Self-hosted personal-knowledge OS. Drop in your ChatGPT / Claude.ai exports, Obsidian vaults, voice notes, PDFs — Mnela parses them, links them into a knowledge graph, and exposes everything as an MCP server so Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, ChatGPT and any other MCP client can read and write into your second brain.
- Postgres is the source of truth. A markdown vault is generated as an export.
- AI calls route through a pluggable provider layer (ADR-0049). The built-in Claude Code (CLI) subprocess works out of the box with a Claude Max subscription — no API key required. Anthropic API and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, DeepSeek, Grok, Gemini-via-OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio) can be added in
/admin/system → AI Providers. - Falls back to Dumb Mode (FTS-only) if no provider is reachable, so the UI never goes dark.
- Drag-and-drop ingestion — ChatGPT/Claude.ai exports, Obsidian vaults, PDFs, Office docs, voice notes, images. Streaming ZIP parser handles multi-GB archives. Folder watcher picks up files dropped into
${MNELA_DATA_DIR}/dropbox/. - Auto knowledge graph — every document is enriched by your chosen LLM; entities, relationships, decisions, and confidence-scored link suggestions land in the graph. Low-confidence proposals queue in Review for human triage.
- Ask Brain — chat over your vault with inline citations. SSE-streamed answer + tool-call timeline. Pin any Q&A turn to promote it to a Document and feed it back into enrichment.
- Auto-suggested projects — post-ingest detector groups related documents into project candidates; accept or dismiss in
/projects?status=suggested. - MCP server — bearer-token-authenticated MCP host (
apps/mcp); connect from Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, ChatGPT, anything that speaks MCP. - Telegram bot — second canonical client. Multi-modal turn bundling: voice + photo + text in one TG thread becomes one
/search/askcall. - One settings sheet —
/admin/systemis the only admin page. Provider routing, ingestion limits, suggestion gates, Telegram config, API tokens — all hot-reloadable via Restart Services (no process restart).
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SmartDogg/mnela/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bashThe script auto-installs Docker if missing, asks for domain / IP / Cloudflare Tunnel choice, generates /opt/mnela/.env with random secrets, builds the six service images locally (sequentially, ~15–30 min on a 4-core VPS), applies Prisma migrations, brings the stack up, and offers an inline claude login for Claude Max users. For IP-mode installs it also mints a self-signed TLS cert into the Caddy volume before bringing Caddy up.
After install, open /setup, create the first admin, then walk through the wizard (config / Claude / modules / token). If you skipped Claude Max during install you can sign in later via docker exec -it mnela-orchestrator claude login, or add an API provider under /admin/system → AI Providers.
Backup / restore: mnela backup and mnela restore <file> round-trip everything including the encrypted provider keystore.
Full guide → DEPLOYMENT.md
git clone https://github.com/SmartDogg/mnela && cd mnela
cp .env.example .env # edit POSTGRES_PASSWORD, REDIS_PASSWORD, COOKIE_SECRET
pnpm install
docker compose -f infra/docker/docker-compose.yml up -d postgres redis
pnpm --filter @mnela/db db:migrate
pnpm --filter @mnela/db db:seed
pnpm dev # api :3000 · web :3001 · worker · orchestrator
# open http://localhost:3001/setupRequires Node 22 LTS, pnpm 10+, Docker. Optional: Claude Code CLI for the default built-in provider.
Two tiers, deliberately split:
| Tier | Lives in | Hot-reloadable | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boot-critical secrets | .env (gitignored) |
No | DATABASE_URL, REDIS_URL, COOKIE_SECRET, MNELA_PROVIDER_SECRET, MNELA_INTERNAL_TOKEN |
| User-tunable settings | SystemConfig registry — UI at /admin/system |
Yes (per-subscriber ack) | enrichment.parallelism, search.fts.weight, transcription.enabled, telegram.enabled |
Provider API keys and the Telegram bot token are AES-256-GCM-encrypted in the database — never put them in .env.
| Service | Role |
|---|---|
apps/api |
NestJS HTTP API, SSE /search/ask, /admin/*, /projects |
apps/web |
Next.js 15 UI (/, /graph, /ask, /documents, /projects, /admin/system) |
apps/worker |
BullMQ ingestion pipeline (parsers, attachment promotion) |
apps/orchestrator |
Claude Code subprocess manager + enrichment + project suggestions |
apps/mcp |
MCP server (Streamable HTTP transport) |
apps/tg-bot |
Telegram frontend over /search/ask + /documents/upload |
packages/llm-providers |
The only place AI calls flow through |
packages/mcp-tools |
Shared tool registry for MCP host + in-process agent loop |
- Operators
- DEPLOYMENT.md — fresh-VPS install, backup/restore, Cloudflare Tunnel
- TROUBLESHOOTING.md — typical failures and fixes
- docs/EXPORT_GUIDES/ — exporting from ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Obsidian
- docs/MCP_INTEGRATION.md — connecting MCP clients
- Contributors
- CONTRIBUTING.md — how to propose changes
- CLAUDE.md — developer guide for Claude Code working inside this repo
- docs/dev/DECISIONS.md — architectural decisions log (ADRs)
- docs/dev/PLAN.md — phase plan and acceptance criteria
- docs/dev/QUESTIONS.md — open + resolved questions log
- docs/dev/ORIGINAL_TZ.md — original technical spec, preserved as historical north star
- Security
- SECURITY.md — vulnerability disclosure policy
MIT — © 2026 SmartDogg