https://github.com/norrietaylor/distillery
Team knowledge evaporates daily — pairing sessions, debugging context, architectural rationale lost to Slack. Distillery captures it at the point of creation, connects it into a living graph, and surfaces it conversationally. It monitors feeds, tracks what matters to your projects, and alerts you before you know to ask. A team brain that learns.
https://github.com/norrietaylor/distillery
claude-code duckdb embeddings knowledge-base mcp mcp-server second-brain semantic-search team-knowledge vector-search
Last synced: about 1 month ago
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Team knowledge evaporates daily — pairing sessions, debugging context, architectural rationale lost to Slack. Distillery captures it at the point of creation, connects it into a living graph, and surfaces it conversationally. It monitors feeds, tracks what matters to your projects, and alerts you before you know to ask. A team brain that learns.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/norrietaylor/distillery
- Owner: norrietaylor
- License: other
- Created: 2026-03-22T06:47:56.000Z (3 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2026-04-03T03:08:15.000Z (3 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-04-03T04:31:19.632Z (3 months ago)
- Topics: claude-code, duckdb, embeddings, knowledge-base, mcp, mcp-server, second-brain, semantic-search, team-knowledge, vector-search
- Language: Python
- Homepage: https://norrietaylor.github.io/distillery/
- Size: 5.98 MB
- Stars: 3
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 2
- Open Issues: 15
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md
- License: LICENSE
- Security: SECURITY.md
- Roadmap: docs/roadmap.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
Distillery
Team Knowledge, Distilled
Capture, classify, connect, and surface team knowledge through conversational commands.
Documentation ·
Skills ·
Quick Start ·
Roadmap ·
Slides
---
## What is Distillery?
Distillery is a team knowledge base accessed through Claude Code skills. It refines raw information from working sessions, meetings, bookmarks, and conversations into concentrated, searchable knowledge — stored as vector embeddings in DuckDB and retrieved through natural language. Runs locally over stdio or as a hosted HTTP service with GitHub OAuth for team access.
Distillery captures the highest-value transformation — from noise to signal — and makes it a tool the whole team can use.
> **Full documentation:** [norrietaylor.github.io/distillery](https://norrietaylor.github.io/distillery/)
## Skills
Distillery provides 14 Claude Code slash commands:
| Skill | Purpose | Example |
|-------|---------|---------|
| `/distill` | Capture session knowledge with dedup detection | `/distill "We decided to use DuckDB for local storage"` |
| `/recall` | Semantic search with provenance | `/recall distributed caching strategies` |
| `/pour` | Multi-entry synthesis with citations | `/pour how does our auth system work?` |
| `/bookmark` | Store URLs with auto-generated summaries | `/bookmark https://example.com/article #caching` |
| `/minutes` | Meeting notes with append updates | `/minutes --update standup-2026-03-22` |
| `/classify` | Classify entries and triage review queue | `/classify --inbox` |
| `/watch` | Manage monitored feed sources | `/watch add github:duckdb/duckdb` |
| `/radar` | Ambient feed digest with source suggestions | `/radar --days 7` |
| `/tune` | Adjust feed relevance thresholds | `/tune relevance 0.4` |
| `/digest` | Team activity summary from internal entries | `/digest --days 7 --project myapp` |
| `/gh-sync` | Sync GitHub issues/PRs into the knowledge base | `/gh-sync owner/repo --issues` |
| `/investigate` | Deep context builder with relationship traversal | `/investigate distributed caching` |
| `/briefing` | Team knowledge dashboard with metrics | `/briefing --days 7` |
| `/setup` | Onboarding wizard for MCP connectivity and config | `/setup` |
## Quick Start
### Step 1: Install the Plugin
```bash
claude plugin marketplace add norrietaylor/distillery
claude plugin install distillery
```
This installs all 14 skills and configures the MCP server to run **locally** via `uvx distillery-mcp` — a private, self-contained knowledge base on your machine. Requires Python 3.11+ and [`uv`](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) (install: `curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh`).
### Step 2: Set Your Embedding API Key (Optional but Recommended)
```bash
# Get a free API key from jina.ai
export JINA_API_KEY=jina_...
```
`uvx` inherits this from your shell environment. Without a key, Distillery falls back to a stub embedding provider (search quality degraded).
For fully offline operation with no API key, install the optional `[fastembed]` extra and set `embedding.provider: fastembed` in your config — see [`distillery.yaml.example`](distillery.yaml.example) (Option C) for the full block.
Restart Claude Code and run the onboarding wizard:
```text
/setup
```
### Try the Hosted Demo (Opt-In)
Want to evaluate without installing anything locally? Override the plugin default with the hosted demo at `distillery-mcp.fly.dev`:
```bash
claude mcp add distillery --scope user --transport http --url https://distillery-mcp.fly.dev/mcp
```
> **Demo Server:** `distillery-mcp.fly.dev` is for evaluation only. Do not store sensitive or confidential data.
See the [Local Setup Guide](https://norrietaylor.github.io/distillery/getting-started/local-setup/) for full configuration options, or [deploy your own instance](https://norrietaylor.github.io/distillery/team/deployment/) for team use.
## Development
```bash
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"
# or
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest # run tests
mypy --strict src/distillery/ # type check
ruff check src/ tests/ # lint
```
See [Contributing](https://norrietaylor.github.io/distillery/contributing/) for the full guide.
## License
Apache 2.0 — see [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.