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I'm building CortexDB — an agent-native context database for AI agents

DEV Community [Unofficial] June 16, 2026
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I'm building CortexDB — an agent-native context database for AI agents

Most modern RAG systems work like this:

  1. Split documents into chunks
  2. Generate embeddings
  3. Store them in a vector database
  4. Retrieve top-k similar chunks on query
  5. Send them to an LLM

It works for simple use cases. But as AI agents become more autonomous and complex, a clear problem appears:

Agents don’t just need similar text chunks.

They need bounded, permission-safe, evidence-aware, and verifiable context.

This is why I started building CortexDB.

GitHub: https://github.com/AubakirovArman/CortexDB

What is CortexDB?

CortexDB is a single-node, agent-native context database. Its main goal is to compile ContextPacks — structured, citation-rich, token-budgeted bundles of context for AI agents.

Instead of returning raw chunks, it returns a ready-to-use package that includes:

  • Source citations
  • Explanation of why each piece was selected
  • Token usage information
  • Anomaly and conflict detection
  • Permission and scope awareness

Key Features

  • ContextPack — structured output format with citations and token control
  • VERIFY FACT — deterministic fact verification (including numerical conflicts)
  • AQL — custom declarative query language designed for agents
  • Tool Registry + Typed Knowledge Graph
  • Durable single-node storage (WAL + MVCC)
  • Published SDKs for Python , TypeScript , and Rust

Example: ContextPack

json
{
  "token_budget_tokens": 4000,
  "estimated_tokens": 2500,
  "truncated": false,
  "citations_required": true,
  "cells": [...],
  "anomalies": [...]
}

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