Show HN: Pith – A local-first desktop LLM wiki without vector DBs or embeddings

Developer l-zhi released Pith, a local-first desktop LLM wiki that ingests notes, PDFs, and emails into Markdown entries without using vector databases or embeddings, relying instead on keyword search and link traversal for retrieval. The tool, available as a desktop app and CLI, keeps all data in plain files on the user's disk and supports auto-ingestion and scheduled tasks.

中文版 → README.zh-CN.md A local-first LLM knowledge base. Drop in your notes, PDFs, and emails — pith hydrates each into a dense Markdown entry an LLM can read, then lets you chat with your whole library, retrieved by keyword + link traversal. No embeddings, no vector DB. Everything stays in plain files on your disk. Drop a note into your Obsidian vault — pith auto-ingests it into an entry the LLM can pull from mid-conversation. - 🗂️ Plain files, not a black box — every entry is Markdown + YAML frontmatter; Obsidian, VS Code, and Git open them natively. - 🔍 Retrieval you can reason about — weighted keyword search + link-graph traversal + exact grep. No embedding drift, no vendor lock-in. - 💬 Chat that writes back — the agent reads your library through file/wiki tools; /digest distills a conversation into a new entry. - 🤖 Auto-ingest + schedule — watch a folder for new files; run agent tasks on a cron e.g. a daily digest of yesterday's additions . - 🔒 Local-first — all data under ~/.pith-wiki/ ; outbound PII filtering on by default. No cloud, no lock-in. Design philosophy: data engineering retrieval algorithms.Don't dump raw docs into a store and hope embeddings pull them back. Use an LLM tohydrateeach source into a high-density Markdown entry, then retrieve by keyword + link traversal. Simple, file-based, human-readable. Input formats: .docx .eml .htm .html .md .pdf .txt . The product is pith ; the npm package and repo are historically named pith-wiki . Desktop app recommended — the full experience: chat, inbox, dashboard, link graph, skills, and a scheduled-tasks calendar, all over the same engine and on-disk library. No packaged installer yet, so run it from source: git clone https://github.com/l-zhi/pith-wiki.git cd pith-wiki/desktop npm install npm run dev electron-vite dev HMR CLI optional — for automation / headless use : npm install -g pith-wiki pith-wiki launch the REPL On first launch, onboarding walks you through setup — pick a provider, paste an API key, and point it at a notes folder to watch. Everything lives under ~/.pith-wiki/ config + wiki data ; set PITH WIKI HOME for an isolated profile. Platforms : macOS + Linux are CI-tested Node 20 / 22 ; Windows is usable but not yet CI-covered. Dev scripts: npm test / npm run typecheck / npm run build inside desktop/ , or repo root for engine/core . See CONTRIBUTING.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md . 1. Hydrate — compress raw documents markdown / PDF / DOCX / HTML / email into Markdown entries roughly 30% of the original size. Strip filler, keep signal. LLMs read these directly. 2. Retrieve — no embeddings, no vector DB. Weighted keyword search title × 2, tags × 2, summary × 1, content × 0.5 + BFS link traversal, plus exact substring/regex search wiki grep and date-range filters when an entry was added to the library, or the content's own date . Boring on purpose. Entries are plain Markdown; Obsidian, VS Code, and Git all open them natively. 3. Chat — the agent talks to your library through file + wiki tools wiki query fuzzy search, wiki grep exact search, wiki get , wiki read source , wiki ingest , read file / write file / list dir , … . Every turn writes a transcript; /digest distills the conversation back into a wiki entry, closing the loop chat → store → retrieve. 4. Auto-ingest — point a watch folder Obsidian vault, inbox, etc. at pith in Settings, and changes are auto-enqueued for a background worker to hydrate. Built-in health checks flag orphan links, broken frontmatter, and ID collisions. 5. Schedule desktop — set tasks that run an agent prompt on a schedule once, or cron — e.g. a daily digest of everything added yesterday. Each fire opens a fresh session you can reopen; ${yyyy-mm-dd -1} -style date placeholders are resolved at run time so "yesterday" is always correct. | Document | When to read it | |---|---| | additionalReadPaths , on-disk layout docs/config.example.json /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/docs/config.example.json ~/.pith-wiki/config.json example multi-provider + watchDirs + queue docs/entry-format.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/docs/entry-format.md docs/architecture.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/docs/architecture.md docs/security-model.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/docs/security-model.md docs/usage.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/docs/usage.md SECURITY.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/SECURITY.md CONTRIBUTING.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md CHANGELOG.md /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md Apache 2.0 /l-zhi/pith-wiki/blob/main/LICENSE · Copyright c 2026 lizhi