# Thermocline

> Thermocline is an open-source, AI-native document database with automatic tiered storage. MongoDB wire-protocol compatible — change your connection string, keep your code.

Thermocline is built from the ground up with a native LSM-tree storage engine, built-in HNSW/DiskANN vector search, MVCC time travel, Raft consensus replication, ACID transactions, and automatic hot/cold data tiering. Applications connect using standard MongoDB drivers.

## Core Capabilities

- Native LSM-tree storage engine (Rust): sub-millisecond point reads, 50K+ writes/sec
- Automatic tiered storage: hot (NVMe/SST) → cold (Parquet on S3), transparent to queries
- Built-in vector search: HNSW and DiskANN indexes via $vectorSearch aggregation
- Time travel: MVCC versioning, read any historical timestamp via readConcern.atClusterTime
- WAL-based change streams: guaranteed-order, resumable, for RAG pipelines and event-driven architectures
- Raft consensus: automatic leader election, <5s failover, strong consistency
- ACID transactions: multi-document snapshot isolation via MVCC
- MongoDB compatible: wire protocol and MQL support, existing apps work with connection string change

## Architecture

Gateway (Rust) → Coordinator (Go) → Storage Engine (Rust) for hot data
Gateway (Rust) → Coordinator (Go) → Query Engine (Rust) → S3 for cold data
Controller (Go) handles archival, backup, lifecycle management

## Links

- Website: https://thermocline.org
- GitHub: https://github.com/strongly-ai/thermocline
- License: SSPL v1
- Organization: StronglyAI, Inc.

## Documentation

### Getting Started
- [Introduction](https://thermocline.org/docs/overview/introduction): Component model, execution modes, architecture overview
- [Quick Start](https://thermocline.org/docs/getting-started/quickstart): Get running in 5 minutes with Docker
- [Installation](https://thermocline.org/docs/getting-started/installation): Standalone binary, Docker, Kubernetes deployment
- [Configuration](https://thermocline.org/docs/getting-started/configuration): Environment variables, Helm values, runtime config
- [Migration from MongoDB](https://thermocline.org/docs/getting-started/migration): Zero-downtime migration tool and compatibility guide

### Architecture & Concepts
- [Architecture](https://thermocline.org/docs/overview/architecture): System design, data flow, component interactions
- [Core Concepts](https://thermocline.org/docs/overview/concepts): Storage tiers, MVCC, WAL, Raft, vector indexes

### Core Features
- [Storage Engine](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/storage-engine): LSM-tree, WAL, memtable, SST, compaction
- [Tiered Storage](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/tiered-storage): Automatic hot→cold archival, Parquet cold tier, federated queries
- [Vector Search](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/vector-search): HNSW and DiskANN indexes, $vectorSearch aggregation, hybrid search
- [Time Travel](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/time-travel): MVCC snapshots, readConcern.atClusterTime, historical queries
- [Raft Consensus](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/raft-consensus): Leader election, log replication, snapshot transfer, membership changes
- [Transactions](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/transactions): Multi-document ACID with snapshot isolation
- [Change Streams](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/change-streams): WAL-based, resumable, guaranteed order
- [Wire Protocol](https://thermocline.org/docs/core-features/wire-protocol): MongoDB wire protocol compatibility, supported commands

### Platform Features
- [Platform Overview](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/overview): Built-in platform features beyond the database
- [REST API Gateway](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/rest-api): Auto-generated REST endpoints from collections
- [Realtime Engine](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/realtime): WebSocket subscriptions, presence, broadcast
- [Authentication](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/authentication): SCRAM-SHA-256, x.509, LDAP, OIDC
- [Document-Level Security](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/document-level-security): Row-level policies with $auth variables
- [Database Branching](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/branching): Git-like branches via MVCC snapshots
- [File Storage](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/file-storage): S3-compatible object storage for files
- [Message Queues](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/queues): Built-in priority queues with dead-letter and visibility timeout
- [Database Triggers](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/triggers): WAL-based before/after insert/update/delete triggers
- [MCP Server](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/mcp-server): Model Context Protocol server for AI agent integration
- [Client SDKs](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/client-sdks): JavaScript, Python, Go SDKs
- [Admin Dashboard](https://thermocline.org/docs/platform/dashboard): Web-based administration console

### Plugins
- [Plugins Overview](https://thermocline.org/docs/plugins/overview): Optional plugin system for extended capabilities
- [GPU Acceleration](https://thermocline.org/docs/plugins/gpu-acceleration): CUDA-powered HNSW vector search, batch distance computation
- [ML Engine](https://thermocline.org/docs/plugins/ml-engine): In-database machine learning — 13 algorithms, zero external services
- [Intelligent Cache](https://thermocline.org/docs/plugins/intelligent-cache): 3-tier adaptive caching with ML-inspired eviction

### Deployment
- [Standalone](https://thermocline.org/docs/deployment/standalone): Single binary deployment for development
- [Kubernetes](https://thermocline.org/docs/deployment/kubernetes): Helm chart, operator, production K8s deployment
- [Production](https://thermocline.org/docs/deployment/production): Production hardening, sizing, monitoring
- [Multi-Cloud](https://thermocline.org/docs/deployment/multi-cloud): AWS, GCP, Azure deployment guides

### Operations
- [Backup & Restore](https://thermocline.org/docs/operations/backup-restore): Snapshot backups, PITR, S3 storage
- [High Availability](https://thermocline.org/docs/operations/high-availability): Raft HA, failover, read replicas
- [Observability](https://thermocline.org/docs/operations/observability): Prometheus metrics, Grafana dashboards, OpenTelemetry
- [Upgrade Guide](https://thermocline.org/docs/operations/upgrade): Rolling upgrades, version compatibility
- [Runbooks](https://thermocline.org/docs/operations/runbooks): Operational procedures and troubleshooting

### Guides
- [Driver Guide](https://thermocline.org/docs/guides/driver-guide): Using MongoDB drivers with Thermocline
- [Performance Tuning](https://thermocline.org/docs/guides/performance-tuning): Optimization strategies and benchmarks
- [Profiling](https://thermocline.org/docs/guides/profiling): Query profiling and slow query analysis
- [Multi-Region](https://thermocline.org/docs/guides/multi-region): Multi-region deployment and geo-routing

### Reference
- [API Reference](https://thermocline.org/docs/reference/api-reference): Complete gRPC and REST API documentation
- [MongoDB Compatibility](https://thermocline.org/docs/reference/compatibility): Supported operations, aggregation stages, index types
- [Supported Operations](https://thermocline.org/docs/reference/supported-operations): Full command reference
- [Configuration Reference](https://thermocline.org/docs/reference/configuration-ref): All configuration options
- [Validation](https://thermocline.org/docs/reference/validation): Schema validation and document constraints
- [FAQ](https://thermocline.org/docs/reference/faq): Frequently asked questions

### Security
- [Security](https://thermocline.org/docs/security/security): Authentication, encryption, TLS, audit logging

### Development
- [Development Guide](https://thermocline.org/docs/development/development-guide): Local setup, building, testing
- [Repository Layout](https://thermocline.org/docs/development/repository-layout): Codebase structure and conventions
- [Testing Framework](https://thermocline.org/docs/development/testing-framework): Test strategy, coverage, CI

## Blog
- [Introducing Thermocline](https://thermocline.org/blog/introducing-thermocline): Launch announcement and vision
- [Built by StronglyAI](https://thermocline.org/blog/built-by-stronglyai): The team and mission behind Thermocline
- [Scaling Meteor.js with Thermocline](https://thermocline.org/blog/meteor-thermocline-oplog): Oplog tailing without the replica set

## Community
- [Contributing](https://thermocline.org/community/contributing): How to contribute to Thermocline
- [Code of Conduct](https://thermocline.org/community/code-of-conduct): Community guidelines
- [Governance](https://thermocline.org/community/governance): Project governance model
- [Roadmap](https://thermocline.org/community/roadmap): Development roadmap and upcoming features

## Additional Resources
- [Cold Storage Policy Builder](https://thermocline.org/cold-storage): Interactive tool to design tiered storage policies
- [Download](https://thermocline.org/download): Download Thermocline binaries and Docker images