@molecule/api-ai-vector-store-chroma

ChromaDB vector store provider for molecule.dev.

Maps molecule collections to ChromaDB collections (default name prefix mol_) with HNSW indexing for similarity search.

Auto-generated, AI-first package reference for the molecule.dev ecosystem. It is written to be read by coding agents as much as by people, and is generated from this package's source — edit src/index.ts JSDoc, not this file.

Quick Start

import { setProvider, requireProvider } from '@molecule/api-ai-vector-store'
import { provider } from '@molecule/api-ai-vector-store-chroma'

setProvider(provider) // at startup — lazy; connects to the ChromaDB server on first use
// or pass explicit config: setProvider(createProvider({ host: 'localhost', port: 8000 }))

Type

provider

Installation

npm install @molecule/api-ai-vector-store-chroma @molecule/api-ai-vector-store chromadb

API

Interfaces

`ChromaConfig`

Configuration for the ChromaDB vector store provider.

interface ChromaConfig {
  /** ChromaDB server host. Defaults to `'localhost'`. */
  host?: string
  /** ChromaDB server port. Defaults to `8000`. */
  port?: number
  /** Whether to use SSL/HTTPS. Defaults to `false`. */
  ssl?: boolean
  /** API key or auth token for ChromaDB Cloud. Falls back to `CHROMA_API_KEY` env var. */
  apiKey?: string
  /** Tenant name. Defaults to `'default_tenant'`. */
  tenant?: string
  /** Database name. Defaults to `'default_database'`. */
  database?: string
  /** Prefix for collection names to avoid conflicts. Defaults to `'mol_'`. */
  collectionPrefix?: string
  /** Default distance metric for new collections. Defaults to `'cosine'`. */
  defaultMetric?: DistanceMetric
}

Functions

`createProvider(config)`

Creates a ChromaDB vector store provider instance.

function createProvider(config?: ChromaConfig): AIVectorStoreProvider

config — ChromaDB configuration.

Returns: An AIVectorStoreProvider backed by ChromaDB.

Constants

`provider`

The provider implementation.

const provider: AIVectorStoreProvider

Core Interface

Implements @molecule/api-ai-vector-store interface.

Bond Wiring

Setup function to register this provider with the core interface:

import { setProvider } from '@molecule/api-ai-vector-store'
import { provider } from '@molecule/api-ai-vector-store-chroma'

export function setupAiVectorStoreChroma(): void {
  setProvider(provider)
}

Injection Notes

Requirements

Peer dependencies:

@molecule/api-ai-vector-store >=1.0.1

Environment Variables

CHROMA_API_KEY (optional) — ChromaDB Cloud API key
- Setup: Only needed for ChromaDB Cloud (or an auth-enabled server); self-hosted local Chroma runs keyless.

Runtime Dependencies

@molecule/api-ai-vector-store
chromadb
Requires a reachable ChromaDB server — this bond only speaks HTTP to one (default http://localhost:8000; run chroma run or the official docker image), or ChromaDB Cloud with CHROMA_API_KEY set (optional env fallback for config.apiKey) plus ssl/tenant/database config. There is no embedded mode.
Wiring: bond the lazy provider export once — setProvider(provider) — or setProvider(createProvider(config?)) to pass explicit config; for a zero-dependency store (tests/dev) use @molecule/api-ai-vector-store-memory.

E2E Tests

Integration checklist — drive the real flow (no mocks): upsert real vectors, run real query calls, and verify through the FEATURE this store powers (semantic search / RAG retrieval / related-items) plus direct property checks on the returned VectorSearchResult[]. Adapt each item to this app's actual corpus/screens and check every box off. A box you can't check is an integration bug to fix — not a skip:

upsert records (each with a stable id + metadata), then query with an embedding: results come back ranked by score (highest first), the semantically closest stored item is result #1 and unrelated items rank lower — the whole point. score is a sane similarity (bounded, ~0–1, higher = closer) and each hit's record.id / record.metadata come back intact.
topK is honored: a query with topK: k returns AT MOST k results, best-first — never more, never unordered.
Metadata filter works: a query carrying a MetadataFilter (e.g. { field: 'userId', operator: 'eq', value }) returns only records matching the filter and never leaks non-matching ones.
Collection/namespace ISOLATION: a query scoped to one collection never returns another collection's vectors — the multi-tenant boundary that keeps one user's private docs out of another's results. Confirm with two collections (or two owner ids) that a scoped query returns only its own.
delete removes a record: after delete({ collection, ids }) the vector stops appearing in query results (and fetch omits it).
The feature built on the store returns MEANING-ranked results end-to-end in the UI — a semantic-search / RAG / related-items query surfaces the relevant items first, not a keyword or insertion-order match. This store does NOT embed text itself, so confirm it composes with @molecule/api-ai-embeddings (query text → embedding → query).
Every upsert / query runs SERVER-SIDE — the provider/store key stays on the server and never ships in the browser bundle (the package is server-only; a client import throws by design).

`@molecule/api-ai-vector-store-chroma`

How it works

Reference