ArtefactoryNeo4j

Neo4j persistence for Artefact — read, write, and database lifecycle via Bolty and DozerDB.

Part of the Artefactory monorepo.

What it does

Persists %Artefact{} structs into a Neo4j graph database. Each entity (Me, a Mob, a native You) gets its own named database. A single Bolt connection routes to any of them via the db: option.

Named databases on Neo4j Community Edition require DozerDB — a free plugin that adds enterprise multi-database features. See Local dev below.

Installation

The preferred way to install ArtefactoryNeo4j is via Igniter:

mix igniter.install artefactory_neo4j

This automatically configures Bolty in runtime.exs, adds Bolty to the supervision tree, and installs the artefact dependency.

Or add the dependency manually:

def deps do
  [
    {:artefactory_neo4j, "~> 0.3"}
  ]
end

Usage

{:ok, conn} = ArtefactoryNeo4j.connect(
  uri: "bolt://localhost:7470",
  auth: [username: "neo4j", password: "password"]
)

# Create a named database (DozerDB feature)
:ok = ArtefactoryNeo4j.create_database(conn, "matt_me")

# Write an artefact
:ok = ArtefactoryNeo4j.write(conn, artefact, db: "matt_me")

# Fetch nodes by uuid
{:ok, rows} = ArtefactoryNeo4j.fetch(conn, uuid, db: "matt_me")

Database names follow Elixir convention — snake_case atom or string. They are converted to Neo4j kebab-case automatically at the boundary ("matt_me" → "matt-me"). Property keys are similarly converted snake_case → camelCase on write and back on fetch.

Supervised connection

Use ArtefactoryNeo4j.Connection to hold a Bolty connection in a supervision tree:

children = [
  {ArtefactoryNeo4j.Connection,
   uri: "bolt://localhost:7470",
   auth: [username: "neo4j", password: "password"],
   name: :my_conn}
]

# Retrieve the connection anywhere
conn = ArtefactoryNeo4j.Connection.conn(:my_conn)

Database lifecycle

These commands require DozerDB — they will fail on plain Neo4j Community.

ArtefactoryNeo4j.create_database(conn, "matt_me")
ArtefactoryNeo4j.drop_database(conn, "matt_me")
ArtefactoryNeo4j.stop_database(conn, "matt_me")
ArtefactoryNeo4j.start_database(conn, "matt_me")

Neo4j conventions

artefactory_neo4j is the boundary between Elixir country and Neo4j country. All naming convention translation happens here — callers stay in Elixir convention throughout.

Thing	Elixir (caller)	Neo4j
Database names	`snake_case` string/atom	`kebab-case` string
Property keys	`snake_case` string	`camelCase` string
Node labels	`PascalCase` string	`PascalCase` string
Relationship types	`MACRO_CASE` string	`MACRO_CASE` string

Node labels and relationship types are already in Neo4j convention in %Artefact{} structs — they pass through unchanged.

Local dev

DozerDB runs as a drop-in replacement for Neo4j Community 5.26.3. The easiest path is Docker — a docker-compose.yml is provided at the artefactory repo root.

cd artefactory
cp .env.example .env        # set NEO4J_PASSWORD
docker compose up -d

Ports:

7474 — Neo4j Browser / HTTP (Chrome or Firefox; Safari needs 7473)
7473 — Neo4j Browser / HTTPS
7470 — Bolt direct (bolt://) — use this for connections
7471 — Bolt with routing (neo4j://)

When connecting in the Neo4j Browser, set the connection URL to bolt://localhost:7470 (the browser defaults to 7687).

Running tests

Integration tests require a live DozerDB instance:

mix test --include integration

Excluded by default (mix test runs only unit tests).

Licence

Next Page → Changelog