ruvector/docs/research/knowledge-export/QUICKSTART.md

RuVector Developer Quickstart

Distilled from 3,135 commits, 91 crates, and 55 ADRs across 99 days of development.

What is RuVector?

A Rust-native computation platform for vectors, graphs, and neural networks. Not just a vector database — a full stack from PostgreSQL extension to WASM microkernel.

91 crates organized in layers:

Applications     ruvector-postgres (230+ SQL), ruvllm (LLM serving), mcp-gate
                      |
Compute          ruvector-graph-transformer, ruvector-gnn, ruvector-solver,
                 ruvector-mincut, ruvector-attention (39 types), ruvector-coherence
                      |
Core             ruvector-core (HNSW + SIMD), ruvector-graph (Cypher),
                 ruvector-math, ruvector-verified (proofs)
                      |
Format           rvf-types, rvf-wire, rvf-runtime, rvf-crypto (ML-DSA-65)
                      |
Bindings         *-wasm (20+), *-node (NAPI-RS), ruvector-cli

First Steps

Build everything

# Prerequisites: Rust 1.83+, Node.js 20+
cargo build --workspace
npm run build   # NAPI-RS bindings
npm test

Use the vector database

use ruvector_core::vector_db::VectorDb;

let db = VectorDb::create("my_vectors.db", 384)?; // 384-dim embeddings
db.insert("doc1", &embedding_vector, &metadata)?;
let results = db.search(&query_vector, 10)?;        // top-10 nearest

Use from PostgreSQL

CREATE EXTENSION ruvector;

CREATE TABLE items (id serial, embedding vector(384));
CREATE INDEX ON items USING hnsw (embedding vector_cosine_ops);

SELECT * FROM items ORDER BY embedding <=> '[0.1, 0.2, ...]' LIMIT 10;

-- GNN in SQL
SELECT ruvector_gcn_forward(features, adjacency, weights);

-- Flash attention in SQL
SELECT ruvector_flash_attention(q, k, v);

Use from WASM

import { VectorDb } from '@ruvector/wasm';
const db = new VectorDb(384);
db.insert('doc1', embedding);
const results = db.search(query, 10);

Key Crates to Know

If you need...	Use this crate	Key fact
Vector search	ruvector-core	HNSW, SIMD, 2.5K qps on 10K vectors
Graph database	ruvector-graph	Neo4j-compatible Cypher, petgraph + roaring
GNN training	ruvector-gnn	Message-passing on HNSW topology
Graph transformers	ruvector-graph-transformer	8 verified modules, proof-gated
LLM inference	ruvllm	Paged attention, Metal/CUDA/CoreML
Sparse solvers	ruvector-solver	O(log n) PageRank, spectral methods
Min-cut	ruvector-mincut	First subpolynomial dynamic min-cut
PostgreSQL	ruvector-postgres	230+ SQL functions, pgvector replacement
Binary format	rvf-*	25 segment types, crash-safe, post-quantum

Architecture Patterns

Feature flags everywhere

[features]
default = ["simd", "storage", "hnsw", "parallel"]
wasm = []              # Disables storage, SIMD, parallel
full = ["simd", "storage", "async-runtime", "compression", "hnsw"]

Every WASM crate mirrors a non-WASM crate. Storage falls back to in-memory.

Concurrency stack

• rayon — data parallelism (map/reduce)
• crossbeam — channels and concurrent queues
• dashmap — concurrent HashMap (never use std::sync::Mutex)
• parking_lot — fast locks when you must lock

Testing strategy

• proptest for property-based testing
• criterion for benchmarks
• mockall for mocking
• London-school TDD (mock-first) for new code

Publishing order

Leaf crates first, then dependents:

ruvector-solver → ruvector-solver-wasm, ruvector-solver-node

Always: cargo publish --dry-run --allow-dirty before real publish.

RVF Format (The Unifier)

All RuVector libraries converge on RVF — a single binary format with:

• 25 segment types (Vec, Index, Overlay, Journal, Manifest, Quant, Meta, Witness, Crypto, Kernel, WASM, ...)
• Crash-safe without WAL (append-only + two-fsync protocol)
• Progressive indexing (Layer A/B/C — first query in <5ms)
• Post-quantum crypto (ML-DSA-65 signatures)
• 5 domain profiles (.rvf, .rvdna, .rvtext, .rvgraph, .rvvis)
• Self-booting (embedded WASM microkernel <8KB)

use rvf_runtime::RvfStore;

let store = RvfStore::create("knowledge.rvf", options)?;
store.ingest_batch(&embeddings, &ids, Some(&metadata))?;
let results = store.query(&query_vec, 10, &query_options)?;

Critical ADRs to Read

ADR	Why it matters
ADR-001	Core architecture — the foundation everything builds on
ADR-029	RVF canonical format — the single most important design decision
ADR-015	Coherence-gated transformer — sheaf attention mechanism
ADR-046	Graph transformer architecture — the unified compute model
ADR-044	PostgreSQL v0.3 — 230+ SQL functions
ADR-042	TEE attestation — confidential computing model

Common Gotchas

1. redb locking — Use the global connection pool; don't open the same DB file twice
2. NAPI binaries — git add -f needed in CI to commit .node files past .gitignore
3. WASM size — Microkernel budget is 8KB; CI asserts wasm-opt -Oz < 8192
4. pgrx — Requires explicit --features pg17 in test commands
5. ruvector-profiler — Has publish = false; intentionally not on crates.io
6. Rust version — Main workspace needs 1.83+; rvf crates need 1.87+

Project Links

• Repository: https://github.com/ruvnet/ruvector
• ADRs: docs/adr/ (55+ decisions)
• Benchmarks: cargo bench in individual crates
• Knowledge export: docs/research/knowledge-export/ruvector-knowledge.rvf.json