Memory Swarm

Search and store knowledge across multiple memory providers simultaneously

The Problem

ByteRover's context tree is powerful — but your knowledge lives in many places. Obsidian vaults, markdown folders, GBrain databases, OpenClaw wikis. Without a unified search layer, you have to query each system separately, mentally merge the results, and decide where to store new knowledge.

Memory Swarm solves this by federating all your knowledge sources into a single query and curation interface.

How It Works

Memory Swarm connects up to 5 memory providers into a coordinated search and write system. When you query, all active providers are searched in parallel. Results are merged using Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF) — a ranking algorithm that combines results from heterogeneous sources without requiring comparable score scales.

                        ┌─────────────┐
          brv swarm     │   Classify  │
         query "JWT"───▶│   Query     │
                        └──────┬──────┘
                               │
              ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
              ▼                ▼                ▼
        ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐
        │ByteRover │   │ Obsidian │     │  GBrain  │  ... more providers
        │Context   │   │  Vault   │     │ Database │
        └────┬─────┘   └────┬─────┘     └────┬─────┘
             │              │                 │
             └──────────────┼─────────────────┘
                            ▼
                     ┌──────────────┐
                     │  RRF Fusion  │
                     │  + Filtering │
                     └──────┬───────┘
                            ▼
                      Ranked Results

No LLM call is involved — Memory Swarm is pure algorithmic search and ranking. Queries typically complete in under 500ms across all providers.

Key Concepts

Query Classification

Every query is automatically classified into one of four types using lightweight regex rules:

Type	Trigger Signals	Providers Activated
Factual	Default (no special signals)	All providers
Temporal	"yesterday", "last week", "since", "when did"	All providers
Relational	"related to", "depends on", "connected"	All providers
Personal	"I prefer", "how do I usually", "my style"	Local providers only

Personal queries are routed only to local providers (ByteRover, Obsidian, Local Markdown, Memory Wiki) — cloud providers like GBrain are excluded for privacy.

Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF)

Results from different providers use different scoring systems — BM25 scores, cosine similarity, ts_rank. RRF sidesteps this by ranking based on position rather than raw score:

score = Σ (provider_weight / (K + rank))

Where K=60 (configurable) and provider weights range from 0.7 to 1.0. This produces a unified ranking without requiring score normalization across providers.

Enrichment

Optionally, providers can be chained so that results from one feed into another. For example, ByteRover context tree results can be used to expand Obsidian searches with additional keywords. Enrichment edges form a directed acyclic graph (DAG) — cycles are rejected at config validation time.

Graceful Degradation

If a provider is unhealthy (missing path, bad credentials, unreachable service), it is skipped. The swarm continues with remaining providers and reports the issue in --explain mode. No single provider failure blocks the entire query.

Supported Providers

Provider	Type	Search	Write	Requires
ByteRover	Local	Keyword (BM25)	No	Always available
Obsidian	Local	Keyword (BM25)	No	Vault path
Memory Wiki	Local	Keyword (BM25)	Yes	OpenClaw wiki vault
GBrain	Cloud	Hybrid/Keyword/Vector	Yes	GBrain repo + optional API key
Local Markdown	Local	Keyword (BM25)	Yes	Folder path(s)

Commands

Command	Purpose
brv swarm onboard	Interactive setup wizard — detects and configures providers
brv swarm status	Check provider health and write targets
brv swarm query	Search across all active providers
brv swarm curate	Store knowledge in the best available provider

Next Steps

• Setup — Configure providers with the onboard wizard or manual YAML

• Query — Search across all providers with RRF fusion

• Curate — Store knowledge in external memory providers

• Providers — Detailed reference for each provider type