, 12 TEXT; 10K rows) - wide_proj_2col -
SELECT id, k1 FROM wide - wide_proj_3col -
SELECT id, k1, t1 FROM wide - wide_proj_full -
SELECT * FROM wide - sort_nocase -
SELECT name FROM t ORDER BY name COLLATE NOCASE LIMIT 10 - sum -
SELECT SUM(age) FROM t - insert_gen_virtual -
INSERT INTO t (id, a, b) VALUES (?, ?, ?) - union -
SELECT id, val FROM a UNION ALL SELECT id, data FROM b - select_gen_virtual -
SELECT id, s FROM t WHERE s > ? - update_gen_propagate -
UPDATE t SET a = a + ? WHERE id = ? - upsert_mixed -
INSERT ... ON CONFLICT (id) DO UPDATE SET c = c + 1 - upsert_all_new -
INSERT ... ON CONFLICT (id) DO NOTHING - recursive_cte -
WITH RECURSIVE seq(x) AS (SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT x+1 FROM seq WHERE x < 1000) SELECT SUM(x) FROM seq - insert_gen_stored -
INSERT INTO t (id, a, b) VALUES (?, ?, ?) - fk_cascade -
DELETE FROM parent WHERE id = ? - fk_cascade_delete_only -
DELETE FROM parent WHERE id = ?(no index on child) - join -
SELECT a.id, b.data FROM a INNER JOIN b ON a.id = b.a_id - fts_match -
SELECT id FROM docs WHERE body @@ to_tsquery('rust & database') - fts_phrase -
SELECT id FROM docs WHERE body @@ phraseto_tsquery('rust database') - fts_rank -
SELECT id, ts_rank(body, to_tsquery('rust & database')) FROM docs WHERE body @@ ... ORDER BY r DESC LIMIT 10
Citadel-only benchmarks:
- date_extract -
SELECT AVG(EXTRACT(HOUR FROM ts)) FROM events - date_groupby -
SELECT DATE_TRUNC('month', ts), COUNT(*) FROM events GROUP BY 1 - json_table -
SELECT a, b, c FROM JSON_TABLE(j, '$[*]' COLUMNS (a INT PATH '$.a', b TEXT PATH '$.b', c INT PATH '$.c')) - lateral -
SELECT c.id, p.name FROM c, LATERAL (SELECT name FROM p WHERE p.cat_id = c.id ORDER BY price DESC LIMIT 1) p - date_range_scan -
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM events WHERE d BETWEEN DATE '2024-02-01' AND DATE '2024-03-31' - date_arith -
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM events WHERE ts + INTERVAL '1 day' > TIMESTAMP '2024-06-01 00:00:00' - date_sort -
SELECT id FROM events ORDER BY ts LIMIT 100
Index speedups (same query, with vs without the index):
- json_gin -
SELECT id FROM users WHERE data @> '{"role":"admin"}'::jsonb; indexCREATE INDEX ... USING gin (data) - fts_index -
SELECT id FROM docs WHERE body @@ to_tsquery(...); indexCREATE INDEX ... USING fts (body)(bodyis aTSVECTORcolumn)
SQLite config: journal_mode=OFF, synchronous=OFF, cache_size=8192 (~32 MB).
Citadel config: SyncMode::Off, cache_size=4096 (~32 MB).
Reproduce with cargo bench -p citadeldb-sql --bench h2h_bench
SQL
Statements - CREATE/DROP TABLE (incl. TEMP), ALTER TABLE (ADD/DROP/RENAME COLUMN, RENAME TABLE, DISABLE/ENABLE TRIGGER), CREATE/DROP INDEX (incl. partial WHERE, expression keys, CONCURRENTLY), CREATE/DROP VIEW, CREATE/DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW (with REFRESH [CONCURRENTLY]), CREATE/DROP TRIGGER (BEFORE/AFTER/INSTEAD OF, FOR EACH ROW/STATEMENT, REFERENCING NEW/OLD TABLE, WHEN, UPDATE OF cols), INSERT (VALUES, SELECT, ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING/DO UPDATE, ON CONSTRAINT), SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, TRUNCATE TABLE, RETURNING (with OLD/NEW), BEGIN [READ ONLY | READ WRITE]/COMMIT/ROLLBACK, SAVEPOINT/RELEASE/ROLLBACK TO, SET TIME ZONE, EXPLAIN, REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW
Constraints - PRIMARY KEY, NOT NULL, UNIQUE, DEFAULT, CHECK (column + table level), FOREIGN KEY with full referential actions (ON DELETE / ON UPDATE CASCADE / SET NULL / SET DEFAULT / RESTRICT / NO ACTION), GENERATED ALWAYS AS (...) STORED|VIRTUAL
Types - INTEGER, REAL, TEXT, BLOB, BOOLEAN, DATE, TIME, TIMESTAMP (WITH TIME ZONE), INTERVAL, JSON, JSONB, TSVECTOR, TSQUERY, ARRAY
Clauses - JOINs (INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, CROSS, FULL OUTER, LATERAL), subqueries (scalar, IN, EXISTS, correlated), CTEs (WITH / WITH RECURSIVE / WITH-DML: WITH x AS (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE ... [RETURNING *]) SELECT ...), UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT [ALL], CASE, BETWEEN, LIKE, DISTINCT, ANY / ALL (subquery + array forms), GROUP BY/HAVING, ORDER BY, LIMIT/OFFSET
Window functions - ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE, LAG, LEAD, FIRST_VALUE, LAST_VALUE, SUM/COUNT/AVG/MIN/MAX OVER with PARTITION BY, ORDER BY, ROWS/RANGE frames
Views - CREATE/DROP VIEW, OR REPLACE, IF NOT EXISTS/IF EXISTS, column aliases, nested views
Materialized views - CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW [IF NOT EXISTS] name AS SELECT ..., REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW [CONCURRENTLY] name (CONCURRENTLY does a diff-merge - DELETE removed rows, UPDATE changed rows, INSERT new rows - instead of TRUNCATE+repopulate), DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW [CASCADE], full backing-table semantics (indexes, joins, planner sees a real table), pg_matviews introspection
Triggers - CREATE TRIGGER name {BEFORE|AFTER|INSTEAD OF} {INSERT|UPDATE [OF cols]|DELETE} ON table FOR EACH {ROW|STATEMENT} [REFERENCING NEW TABLE AS new_t OLD TABLE AS old_t] [WHEN (expr)] BEGIN ... END. INSTEAD OF triggers make views writable. Transition tables work as virtual tables in trigger bodies. ALTER TABLE ... DISABLE/ENABLE TRIGGER [name|ALL]. PG-faithful name-order firing. Introspection via information_schema.triggers and SHOW TRIGGERS [ON table].
TEMP tables - CREATE TEMP TABLE ... lives in a per-connection in-memory database, dropped on disconnect. Full DDL/DML/index/constraint/trigger parity with persistent tables.
Functions - COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, LENGTH, UPPER, LOWER, SUBSTR/SUBSTRING, TRIM/LTRIM/RTRIM, REPLACE, INSTR, CONCAT, HEX, ABS, ROUND, CEIL/CEILING, FLOOR, SIGN, SQRT, RANDOM, COALESCE, NULLIF, CAST, TYPEOF, IIF
Date/Time Functions - NOW, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, CURRENT_DATE, CURRENT_TIME, LOCALTIMESTAMP, LOCALTIME, CLOCK_TIMESTAMP, EXTRACT, DATE_PART, DATE_TRUNC, DATE_BIN, AGE, MAKE_DATE, MAKE_TIME, MAKE_TIMESTAMP, MAKE_INTERVAL, JUSTIFY_DAYS, JUSTIFY_HOURS, JUSTIFY_INTERVAL, ISFINITE, DATE, TIME, DATETIME, STRFTIME, JULIANDAY, UNIXEPOCH, TIMEDIFF, AT TIME ZONE. Supports INTERVAL '1 year 2 months', DATE '2024-01-15', TIMESTAMP '2024-01-15 12:30:00Z', infinity/-infinity sentinels, BC dates, full IANA zone parsing (jiff), PG-normalized INTERVAL comparison.
Full-text search - tsvector / tsquery types, to_tsvector / to_tsquery / plainto_tsquery / phraseto_tsquery / websearch_to_tsquery builders, @@ match operator, ts_rank / ts_rank_cd ranking with weighted positions (A/B/C/D), prefix matching (term:*), phrase distance (<N>), inverted indexes via CREATE INDEX ... USING fts for ~461x speedup over sequential scan
System catalog - information_schema.tables, information_schema.columns, information_schema.key_column_usage, information_schema.table_constraints, information_schema.triggers, pg_timezone_names, pg_timezone_abbrevs, pg_matviews (virtual tables, queryable). SHOW TRIGGERS [ON table] and SHOW MATERIALIZED VIEWS shorthands for the corresponding catalog queries.
Prepared statements - $1, $2, ... positional parameters with LRU statement cache plus snapshot-tagged plan caching for joins and compound queries (cache invalidates only on commit, never per-call)
Multi-statement scripts - Connection::execute_script(sql) runs ;-separated statements in one call, returning per-statement outcomes with partial-success preserved. WASM: db.run(sql) returns [{type, ...}, ...].
UPSERT - INSERT ... ON CONFLICT (cols) DO NOTHING / DO UPDATE SET col = excluded.col ... WHERE ... and ON CONFLICT ON CONSTRAINT idx_name. excluded.* refers to the proposed row; bare col refers to the existing row. Single-descent storage primitive: on the canonical DO UPDATE SET counter = counter + 1 pattern, Citadel is ~1.5x faster than SQLite.
Security
No plaintext on disk. Every page is encrypted before writing and authenticated before reading.
Separate key file. Encryption keys live in {dbname}.citadel-keys, not inside the database. The passphrase derives a master key in memory via Argon2id (or PBKDF2 in FIPS mode) and never touches disk.
Key backup. Export an encrypted key backup with a separate recovery passphrase. Restore access without re-encrypting the entire database.
Instant rekey. Changing the passphrase re-wraps the root encryption key. No page re-encryption - instant regardless of database size.
Encrypted sync. Noise protocol (NNpsk0_25519_ChaChaPoly_BLAKE2s) with a 256-bit pre-shared key. Ephemeral Curve25519 keys per session for forward secrecy.
Architecture
Agent layer:
+---------------------------------------------+
| citadel-ai | Agent runtime (ReAct + Reflexion)
+---------------------------------------------+
Memory layer:
+---------------------------------------------+
| citadel-mcp | MCP server: memory tools for any MCP client
+---------------------------------------------+
| citadel-mem | Memory engine: regions, atoms, recall, erasure
+---------------------------------------------+
| citadel-vector | VECTOR(N) type + PRISM filtered ANN index
+---------------------------------------------+
Encrypted database engine:
+----------------------+----------------------+
| citadel-cli | citadel-python | CLI, Python wheel
+----------------------+----------------------+
| citadel-ffi | citadel-wasm | C FFI, WebAssembly
+----------------------+----------------------+
| citadel-sql | SQL parser, planner, executor
+---------------------------------------------+
| citadel | Database API, builder, sync
+-------------+--------------+----------------+
| citadel-txn | citadel-sync | citadel-crypto | Transactions, replication, keys
+-------------+--------------+----------------+
| citadel-buffer | citadel-page | Buffer pool (SIEVE), page codec
+----------------------------+----------------+
| citadel-io | File I/O, fsync, io_uring
+---------------------------------------------+
| citadel-core | Types, errors, constants
+---------------------------------------------+Page Layout (8,208 bytes)
+----------+--------------------+----------+
| IV 16B | Ciphertext 8160B | MAC 32B |
+----------+--------------------+----------+Fresh random IV per page. HMAC verified before decryption.
Commit Protocol
Shadow paging with a god byte - one byte selects the active commit slot. Atomic commits without WAL:
- Write dirty pages to new locations (CoW)
- Compute Merkle hashes bottom-up
- Update the inactive commit slot
- Flip the god byte
Language Bindings
C / C++
Static or dynamic library with auto-generated citadel.h (cbindgen). All 37 functions are panic-safe.
#include "citadel.h"
CitadelDb *db = NULL;
citadel_create("my.db", (const uint8_t*)"secret", 6, NULL, &db);
CitadelWriteTxn *wtx = NULL;
citadel_write_begin(db, &wtx);
citadel_write_put(wtx, (const uint8_t*)"key", 3, (const uint8_t*)"val", 3, NULL);
citadel_write_commit(wtx);
CitadelSqlConn *conn = NULL;
citadel_sql_open(db, &conn);
CitadelSqlResult *result = NULL;
citadel_sql_execute(conn, "SELECT * FROM users;", &result);
citadel_close(db);WebAssembly
import { CitadelDb } from "@citadeldb/wasm";
const db = new CitadelDb("secret");
db.execute("CREATE TABLE t (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT);");
db.execute("INSERT INTO t (id, name) VALUES (1, 'Alice');");
const result = db.query("SELECT * FROM t;");
// { columns: ["id", "name"], rows: [[1, "Alice"]] }
db.put(new Uint8Array([1, 2, 3]), new Uint8Array([4, 5, 6]));Build: wasm-pack build crates/citadel-wasm --target web
Python
One importable wheel with the full engine (SQL, vectors, memory, agent runtime) and bundled type stubs.
pip install citadeldbimport citadeldb
db = citadeldb.connect("my.db", key="secret", create=True)
db.execute("CREATE TABLE t (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT)")
db.execute("INSERT INTO t VALUES (1, 'Alice')")
db.query("SELECT * FROM t").to_dicts()
# [{'id': 1, 'name': 'Alice'}]Building
Rust 1.75+.
git clone https://github.com/yp3y5akh0v/citadel.git
cd citadel
cargo build --releaseFeature Flags
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
audit-log |
HMAC-chained tamper-evident audit log (default: on) |
fips |
FIPS 140-3: PBKDF2 + AES-256-CTR only |
io-uring |
Linux io_uring async I/O |
License
MIT OR Apache-2.0