Joel Hooks writes that pdf-brain is a local-first knowledge base for PDFs and Markdown files that adds semantic search with Ollama embeddings and optional LLM enrichment, storing documents in libSQL with vector HNSW indexes and full-text search, plus a SKOS taxonomy system for concept organization, CLI tools, and MCP server integration.
- Supports PDF and Markdown ingestion from file paths and URLs
- Uses mxbai-embed-large for embeddings and llama3.2:3b for optional enrichment via Ollama
- Starter taxonomy ships with 29 concepts across five domains including programming and education
- Vector indexes can reach ~48GB for large libraries due to HNSW overhead
- Installable as a standalone binary via curl script, no runtime required
- Supports PDF and Markdown ingestion from file paths and URLs
- Uses mxbai-embed-large for embeddings and llama3.2:3b for optional enrichment via Ollama
- Starter taxonomy ships with 29 concepts across five domains including programming and education
- Vector indexes can reach ~48GB for large libraries due to HNSW overhead
- Installable as a standalone binary via curl script, no runtime required
