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pipx install quire

Install

Pick a package manager.

Python 3.10 or newer. The default install pulls a small embedding model and nothing else. No model weights until you ask for them.

Local models need Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
OCR is optional; install the [ocr] extra if you have scans
Nothing writes outside the working directory and ~/.cache/quire

install

$ pipx install quire            # recommended
$ brew install quire
$ npm install -g @quire/cli     # node wrapper
$ docker run -v $PWD:/w quire/quire

# from source
$ git clone https://github.com/getquire/quire
$ cd quire && uv sync && uv run quire --help

# optional extras
$ pipx install "quire[ocr,postgres]"

CLI

Six commands, and you'll use two.

Command	Does
`quire index <path>`	Parse and index a folder, git repo, URL or connector. Incremental by default; `--rebuild` to start over.
`quire ask "…"`	A cited answer on stdout. `--json` for machine use, `--strict` to exit non-zero when it can't ground the answer.
`quire serve`	Web UI and HTTP API on `:7777`. `--host 0.0.0.0` to expose it, which you should think about first.
`quire agent run <name>`	Run one agent from `.quire/agents/`. Designed to be called by cron or CI, not to run as a daemon.
`quire trace <id>`	Replay any answer: what was retrieved, what was cut in verification, what the models cost.
`quire bench`	Run the evaluation suite against your own corpus. This is how you find out if it works for you.

ask, piped

$ quire ask "open questions in the RFCs?" --json \
    | jq '.citations[].locator'

"docs/rfc/012-v2-migration.md:88"
"docs/rfc/018-multi-region.md:41"

# fail a CI job on an ungrounded claim
$ quire ask "is the runbook current?" --strict \
    || echo "needs a human"

serve

$ quire serve
  ui    http://127.0.0.1:7777
  api   http://127.0.0.1:7777/v1
  index .quire/index.db (18,332 spans)
  model ollama/llama3.1:8b — local

$ curl -s localhost:7777/v1/ask \
    -d '{"question":"who owns billing?"}' \
    | jq .answer

Configuration

One file. Committed to your repo.

quire.toml sits next to your documents. Every key has a default that works, so the shortest useful config is an empty file.

Environment variables override file values: QUIRE_MODEL_ANSWER
Secrets are read from the environment only, never from the file
quire config --explain prints the resolved config and where each value came from

The one setting to change

strict = true. It converts "confidently wrong" into "no answer and a non-zero exit". It's off by default only because it surprises people on their first run.

quire.toml

[model]
answer    = "ollama/llama3.1:8b"
verify    = "ollama/qwen2.5:3b"
embed     = "bge-small-en-v1.5"   # local, bundled

[index]
store     = "sqlite://.quire/index.db"
include   = ["docs/**", "notes/**"]
exclude   = ["**/node_modules", "**/.git"]
ocr       = "auto"

[retrieve]
k         = 50
rerank    = true
recency   = "graph"   # off | linear | graph

[answer]
strict    = true
conflicts = "show"    # show | pick-newest
max_words = 400

APIs

Library first, HTTP when you need it.

python

from quire import Index

idx = Index(".quire/index.db")
idx.add("docs/")

answer = idx.ask(
    "why did we drop v2?",
    strict=True,
)

for c in answer.citations:
    print(c.locator, c.date)

# retrieval only, no model call
spans = idx.search("rollback plan", k=10)

Method	Path	Does
`POST`	`/v1/ask`	Cited answer, conflicts, confidence, trace id
`POST`	`/v1/ask/stream`	Same over SSE; citations arrive as verified
`GET`	`/v1/search`	Ranked spans, no generation
`POST`	`/v1/index`	Add or refresh a path
`GET`	`/v1/traces/:id`	Full replay of one answer

There is no auth layer

By design. quire serve binds to localhost and assumes the network boundary is yours. If you expose it, put it behind something that does authentication properly. We'd rather ship no auth than bad auth.

Extending

Four extension points.

`quire.parsers`

New file formats. The most common contribution by a wide margin.

`quire.sources`

Connectors — anything that yields documents with a stable id.

`quire.models`

Model backends. Anything OpenAI-compatible already works without one.

`quire.outputs`

Where agent results go. Slack, webhook, file, issue tracker.

Each is a documented protocol with a reference implementation under 100 lines. If your plugin is useful, open a PR to list it in the recipes. We don't vendor plugins into core.

Docs missing something?

Every page has an edit link. Documentation PRs skip the review queue and get merged same-day.

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