Provider Reference

Detailed reference for each Memory Swarm provider

Provider Overview

Memory Swarm supports 5 provider types. Each provider has different capabilities, search methods, and requirements.

Provider	Search	Write	Local	Avg Latency	Cost
ByteRover	BM25 keyword	No	Yes	~50ms	Free
Obsidian	BM25 keyword	No	Yes	~100ms	Free
Memory Wiki	BM25 keyword	Yes	Yes	~60ms	Free
GBrain	Hybrid/Keyword/Vector	Yes	No	~200ms	Free (keyword) or ~$0.001 (vector)
Local Markdown	BM25 keyword	Yes	Yes	~80ms	Free

ByteRover

ByteRover's context tree is always available as a swarm provider. It contributes the same BM25 search that powers brv query, without the LLM synthesis step.

Capabilities:

• Keyword search (BM25) across all curated knowledge files
• Read-only — writes go through brv curate separately
• No API key or external dependency required

When results come from ByteRover: Results are labeled [byterover] and include the context tree file path.

RRF weight: 1.0 (highest confidence — curated knowledge)

Obsidian

Searches your Obsidian vault using an in-process MiniSearch index (BM25). The index is built lazily on first query and rebuilt when vault files change.

Capabilities:

• Keyword search across all .md files in the vault
• Wikilink-aware — follows [[links]] for richer indexing
• Graph traversal support for connected notes
• Read-only in swarm mode

Configuration:

obsidian:
  enabled: true
  vault_path: /Users/you/Documents/MyObsidian
  ignore_patterns:
    - ".trash"
    - ".obsidian"
    - "templates"
  index_on_startup: true
  read_only: true
  watch_for_changes: true

Requirements: An existing Obsidian vault directory (must contain .obsidian/ subdirectory).

RRF weight: 0.85

Memory Wiki (OpenClaw)

Searches an OpenClaw Memory Wiki vault — a structured knowledge base with pages organized by type (entities, concepts, syntheses, sources). Uses in-process MiniSearch for fast keyword search.

Capabilities:

• Keyword search across wiki pages (entities, concepts, syntheses, sources)
• Freshness boost — recently updated pages score 1.2x higher
• Kind boost — entities (1.4x) and concepts (1.3x) are prioritized over sources
• Write support — creates new concept or entity pages with OpenClaw frontmatter

Configuration:

memory_wiki:
  enabled: true
  vault_path: /Users/you/.openclaw/wiki/main
  boost_fresh: true
  write_page_type: concept

Write behavior: Creates pages in concepts/ or entities/ with OpenClaw-compatible frontmatter:

---
pageType: concept
id: concept.swarm.your-topic
title: "Your Topic"
status: active
updatedAt: "2026-04-14T10:00:00.000Z"
sourceType: swarm-curate
---

<!-- openclaw:wiki:content:start -->
Your content here
<!-- openclaw:wiki:content:end -->

Requirements: An OpenClaw wiki vault. Set up with openclaw wiki init or configure the path to an existing vault.

RRF weight: 0.9

GBrain

Queries a GBrain knowledge brain via CLI subprocess. GBrain supports three search modes with different performance and cost tradeoffs.

Search Modes:

Mode	Method	API Key	Best For
hybrid	Vector + keyword + RRF + multi-query expansion	Required	Best quality, highest recall
keyword	Full-text search only	Not needed	Free, fast, good for exact matches
vector	Vector search without expansion	Required	Semantic similarity without expansion overhead

Configuration:

gbrain:
  enabled: true
  repo_path: /Users/you/workspaces/gbrain
  search_mode: hybrid

Requirements:

• GBrain repo or global installation (bun add -g gbrain)
• For hybrid/vector modes: OpenAI API key for embeddings
• If running from source: Bun runtime

GBrain resolution order:

1. Explicit gbrain_bin_path in config
2. gbrain in system PATH
3. src/cli.ts in repo_path
4. ../gbrain/src/cli.ts relative to workspace
5. Fallback — try gbrain anyway (fails at runtime if not found)

RRF weight: 0.85

Local Markdown

Indexes one or more folders of plain markdown files. Each folder is registered as a separate sub-provider (e.g., local-markdown:notes, local-markdown:docs), allowing fine-grained routing and write control.

Capabilities:

• Keyword search (BM25) with MiniSearch
• Wikilink following for cross-file references
• Write support (when read_only: false)
• Multiple independent folders

Configuration:

local_markdown:
  enabled: true
  watch_for_changes: true
  folders:
    - name: project-docs
      path: /Users/you/Documents/local-markdown
      read_only: false
      follow_wikilinks: true
    - name: meeting-notes
      path: /Users/you/Documents/meetings
      read_only: false
      follow_wikilinks: false

Write behavior: New files are created as timestamped markdown files in the target folder (e.g., note-1776052527043.md).

RRF weight: 0.8

Provider Weights

Each provider has an RRF weight that reflects confidence in its result quality. Higher weights mean the provider's top results are more likely to appear at the top of the fused ranking.

Provider	Weight	Rationale
ByteRover	1.0	Curated knowledge — highest trust
Obsidian	0.85	Personal notes — good signal but less structured
Memory Wiki	0.9	Structured wiki with claims and provenance
GBrain	0.85	Compiled truth with semantic search
Local Markdown	0.8	Unstructured files — broad coverage, variable quality