Databao Context Engine

Semantic context for your LLMs — generated automatically.
No more copying schemas. No manual documentation. Just accurate answers.

Website • Quickstart • Data Sources • Contributing

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What is Databao Context Engine?

Databao Context Engine is a CLI tool that automatically generates governed semantic context from your databases, BI tools, documents, and spreadsheets.

Integrate it with any LLM to deliver accurate, context-aware answers — without copying schemas or writing documentation by hand.

Your data sources → Context Engine → Unified semantic graph → Any LLM

Why choose Databao Context Engine?

Feature	What it means for you
Auto-generated context	Extracts schemas, relationships, and semantics automatically
Runs locally	Your data never leaves your environment
MCP integration	Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible tool
Multiple sources	Databases, dbt projects, spreadsheets, documents
Built-in benchmarks	Measure and improve context quality over time
LLM agnostic	OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, Gemini — use any model
Governed & versioned	Track, version, and share context across your team
Dynamic or static	Serve context via MCP server or export as artifact

Installation

Databao Context Engine is available on PyPI and can be installed with uv, pip, or another package manage.

Using uv

1. Install Databao Context Engine:

   uv tool install databao-context-engine

2. Add it to your PATH:

   uv tool update-shell

3. Verify the installation:

   dce --help

Using pip

1. Install Databao Context Engine:

   pip install databao-context-engine

2. Verify the installation:

   dce --help

Supported data sources

• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• SQLite
• DuckDB
• dbt projects
• 📄 Documents & spreadsheets (coming soon)

Supported LLMs

Provider	Configuration
Ollama	languageModel: OLLAMA: runs locally, free
OpenAI	languageModel: OPENAI: requires an API key
Anthropic	languageModel: CLAUDE: requires an API key
Google	languageModel: GEMINI: requires an API key

Quickstart

1. Create a project

1. Create a new directory for your project and navigate to it:

   mkdir dce-project && cd dce-project

2. Initialize a new project:

   dce init

2. Configure data sources

1. When prompted, agree to create a new datasource. You can also use the dce datasource add command.

2. Provide the data source type and its name.

3. Open the config file that was created for you in your editor and fill in the connection details.

4. Repeat these steps for all data sources you want to include in your project.

5. If you have data in Markdown or text files, you can add them to the dce/src/files directory.

3. Build context

1. To build the context, run the following command:

   dce build

4. Use Context with Your LLM

Option A: Dynamic via MCP Server

Databao Context Engine exposes the context through a local MCP Server, so your agent can access the latest context at runtime.

1. In Claude Desktop, Cursor, or another MCP-compatible agent, add the following configuration. Replace dce-project/ with the path to your project directory:

   # claude_desktop_config.json, mcp.json, or similar
   
   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "dce": {
         "command": "dce mcp",
         "args": ["--project-dir", "dce-project/"]
       }
     }
   }

2. Save the file and restart your agent.

3. Open a new chat, in the chat window, select the dce server, and ask questions related to your project context.

Option B: Static artifact

Even if you don’t have Claude or Cursor installed on your local machine, you can still use the context built by Databao Context Engine by pasting it directly into your chat with an AI assistant.

1. Navigate to dce-project/output/ and open the directory with the latest run.

2. Attach the all_results.yaml file to your chat with the AI assistant or copy and paste its contents into your chat.

API Usage

1. Create a project

# Initialise the project in an existing directory
from databao_context_engine import init_dce_project
project_manager = init_dce_project(Path(tempfile.mkdtemp()))

# Or use an existing project
from databao_context_engine import DatabaoContextProjectManager
project_manager = DatabaoContextProjectManager(project_dir=Path("path/to/project"))

2. Configure data sources

from databao_context_engine import (
    DatasourceConnectionStatus,
    DatasourceType,
)

# Create a new datasource
postgres_datasource_id = project_manager.create_datasource_config(
    DatasourceType(full_type="postgres"),
    datasource_name="my_postgres_datasource",
    config_content={
        "connection": {"host": "localhost", "user": "dev", "password": "pass"}
    },
).datasource.id

# Check the connection to the datasource is valid
check_result = project_manager.check_datasource_connection()

assert len(check_result) == 1
assert check_result[0].datasource_id == postgres_datasource_id
assert check_result[0].connection_status == DatasourceConnectionStatus.VALID

3. Build context

build_result = project_manager.build_context()

assert len(build_result) == 1
assert build_result[0].datasource_id == postgres_datasource_id
assert build_result[0].datasource_type == DatasourceType(full_type="postgres")
assert build_result[0].context_file_path.is_file()

4. Use the built contexts

Create a context engine

# Switch to the engine if you're already using a project_manager
context_engine = project_manager.get_engine_for_project()

# Or directly create a context engine from the path to your DCE project
from databao_context_engine import DatabaoContextEngine
context_engine = DatabaoContextEngine(project_dir=Path("path/to/project"))

Get all built contexts

# Switch to the engine to use the context built
all_built_contexts = context_engine.get_all_contexts()
assert len(all_built_contexts) == 1
assert all_built_contexts[0].datasource_id == postgres_datasource_id

print(all_built_contexts[0].context)

Search in built contexts

# Run a vector similarity search
results = context_engine.search_context("my search query")

print(f"Found {len(results)} results for query")
print(
    "\n\n".join(
        [f"{str(result.datasource_id)}\n{result.context_result}" for result in results]
    )
)

Contributing

We’d love your help! Here’s how to get involved:

• ⭐ Star this repo — it helps others find us!
• 🐛 Found a bug? Open an issue
• 💡 Have an idea? We’re all ears — create a feature request
• 👍 Upvote issues you care about — helps us prioritize
• 🔧 Submit a PR
• 📝 Improve docs — typos, examples, tutorials — everything helps!

New to open source? No worries! We're friendly and happy to help you get started. 🌱

For more details, see CONTRIBUTING.

📄 License

Apache 2.0 — use it however you want. See the LICENSE file for details.

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