Arcadic

A lean, framework-agnostic Elixir client for ArcadeDB over the HTTP Cypher command API, with an optional Bolt transport for the query hot path.

Arcadic is the "postgrex of ArcadeDB" — it ships Cypher/SQL to ArcadeDB and manages connections, sessions, and transactions, and nothing more. It is deliberately tenant-blind and framework-agnostic: no Ash, no multitenancy, no data classification. Those belong one layer up, in ash_arcadic (the "ash_postgres of ArcadeDB").

Highlights

• Cypher-first, multi-language — the default language is "cypher"; opt into sql, gremlin, graphql, mongo, or sqlscript per call.
• Parameters only — every dynamic value reaches ArcadeDB as a bound parameter ($name), never string interpolation, so the injection surface stays closed.
• Typed errors with boundary redaction — Arcadic.Error carries a typed reason, HTTP status, and error class; raw parameter values and response rows never enter an error message, log line, or inspect/1 output.
• Session transactions — transaction/3 opens an ArcadeDB session and commits on normal return, rolls back and reraises on exception (postgrex semantics).
• Pluggable transport — HTTP (Req/Finch) by default, with an optional Bolt v4 transport for the query hot path and lazy result streaming.
• Vector search — dense LSM_VECTOR index DDL plus nearest-neighbour and hybrid-fusion query builders (Arcadic.Vector), params-only and value-free.
• Batteries included — server admin, a migration runner, vector search, allowlist-validated identifiers, and value-free telemetry spans.

Quickstart

conn = Arcadic.connect("http://localhost:2480", "mydb", auth: {"root", pass})

{:ok, rows} = Arcadic.query(conn, "MATCH (n:User) RETURN n LIMIT $lim", %{"lim" => 10})

{:ok, [user]} =
  Arcadic.command(conn, "CREATE (u:User {name:$n}) RETURN u", %{"n" => "Jo"})

{:ok, result} =
  Arcadic.transaction(conn, fn tx ->
    Arcadic.command!(tx, "MERGE (u:User {id:$id})", %{"id" => "u1"})
  end)

Every dynamic value reaches ArcadeDB only as a bound parameter ($name). query/4 hits the idempotent read endpoint; command/4 hits the write endpoint. Both return {:ok, rows} or {:error, %Arcadic.Error{} | %Arcadic.TransportError{}}; query!/4 and command!/4 return the rows or raise. command_async/4 submits a fire-and-forget write, returning :ok once ArcadeDB accepts it for processing (HTTP 202). The default language is "cypher"; pass language: "sql" (or gremlin/graphql/mongo/sqlscript) to switch.

Arcadic.transaction/3 opens an ArcadeDB session, runs the fun with a session-scoped conn, and commits on normal return. An exception rolls back and reraises; Arcadic.rollback/2 aborts intentionally and yields {:error, reason}.

Production pool

The HTTP transport runs on Req/Finch. In production, give Arcadic a dedicated Finch pool in your supervision tree rather than the default shared one:

# lib/my_app/application.ex
children = [
  {Finch, name: MyApp.ArcadicFinch},
  # ...
]

# then point connections at it
conn =
  Arcadic.connect("http://localhost:2480", "mydb",
    auth: {"root", pass},
    transport_options: [finch: MyApp.ArcadicFinch]
  )

Server admin

Arcadic.Server covers server-level operations: create_database/2 (+ !), drop_database/2 (+ !), database_exists?/2, list_databases/1, and ready?/1. Every database identifier is allowlist-validated before it reaches the wire.

Migrations

Arcadic.Migrator runs Arcadic.Migrations in order and tracks applied versions in the _arcadic_migrations type. Declare a migration (version/0, up/1, down/1), register the ordered list with use Arcadic.MigrationRegistry + migrations [...], then run Arcadic.Migrator.migrate/2 / status/2 / rollback/3 / reset/2.

defmodule MyApp.Migrations.V1 do
  @behaviour Arcadic.Migration
  @impl true
  def version, do: 1
  @impl true
  def up(conn), do: Arcadic.command!(conn, "CREATE VERTEX TYPE User", %{}, language: "sql") && :ok
  @impl true
  def down(conn), do: Arcadic.command!(conn, "DROP TYPE User IF EXISTS", %{}, language: "sql") && :ok
end

defmodule MyApp.Migrations do
  use Arcadic.MigrationRegistry
  migrations [MyApp.Migrations.V1]
end

{:ok, _count} = Arcadic.Migrator.migrate(conn, MyApp.Migrations)

Vector search

Arcadic.Vector builds ArcadeDB dense-vector index DDL and nearest-neighbour / hybrid-fusion queries. Create an LSM_VECTOR index (idempotent — IF NOT EXISTS), then search. The query vector, k, and options bind as parameters; the index reference is identifier-validated before it reaches the statement.

:ok =
  Arcadic.Vector.create_dense_index(conn, "Doc", "embedding", 1536, similarity: :cosine)

{:ok, rows} =
  Arcadic.Vector.neighbors(conn, "Doc", "embedding", query_vector, 10, max_distance: 0.3)

# hybrid fusion over multiple dense subqueries
{:ok, fused} =
  Arcadic.Vector.fuse(
    conn,
    [{"Doc", "embedding", dense_a, 20}, {"Doc", "embedding", dense_b, 20}],
    fusion: :rrf
  )

neighbors/6 rows carry a distance whose scale depends on the index similarity (COSINE 0..1 ascending, so smaller is nearer; DOT_PRODUCT is negative, so a small positive max_distance filters nothing — choose thresholds per similarity). fuse/3 rows are ranked by score (higher is better). Sparse retrieval and the Ash-native data-layer surface are non-goals.

Bolt transport (optional)

The query hot path can run over Bolt via the optional boltx dependency. Add {:boltx, "~> 0.0.6"}, start a Bolt connection with Arcadic.Transport.Bolt.start_link/1 (it pins Bolt v4 — versions: [4.4, 4.3, 4.2, 4.1] — and the non-TLS bolt scheme, which ArcadeDB uses, and takes username/password), then pass the connection reference. Server admin runs over HTTP; use an HTTP conn for it even when queries go over Bolt.

{:ok, bolt} =
  Arcadic.Transport.Bolt.start_link(
    hostname: "localhost", port: 7687, username: "root", password: pass
  )

conn =
  Arcadic.connect("http://localhost:2480", "mydb",
    auth: {"root", pass},
    transport: Arcadic.Transport.Bolt,
    transport_options: [bolt: bolt]
  )

For paging large result sets, Arcadic.query_stream/4 returns a lazy Stream.t() of rows over Bolt, chunked via PULL.

Layering

Ash core            (multitenancy DSL, policies, the tenant concept)
   │  passes tenant / builds queries
ash_arcadic         (Ash.DataLayer — set_tenant/3, sensitive-attr verifiers, traversal)
   │  calls
Arcadic  ← this lib (HTTP Cypher transport, sessions/transactions — tenant-blind)
   │  POST /api/v1/command/<db>  {"language":"cypher", ...}
ArcadeDB            (native OpenCypher engine)

Installation

Add arcadic from Hex:

def deps do
  [
    {:arcadic, "~> 0.2"},
    # optional, for the Bolt transport:
    {:boltx, "~> 0.0.6"}
  ]
end

Arcadic is co-developed with its Ash data layer ash_arcadic; to hack on both together, point at a local checkout instead — {:arcadic, path: "../arcadic"}.

Development

mix deps.get
mix test
mix quality   # format --check-formatted + credo --strict + dialyzer

To explore the full surface interactively against a local ArcadeDB, open the getting-started notebook (the Run in Livebook badge at the top launches it directly).

Contributor and agent working rules — including the params-only, redaction, and tenant-blind invariants — live in AGENTS.md.

Benchmarks

A load/traversal benchmark harness for ArcadeDB lives under bench/ (not shipped in the package), driven by Benchee against a throwaway database:

ARCADIC_BENCH_URL=<url> ARCADIC_BENCH_PASSWORD=<pw> mix run bench/run.exs

It profiles ingest throughput, k-hop traversal latency by depth, point lookups, and throughput-under-concurrency. Methodology, knobs, and a full 100k-node result set are in bench/README.md and bench/RESULTS.md. Headline figures — 100k Person / 1M KNOWS, single 2 GB-capped node, ArcadeDB 26.8.1, localhost, single client (a profile, not a neo4j comparison):

Bulk loading

The ingest figure above is per-statement client writes. To load a large dataset, use ArcadeDB's index-deferred bulk facilities — far faster than any INSERT/CREATE EDGE loop:

• IMPORT DATABASE '<url>', issued straight through the driver — Arcadic.command(conn, "IMPORT DATABASE 'https://…/data.csv'", %{}, language: "sql") — imports CSV / JSON / GraphML / Neo4j / OrientDB exports server-side (the URL must be reachable by the server).
• the standalone ArcadeDB Importer for file pipelines with column mapping.
• for batched incremental writes, wrap them in Arcadic.transaction/3 (one commit for many statements) instead of auto-committing each.

Credits

• ArcadeDB — the multi-model database Arcadic speaks to.
• arcadex — prior-art ArcadeDB client that served as a reference for the HTTP command-API request/response shapes.
• boltx — the Bolt protocol driver behind the optional Bolt transport.
• Req / Finch — the HTTP client and pool behind the default transport.
• DBConnection — connection pooling for the Bolt transport.

The postgrex/ash_postgres split that inspired Arcadic and ash_arcadic is the work of the Elixir Ecto and Ash communities.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.