docbank

Alpha software. Keep independent copies of irreplaceable material and verify backups before relying on them.

Keep, find, and recover documents in a vault you control.

Docbank is an open-source document vault for people, applications, and agents. Import files, organize them in folders, and search their names and extracted text. Move or rename a document without changing its ID. Save new versions without overwriting earlier ones, and verify backups before you need them.

Use the command line, local web app, terminal browser, or authenticated HTTP API. A local background process, the daemon, owns the vault and handles these requests. Go applications can also embed separately rooted vaults.

Docbank does not synchronize a working folder across devices or create public share links. See capabilities for the product overview and roadmap for planned work.

Linux or macOS:

curl -fsSL https://docbank.ai/install.sh | sh

Windows PowerShell:

irm https://docbank.ai/install.ps1 | iex

The installers select the native Linux, macOS, or Windows archive for amd64 or arm64 and refuse to install it unless its digest matches the release's SHA256SUMS. GitHub Releases also provides the archives for manual verification.

To build from source, install Go 1.27+, CGO, a C compiler, Node 24+, and npm:

git clone https://github.com/kenn-io/docbank.git
cd docbank
make install

The setup guide lists the build requirements for each platform.

The first data command creates the vault and starts its daemon:

docbank add ~/Documents --dest /archive
docbank tree /archive
docbank search "tax return"
docbank web

Retrieve a complete file only after Docbank verifies it, then inspect or change the same stable document without rewriting prior content:

docbank get /archive/Documents/receipt.pdf ./receipt.pdf
docbank versions list /archive/Documents/receipt.pdf
docbank put revised-receipt.pdf /archive/Documents/receipt.pdf
docbank mv /archive/Documents/receipt.pdf /archive/Documents/receipt-2026.pdf
docbank verify

Create a backup, verify it, and restore a separate copy to inspect:

docbank backup init --repo ~/Backups/docbank
docbank backup create --repo ~/Backups/docbank --tag first-import
docbank backup verify --repo ~/Backups/docbank
docbank backup restore --repo ~/Backups/docbank --target ~/Restores/docbank-test

The ten-minute quickstart walks through versions, tags, search, recoverable trash, maintenance, and restore.

• Standalone: one daemon owns a vault; every CLI, browser, TUI, script, and external agent goes through its authenticated API on the local machine.
• Embedded: one Go application owns each independently rooted vault in-process, with selectable CGO or pure-Go SQLite.
• Secondary storage: Docbank verifies content in configured filesystem and S3-compatible stores but does not encrypt it. Protect those namespaces with owner access controls and storage encryption appropriate to their operator.
• Backup: a stopped copy of the local database and primary blob directory is complete only when primary storage has a verified copy of every retained content file. Use docbank backup create to include retained content held only in secondary stores. See the backup guide for the full rules.

• Documentation homepage and visual tour
• Setup and quickstart
• Capabilities and vault lifecycle
• Web application and terminal browser
• Multi-store storage and backup & restore
• Docbank for agents and integration guide
• Embed in Go and document processing packages
• CLI reference and architecture overview

Docbank belongs to a family of personal data tools alongside msgvault, the communications archive. Msgvault preserves an immutable record of messages; Docbank manages working documents that people and agents still organize, retrieve, version, and use.

Copyright 2026 Kenn Software LLC.

Docbank is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See NOTICE for attribution information.