# Building Custom Vector Memory Databases with the BaseVectorDatabase Class

In the age of large language models (LLMs) and AI-powered applications, efficient memory management has become a crucial component. Vector databases, which store and retrieve data in high-dimensional vector spaces, have emerged as powerful tools for handling the vast amounts of data generated and consumed by AI systems. However, integrating vector databases into your applications can be a daunting task, requiring in-depth knowledge of their underlying architectures and APIs.

Enter the `BaseVectorDatabase` class, a powerful abstraction layer designed to simplify the process of creating and integrating custom vector memory databases into your AI applications. By inheriting from this class, developers can build tailored vector database solutions that seamlessly integrate with their existing systems, enabling efficient storage, retrieval, and manipulation of high-dimensional data.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the `BaseVectorDatabase` class in detail, covering its core functionality and diving deep into the process of creating custom vector memory databases using popular solutions like PostgreSQL, Pinecone, Chroma, FAISS, and more. Whether you're a seasoned AI developer or just starting to explore the world of vector databases, this guide will provide you with the knowledge and tools necessary to build robust, scalable, and efficient memory solutions for your AI applications.

## Understanding the BaseVectorDatabase Class

Before we dive into the implementation details, let's take a closer look at the `BaseVectorDatabase` class and its core functionality.

The `BaseVectorDatabase` class is an abstract base class that defines the interface for interacting with a vector database. It serves as a blueprint for creating concrete implementations of vector databases, ensuring a consistent and standardized approach to database operations across different systems.

The class provides a set of abstract methods that define the essential functionality required for working with vector databases, such as connecting to the database, executing queries, and performing CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations.

Here's a breakdown of the abstract methods defined in the `BaseVectorDatabase` class:

1\. `connect()`: This method establishes a connection to the vector database.

2\. `close()`: This method closes the connection to the vector database.

3\. `query(query: str)`: This method executes a given query on the vector database.

4\. `fetch_all()`: This method retrieves all rows from the result set of a query.

5\. `fetch_one()`: This method retrieves a single row from the result set of a query.

6\. `add(doc: str)`: This method adds a new record to the vector database.

7\. `get(query: str)`: This method retrieves a record from the vector database based on a given query.

8\. `update(doc)`: This method updates a record in the vector database.

9\. `delete(message)`: This method deletes a record from the vector database.

By inheriting from the `BaseVectorDatabase` class and implementing these abstract methods, developers can create concrete vector database implementations tailored to their specific needs and requirements.

## Creating a Custom Vector Memory Database

Now that we have a solid understanding of the `BaseVectorDatabase` class, let's dive into the process of creating a custom vector memory database by inheriting from this class. Throughout this guide, we'll explore various vector database solutions, including PostgreSQL, Pinecone, Chroma, FAISS, and more, showcasing how to integrate them seamlessly into your AI applications.

### Step 1: Inherit from the BaseVectorDatabase Class

The first step in creating a custom vector memory database is to inherit from the `BaseVectorDatabase` class. This will provide your custom implementation with the foundational structure and interface defined by the abstract class.

```python

from abc import ABC, abstractmethod
from swarms import BaseVectorDatabase

class MyCustomVectorDatabase(BaseVectorDatabase):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):

        # Custom initialization logic

        pass

```

In the example above, we define a new class `MyCustomVectorDatabase` that inherits from the `BaseVectorDatabase` class. Within the `__init__` method, you can add any custom initialization logic specific to your vector database implementation.

### Step 2: Implement the Abstract Methods

The next step is to implement the abstract methods defined in the `BaseVectorDatabase` class. These methods provide the core functionality for interacting with your vector database, such as connecting, querying, and performing CRUD operations.

```python
from swarms import BaseVectorDatabase


class MyCustomVectorDatabase(BaseVectorDatabase):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):

        # Custom initialization logic

        pass

    def connect(self):

        # Implementation for connecting to the vector database

        pass

    def close(self):

        # Implementation for closing the vector database connection

        pass

    def query(self, query: str):

        # Implementation for executing a query on the vector database

        pass

    def fetch_all(self):

        # Implementation for fetching all rows from the result set

        pass

    def fetch_one(self):

        # Implementation for fetching a single row from the result set

        pass

    def add(self, doc: str):

        # Implementation for adding a new record to the vector database

        pass

    def get(self, query: str):

        # Implementation for retrieving a record from the vector database

        pass

    def update(self, doc):

        # Implementation for updating a record in the vector database

        pass

    def delete(self, message):

        # Implementation for deleting a record from the vector database

        pass

```

In this example, we define placeholders for each of the abstract methods within the `MyCustomVectorDatabase` class. These placeholders will be replaced with the actual implementation logic specific to your chosen vector database solution.

### Step 3: Choose and Integrate Your Vector Database Solution

With the foundational structure in place, it's time to choose a specific vector database solution and integrate it into your custom implementation. In this guide, we'll explore several popular vector database solutions, including PostgreSQL, Pinecone, Chroma, FAISS, and more, providing examples and guidance on how to integrate them seamlessly.

### PostgreSQL Integration

PostgreSQL is a powerful open-source relational database management system that supports vector data types and operations, making it a viable choice for building custom vector memory databases.

```python

import psycopg2
from swarms import BaseVectorDatabase

class PostgreSQLVectorDatabase(MyCustomVectorDatabase):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):

        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        # PostgreSQL connection details

        self.conn = psycopg2.connect(

            host="localhost",

            database="vector_db",

            user="postgres",

            password="your_password"

        )

        self.cur = self.conn.cursor()

    def connect(self):

        # PostgreSQL connection logic

        pass

    def close(self):

        # Close PostgreSQL connection

        self.cur.close()

        self.conn.close()

    def query(self, query: str):

        # Execute PostgreSQL query

        self.cur.execute(query)

    def fetch_all(self):

        # Fetch all rows from PostgreSQL result set

        return self.cur.fetchall()

    # Implement other abstract methods

```

In this example, we define a `PostgreSQLVectorDatabase` class that inherits from `MyCustomVectorDatabase`. Within the `__init__` method, we establish a connection to a PostgreSQL database using the `psycopg2` library. We then implement the `connect()`, `close()`, `query()`, and `fetch_all()` methods specific to PostgreSQL.

### Pinecone Integration

Pinecone is a managed vector database service that provides efficient storage, retrieval, and manipulation of high-dimensional vector data.

```python

import pinecone
from swarms import BaseVectorDatabase


class PineconeVectorDatabase(MyCustomVectorDatabase):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):

        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        # Pinecone initialization

        pinecone.init(api_key="your_api_key", environment="your_environment")

        self.index = pinecone.Index("your_index_name")

    def connect(self):

        # Pinecone connection logic

        pass

    def close(self):

        # Close Pinecone connection

        pass

    def query(self, query: str):

        # Execute Pinecone query

        results = self.index.query(query)

        return results

    def add(self, doc: str):

        # Add document to Pinecone index

        self.index.upsert([("id", doc)])

    # Implement other abstract methods

```

In this example, we define a `PineconeVectorDatabase` class that inherits from `MyCustomVectorDatabase`. Within the `__init__` method, we initialize the Pinecone client and create an index. We then implement the `query()` and `add()` methods specific to the Pinecone API.

### Chroma Integration

Chroma is an open-source vector database library that provides efficient storage, retrieval, and manipulation of vector data using various backends, including DuckDB, Chromadb, and more.

```python
import logging
import os
import uuid
from typing import Optional

import chromadb
from dotenv import load_dotenv

from swarms.utils.data_to_text import data_to_text
from swarms.utils.markdown_message import display_markdown_message
from swarms.memory.base_vectordb import BaseVectorDatabase

# Load environment variables
load_dotenv()


# Results storage using local ChromaDB
class ChromaDB(BaseVectorDatabase):
    """

    ChromaDB database

    Args:
        metric (str): The similarity metric to use.
        output (str): The name of the collection to store the results in.
        limit_tokens (int, optional): The maximum number of tokens to use for the query. Defaults to 1000.
        n_results (int, optional): The number of results to retrieve. Defaults to 2.

    Methods:
        add: _description_
        query: _description_

    Examples:
        >>> chromadb = ChromaDB(
        >>>     metric="cosine",
        >>>     output="results",
        >>>     llm="gpt3",
        >>>     openai_api_key=OPENAI_API_KEY,
        >>> )
        >>> chromadb.add(task, result, result_id)
    """

    def __init__(
        self,
        metric: str = "cosine",
        output_dir: str = "swarms",
        limit_tokens: Optional[int] = 1000,
        n_results: int = 3,
        docs_folder: str = None,
        verbose: bool = False,
        *args,
        **kwargs,
    ):
        self.metric = metric
        self.output_dir = output_dir
        self.limit_tokens = limit_tokens
        self.n_results = n_results
        self.docs_folder = docs_folder
        self.verbose = verbose

        # Disable ChromaDB logging
        if verbose:
            logging.getLogger("chromadb").setLevel(logging.INFO)

        # Create Chroma collection
        chroma_persist_dir = "chroma"
        chroma_client = chromadb.PersistentClient(
            settings=chromadb.config.Settings(
                persist_directory=chroma_persist_dir,
            ),
            *args,
            **kwargs,
        )

        # Create ChromaDB client
        self.client = chromadb.Client()

        # Create Chroma collection
        self.collection = chroma_client.get_or_create_collection(
            name=output_dir,
            metadata={"hnsw:space": metric},
            *args,
            **kwargs,
        )
        display_markdown_message(
            "ChromaDB collection created:"
            f" {self.collection.name} with metric: {self.metric} and"
            f" output directory: {self.output_dir}"
        )

        # If docs
        if docs_folder:
            display_markdown_message(
                f"Traversing directory: {docs_folder}"
            )
            self.traverse_directory()

    def add(
        self,
        document: str,
        *args,
        **kwargs,
    ):
        """
        Add a document to the ChromaDB collection.

        Args:
            document (str): The document to be added.
            condition (bool, optional): The condition to check before adding the document. Defaults to True.

        Returns:
            str: The ID of the added document.
        """
        try:
            doc_id = str(uuid.uuid4())
            self.collection.add(
                ids=[doc_id],
                documents=[document],
                *args,
                **kwargs,
            )
            print("-----------------")
            print("Document added successfully")
            print("-----------------")
            return doc_id
        except Exception as e:
            raise Exception(f"Failed to add document: {str(e)}")

    def query(
        self,
        query_text: str,
        *args,
        **kwargs,
    ):
        """
        Query documents from the ChromaDB collection.

        Args:
            query (str): The query string.
            n_docs (int, optional): The number of documents to retrieve. Defaults to 1.

        Returns:
            dict: The retrieved documents.
        """
        try:
            docs = self.collection.query(
                query_texts=[query_text],
                n_results=self.n_results,
                *args,
                **kwargs,
            )["documents"]
            return docs[0]
        except Exception as e:
            raise Exception(f"Failed to query documents: {str(e)}")

    def traverse_directory(self):
        """
        Traverse through every file in the given directory and its subdirectories,
        and return the paths of all files.
        Parameters:
        - directory_name (str): The name of the directory to traverse.
        Returns:
        - list: A list of paths to each file in the directory and its subdirectories.
        """
        added_to_db = False

        for root, dirs, files in os.walk(self.docs_folder):
            for file in files:
                file = os.path.join(self.docs_folder, file)
                _, ext = os.path.splitext(file)
                data = data_to_text(file)
                added_to_db = self.add(str(data))
                print(f"{file} added to Database")

        return added_to_db

```

In this example, we define a `ChromaVectorDatabase` class that inherits from `MyCustomVectorDatabase`. Within the `__init__` method, we create a Chroma client and get or create a collection. We then implement the `query()` and `add()` methods specific to the Chroma API.

### FAISS Integration

FAISS (Facebook AI Similarity Search) is a library for efficient similarity search and clustering of dense vectors, developed by Meta AI.

```python

import faiss

class FAISSVectorDatabase(MyCustomVectorDatabase):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):

        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        # FAISS initialization

        self.index = faiss.IndexFlatL2(64)  # Assuming 64-dimensional vectors

        self.index_path = "faiss_index.index"

    def connect(self):

        # FAISS connection logic

        self.index = faiss.read_index(self.index_path)

    def close(self):

        # Close FAISS connection

        faiss.write_index(self.index, self.index_path)

    def query(self, query: str):

        # Execute FAISS query

        query_vector = # Convert query to vector

        distances, indices = self.index.search(query_vector, k=10)

        return [(self.index.reconstruct(i), d) for i, d in zip(indices, distances)]

    def add(self, doc: str):

        # Add document to FAISS index

        doc_vector = # Convert doc to vector

        self.index.add(doc_vector)

    # Implement other abstract methods

```

Now, how do you integrate a vector datbase with an agent? This is how:

## Integrate Memory with `Agent`

```python
import os

from dotenv import load_dotenv

# Import the OpenAIChat model and the Agent struct
from swarms import Agent, OpenAIChat

# Load the environment variables
load_dotenv()

# Get the API key from the environment
api_key = os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY")


# Initilaize the chromadb client
faiss = FAISSVectorDatabase()

# Initialize the language model
llm = OpenAIChat(
    temperature=0.5,
    model_name="gpt-4",
    openai_api_key=api_key,
    max_tokens=1000,
)

## Initialize the workflow
agent = Agent(
    llm=llm,
    max_loops=4,
    autosave=True,
    dashboard=True,
    long_term_memory=faiss,
)

# Run the workflow on a task
out = agent.run("Generate a 10,000 word blog on health and wellness.")
print(out)
```

In this example, we define a `FAISSVectorDatabase` class that inherits from `MyCustomVectorDatabase`. Within the `__init__` method, we create a FAISS index and set the index path. We then implement the `connect()`, `close()`, `query()`, and `add()` methods specific to the FAISS library, assuming 64-dimensional vectors for simplicity.

These examples provide a starting point for integrating various vector database solutions into your custom implementation. Each solution has its own strengths, weaknesses, and trade-offs, so it's essential to carefully evaluate your requirements and choose the solution that best fits your needs.

### Step 4: Add Custom Functionality and Optimizations

Once you've integrated your chosen vector database solution, you can further extend and optimize your custom implementation by adding custom functionality and performance optimizations.

#### Custom Functionality:

- **Indexing Strategies**: Implement custom indexing strategies to optimize search performance and memory usage.

- **Data Preprocessing**: Add data preprocessing logic to handle different data formats, perform embedding, and prepare data for storage in the vector database.

- **Query Optimization**: Introduce query optimization techniques, such as query caching, result filtering, or query rewriting, to improve query performance.

- **Data Partitioning**: Implement data partitioning strategies to distribute data across multiple nodes or shards for better scalability and performance.

- **Metadata Management**: Introduce metadata management capabilities to store and retrieve additional information associated with the vector data.

Performance Optimizations:

- **Caching**: Implement caching mechanisms to reduce redundant computations and improve response times.

- **Asynchronous Operations**: Utilize asynchronous programming techniques to improve concurrency and responsiveness.

- **Multithreading and Parallelization**: Leverage multithreading and parallelization to distribute computationally intensive tasks across multiple cores or processors.

- **Load Balancing**: Implement load balancing strategies to distribute workloads evenly across multiple nodes or instances.

- **Monitoring and Profiling**: Introduce monitoring and profiling tools to identify performance bottlenecks and optimize critical sections of your code.

By adding custom functionality and performance optimizations, you can tailor your custom vector memory database to meet the specific requirements of your AI applications, ensuring efficient and scalable data management.

### Best Practices and Considerations

Building custom vector memory databases is a powerful but complex endeavor. To ensure the success and longevity of your implementation, it's essential to follow best practices and consider potential challenges and considerations.

1\. **Scalability and Performance Testing**: Vector databases can quickly grow in size and complexity as your AI applications handle increasing amounts of data. Thoroughly test your implementation for scalability and performance under various load conditions, and optimize accordingly.

2\. **Data Quality and Integrity**: Ensure that the data stored in your vector database is accurate, consistent, and free from duplicates or errors. Implement data validation and cleansing mechanisms to maintain data quality and integrity.

3\. **Security and Access Control**: Vector databases may store sensitive or proprietary data. Implement robust security measures, such as encryption, access controls, and auditing mechanisms, to protect your data from unauthorized access or breaches.

4\. **Distributed Architectures**: As your data and workloads grow, consider implementing distributed architectures to distribute the storage and computational load across multiple nodes or clusters. This can improve scalability, fault tolerance, and overall performance.

5\. **Data Versioning and Backup**: Implement data versioning and backup strategies to ensure data integrity and enable recovery in case of errors or system failures.

6\. **Documentation and Maintainability**: Well-documented code and comprehensive documentation are essential for ensuring the long-term maintainability and extensibility of your custom vector memory database implementation.

7\. **Continuous Integration and Deployment**: Adopt continuous integration and deployment practices to streamline the development, testing, and deployment processes, ensuring that changes are thoroughly tested and deployed efficiently.

8\. **Compliance and Regulatory Requirements**: Depending on your industry and use case, ensure that your custom vector memory database implementation complies with relevant regulations and standards, such as data privacy laws or industry-specific guidelines.

9\. **Community Engagement and Collaboration**: Stay engaged with the vector database community, participate in discussions, and collaborate with other developers to share knowledge, best practices, and insights.

By following these best practices and considering potential challenges, you can build robust, scalable, and efficient custom vector memory databases that meet the demanding requirements of modern AI applications.

# Conclusion

In this comprehensive guide, we've explored the `BaseVectorDatabase` class and its role in simplifying the process of creating custom vector memory databases. We've covered the core functionality of the class, walked through the step-by-step process of inheriting and extending its functionality, and provided examples of integrating popular vector database solutions like PostgreSQL, Pinecone, Chroma, and FAISS.

Building custom vector memory databases empowers developers to create tailored and efficient data management solutions that seamlessly integrate with their AI applications. By leveraging the power of vector databases, you can unlock new possibilities in data storage, retrieval, and manipulation, enabling your AI systems to handle vast amounts of high-dimensional data with ease.

Remember, the journey of building custom vector memory databases is an iterative and collaborative process that requires continuous learning, adaptation, and refinement. Embrace the challenges, stay up-to-date with the latest developments in vector databases and AI, and continuously strive to optimize and enhance your implementations.

As you embark on this journey, keep in mind the importance of scalability, performance, data quality, security, and compliance. Foster an environment of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and community engagement to ensure that your custom vector memory databases are robust, reliable, and capable of meeting the ever-evolving demands of the AI landscape.

So, dive in, leverage the power of the `BaseVectorDatabase` class, and create the custom vector memory databases that will drive the future of AI-powered applications.