@boomship/postgres-vector-embedded

✅ Ready to Use - Cross-platform binaries now available via GitHub Releases

Embedded PostgreSQL with pgvector extension for Node.js applications.

Overview

An embedded PostgreSQL + pgvector solution for Node.js applications:

• PostgreSQL 17.5 — latest stable database engine
• pgvector 0.8.0 — enables vector similarity search with HNSW indexing
• Dual variants — lite (basic) and full (with SSL, compression, XML) builds available
• Advanced capabilities — SSL/TLS, compression, XML support, JIT compilation
• No manual setup — precompiled binaries ready to run
• TypeScript API — example code to get started quickly

Ideal for projects needing vector search without relying on external Postgres instances or Docker.

⚠️ Note: The included TypeScript code is intended as example usage only. It is not production-ready and is provided to demonstrate how to use the embedded binaries. The real value of this package lies in its cross-platform PostgreSQL + pgvector binaries.

Quick Start

npm install @boomship/postgres-vector-embedded

This will install the package and prepare your environment for running an embedded Postgres server. All example code provided is for demonstration purposes only.

Platform Support

Lite Variant (Basic PostgreSQL + pgvector)

Platform	Architecture	Status
macOS	ARM64 (M1+)	✅ Supported
macOS	x64 (Intel)	✅ Supported
Linux	x64	✅ Supported
Linux	ARM64	✅ Supported
Windows	x64	✅ Supported

Full Variant (Additional Features)

Platform	Architecture	Status	Features
macOS	ARM64 (M1+)	✅ Supported	SSL, ICU, LZ4, ZSTD, XML, LLVM, UUID
macOS	x64 (Intel)	✅ Supported	SSL, ICU, LZ4, ZSTD, XML, LLVM, UUID
Linux	x64	✅ Supported	SSL, ICU, LZ4, ZSTD, XML, LLVM, UUID
Linux	ARM64	✅ Supported	SSL, ICU, LZ4, ZSTD, XML, LLVM, UUID
Windows	x64	❌ Unsupported	Not available

Windows Full Variant: Not available in current release. Use lite variant on Windows. Full variant with additional PostgreSQL features coming in v1.0.

Basic Usage

import { downloadBinaries, PostgresServer } from '@boomship/postgres-vector-embedded';

// Download platform-specific binaries (choose variant)
await downloadBinaries({ variant: 'full' }); // or 'lite'

// Start embedded PostgreSQL server
const server = new PostgresServer({
  dataDir: './postgres-data',
  port: 5432
});

await server.start();

// Use with your favorite PostgreSQL client
// Full variant includes SSL, compression, and additional PostgreSQL features (macOS/Linux)

await server.stop();

Vector Search Example

import { PostgresServer } from '@boomship/postgres-vector-embedded';
import { Client } from 'pg';

const server = new PostgresServer();
await server.start();

const client = new Client({ port: server.port });
await client.connect();

// Create table with vector column
await client.query(`
  CREATE TABLE documents (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    content TEXT,
    embedding vector(384)
  )
`);

// Insert documents with embeddings
await client.query(`
  INSERT INTO documents (content, embedding) VALUES 
  ('Hello world', '[0.1, 0.2, 0.3, ...]'),
  ('Goodbye world', '[0.4, 0.5, 0.6, ...]')
`);

// Vector similarity search
const result = await client.query(`
  SELECT content, embedding <-> '[0.1, 0.2, 0.3, ...]' as distance 
  FROM documents 
  ORDER BY distance 
  LIMIT 5
`);

await client.end();
await server.stop();

Build System

This package includes a cross-platform build system:

• Makefile with platform detection and compilation
• GitHub Actions for automated CI/CD
• Functional tests to verify binary integrity
• Binary distribution via GitHub Releases

Local Development

# Build binaries locally
npm run build:binaries

# Test built binaries
make test

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

API Reference

downloadBinaries(options?)

Downloads platform-specific PostgreSQL + pgvector binaries.

interface DownloadOptions {
  version?: string;           // Default: latest
  platform?: PlatformType;   // Auto-detected
  architecture?: ArchType;   // Auto-detected  
  variant?: Variant;          // 'lite' | 'full' (default: 'lite')
  downloadDir?: string;       // Default: './postgres-binaries'
}

Note: The first time you run this, platform-specific binaries will be downloaded and cached.

PostgresServer

An example of embedded PostgreSQL server management.

interface PostgresServerOptions {
  dataDir?: string;        // Default: './postgres-data'
  port?: number;          // Default: 5432
  host?: string;          // Default: 'localhost'
  database?: string;      // Default: 'postgres'
  user?: string;         // Default: 'postgres'
  password?: string;     // Default: none
}

Methods

• async start() - Initialize and start the server
• async stop() - Stop the server gracefully
• async restart() - Restart the server
• isRunning() - Check if server is running

Why This Package?

Existing solutions are incomplete - they're either client libraries that require existing PostgreSQL installations, PostgreSQL-only packages without pgvector, or solutions with older versions.

This package provides a complete embedded solution with PostgreSQL 17.5 and pgvector 0.8.0, offering both lite and full variants.

Advanced Capabilities

The full variant includes additional PostgreSQL features:

• Security — Complete SSL/TLS encryption support for secure connections (macOS, Linux)
• Performance — LLVM JIT compilation for accelerated complex queries (macOS, Linux)
• Compression — LZ4 and Zstandard algorithms for optimal storage efficiency (macOS, Linux)
• Data Types — Full XML processing and UUID generation capabilities (macOS, Linux)
• Internationalization — Complete Unicode and collation support via ICU (macOS, Linux)
• Vector Search — pgvector with HNSW indexing for high-performance similarity search (all platforms)

Choose Your Variant:

• Lite — Core PostgreSQL + pgvector (smaller footprint, faster startup)
• Full — Additional PostgreSQL features enabled (SSL, compression, XML, JIT compilation)

Full variant features are currently available on macOS and Linux. Windows full variant is coming in v1.0.

🤝 Curated Release

This repository is published as a curated release. That means:

• It’s open-source and freely usable under the terms of the license
• It’s not a community-driven project — we’re not accepting PRs or feature requests
• Issues may be disabled or ignored, depending on capacity
• You’re encouraged to fork it if you want to extend or modify it

This is a stable, production-ready binary release from an internal system. The accompanying code is illustrative and may not be suitable for production use.

License

MIT - See LICENSE file for details.

PostgreSQL and pgvector maintain their respective licenses (see licenses/ directory).