Open-source embedding database for AI applications. Store embeddings and metadata, perform vector and full-text search, filter by metadata. Simple 4-function API. Scales from notebooks to production c
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The AI-native database for building LLM applications with memory.
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# Python pip install chromadb # JavaScript/TypeScript npm install chromadb @chroma-core/default-embed
import chromadb # Create client client = chromadb.Client() # Create collection collection = client.create_collection(name="my_collection") # Add documents collection.add( documents=["This is document 1", "This is document 2"], metadatas=[{"source": "doc1"}, {"source": "doc2"}], ids=["id1", "id2"] ) # Query results = collection.query( query_texts=["document about topic"], n_results=2 ) print(results)
# Simple collection collection = client.create_collection("my_docs") # With custom embedding function from chromadb.utils import embedding_functions openai_ef = embedding_functions.OpenAIEmbeddingFunction( api_key="your-key", model_name="text-embedding-3-small" ) collection = client.create_collection( name="my_docs", embedding_function=openai_ef ) # Get existing collection collection = client.get_collection("my_docs") # Delete collection client.delete_collection("my_docs")
# Add with auto-generated IDs collection.add( documents=["Doc 1", "Doc 2", "Doc 3"], metadatas=[ {"source": "web", "category": "tutorial"}, {"source": "pdf", "page": 5}, {"source": "api", "timestamp": "2025-01-01"} ], ids=["id1", "id2", "id3"] ) # Add with custom embeddings collection.add( embeddings=[[0.1, 0.2, ...], [0.3, 0.4, ...]], documents=["Doc 1", "Doc 2"], ids=["id1", "id2"] )
# Basic query results = collection.query( query_texts=["machine learning tutorial"], n_results=5 ) # Query with filters results = collection.query( query_texts=["Python programming"], n_results=3, where={"source": "web"} ) # Query with metadata filters results = collection.query( query_texts=["advanced topics"], where={ "$and": [ {"category": "tutorial"}, {"difficulty": {"$gte": 3}} ] } ) # Access results print(results["documents"]) # List of matching documents print(results["metadatas"]) # Metadata for each doc print(results["distances"]) # Similarity scores print(results["ids"]) # Document IDs
# Get by IDs docs = collection.get( ids=["id1", "id2"] ) # Get with filters docs = collection.get( where={"category": "tutorial"}, limit=10 ) # Get all documents docs = collection.get()
# Update document content collection.update( ids=["id1"], documents=["Updated content"], metadatas=[{"source": "updated"}] )
# Delete by IDs collection.delete(ids=["id1", "id2"]) # Delete with filter collection.delete( where={"source": "outdated"} )
# Persist to disk client = chromadb.PersistentClient(path="./chroma_db") collection = client.create_collection("my_docs") collection.add(documents=["Doc 1"], ids=["id1"]) # Data persisted automatically # Reload later with same path client = chromadb.PersistentClient(path="./chroma_db") collection = client.get_collection("my_docs")
# Uses sentence-transformers by default collection = client.create_collection("my_docs") # Default model: all-MiniLM-L6-v2
from chromadb.utils import embedding_functions openai_ef = embedding_functions.OpenAIEmbeddingFunction( api_key="your-key", model_name="text-embedding-3-small" ) collection = client.create_collection( name="openai_docs", embedding_function=openai_ef )
huggingface_ef = embedding_functions.HuggingFaceEmbeddingFunction( api_key="your-key", model_name="sentence-transformers/all-mpnet-base-v2" ) collection = client.create_collection( name="hf_docs", embedding_function=huggingface_ef )
from chromadb import Documents, EmbeddingFunction, Embeddings class MyEmbeddingFunction(EmbeddingFunction): def __call__(self, input: Documents) -> Embeddings: # Your embedding logic return embeddings my_ef = MyEmbeddingFunction() collection = client.create_collection( name="custom_docs", embedding_function=my_ef )
# Exact match results = collection.query( query_texts=["query"], where={"category": "tutorial"} ) # Comparison operators results = collection.query( query_texts=["query"], where={"page": {"$gt": 10}} # $gt, $gte, $lt, $lte, $ne ) # Logical operators results = collection.query( query_texts=["query"], where={ "$and": [ {"category": "tutorial"}, {"difficulty": {"$lte": 3}} ] } # Also: $or ) # Contains results = collection.query( query_texts=["query"], where={"tags": {"$in": ["python", "ml"]}} )
from langchain_chroma import Chroma from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings from langchain.text_splitter import RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter # Split documents text_splitter = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(chunk_size=1000) docs = text_splitter.split_documents(documents) # Create Chroma vector store vectorstore = Chroma.from_documents( documents=docs, embedding=OpenAIEmbeddings(), persist_directory="./chroma_db" ) # Query results = vectorstore.similarity_search("machine learning", k=3) # As retriever retriever = vectorstore.as_retriever(search_kwargs={"k": 5})
from llama_index.vector_stores.chroma import ChromaVectorStore from llama_index.core import VectorStoreIndex, StorageContext import chromadb # Initialize Chroma db = chromadb.PersistentClient(path="./chroma_db") collection = db.get_or_create_collection("my_collection") # Create vector store vector_store = ChromaVectorStore(chroma_collection=collection) storage_context = StorageContext.from_defaults(vector_store=vector_store) # Create index index = VectorStoreIndex.from_documents( documents, storage_context=storage_context ) # Query query_engine = index.as_query_engine() response = query_engine.query("What is machine learning?")
# Run Chroma server # Terminal: chroma run --path ./chroma_db --port 8000 # Connect to server import chromadb from chromadb.config import Settings client = chromadb.HttpClient( host="localhost", port=8000, settings=Settings(anonymized_telemetry=False) ) # Use as normal collection = client.get_or_create_collection("my_docs")
| Operation | Latency | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Add 100 docs | ~1-3s | With embedding |
| Query (top 10) | ~50-200ms | Depends on collection size |
| Metadata filter | ~10-50ms | Fast with proper indexing |
MIT
mkdir -p ~/.hermes/skills/mlops/chroma && curl -o ~/.hermes/skills/mlops/chroma/SKILL.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/optional-skills/mlops/chroma/SKILL.md
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