Knowledge graphs, archived to last.

IndieK is an open archival format for knowledge graphs: plain files, signed by their authors, append-only, and verifiable by anyone — with nothing but a published specification and standard cryptography.

Get started Desktop app Read the vision The specification

from indiek import Archive, Author

ik = Archive.open("my-archive", author=Author.generate())

theorem = ik.create_node("Gödel's first incompleteness theorem")
proof = ik.create_node("Diagonalisation over provability.")
ik.create_edge(proof, theorem, "proves")

tag = ik.create_tag("theorem", "A proven statement", kind="node")
ik.set_tag(tag, theorem)

print(ik.seal().hash)  # one hash commits to everything

Why IndieK

Plain files

An archive is a folder of UTF-8 text logs and content-addressed files. No database, no server, no proprietary container.

Signed and chained

Every event is signed with its author's Ed25519 key and linked to the previous one by a hash. Any change to the history is detected.

Nothing is overwritten

Revisions are new events; earlier versions stay in the log. How your understanding evolved is part of the knowledge.

Edges carry content

A connection between two ideas has its own text, author, tags and history. "Why are these linked?" gets a first-class answer.

Your vocabulary

No fixed ontology. Tags are designed freely, for nodes and for edges, and anyone can annotate a graph with their own key.

Built to be checked

Seals commit to a whole archive in one short hash. Publish it, and anyone can verify their copy — offline, without trusting anyone.

IndieK Desktop

One app for macOS, Windows and Linux. Open an archive folder, explore its knowledge graph, filter and colour it by tags, and write nodes, edges and tags, all signed with your key and saved straight into the archive.

No Python, no terminal, no account: everything runs on your computer and works offline.
Your archives stay plain folders, ready for git, ik and any other tool.
The ik command line comes with it.

Install the desktop app → · Web UI guide →

Four pieces, one format

Piece	For
IndieK Desktop	everyone
Web UI	browsing and writing graphs
Local API	building your own interface
`indiek` SDK and `ik` CLI	Python and the shell

All free and open source, all reading and writing the same archives.

How they fit together →

An archive in thirty seconds

my-archive/
├── events/…/events.ndjson       the knowledge graph
├── meta/events/…/events.ndjson  tags on it
├── blobs/sha256/71/a0/71a0b5…   content, named by its hash
├── seals/seals.ndjson           signed checkpoints
├── SPEC.md                      the specification itself
└── MANIFEST.json                layout and JSON Schemas

Durable by design

The signed event logs and the blobs are the archive; every index or view is rebuilt from them. Archives carry their own specification and test vectors, so a reader in fifty years needs neither this website nor our code. Hashes and signatures name their algorithms, and transcription events let future generations re-attest old history with newer cryptography.

How the format works →

From the shell

uv tool install 'indiek[cli]'
ik keygen --write
ik config --set-archive-path ~/archives/notes
ik create_node --content "Understanding is not retrieval"
ik create_node --content ./notes/limits.md
ik create_edge --source-node e2 --target-node e1 --content "illustrates"
ik seal
ik verify

CLI reference →

From Python

from indiek import Archive

reader = Archive.open("my-archive")  # read-only
for item in reader.index.items.values():
    print(item.alias, item.kind, item.author[:8])

print(reader.verify())       # full check, latest seal
print(reader.fsck().blob_files)

SDK reference → · Examples →

Status

indiek 1.3.0 — Python SDK and ik CLI Format 3.1 — reads every version since 3.0 IndieK Desktop — first release coming soon 1 November 2026 — contributions open

The format specification, the indiek package, the local API, the web UI and the desktop app are free and open source under the Apache License 2.0. Read the vision, then get started. If IndieK is useful to you, support it.