| name | heliosdb-nano-overview |
| description | Top-level navigation for HeliosDB-Nano. Auto-loads when user mentions "heliosdb", "heliosdb-nano", or pastes its CLI/REPL output. Routes to one of 16 domain skills (install, connect, schema, query, transactions, branches, time-travel, backup, vector, code-graph, graph-rag, mcp, server, deploy, observability, migrate). Use this skill to find the right skill before going deep. |
| allowed-tools | Bash(heliosdb-nano *), Bash(cargo info *), Read, Grep, Glob |
HeliosDB-Nano — Operational Overview
When to use
Any task involving HeliosDB-Nano. This skill is the index — it answers "which skill should I read?" and gives a one-shot orientation. After picking the relevant domain skill below, follow that skill's recipes.
What is Nano
Single-binary embedded database (Rust). PostgreSQL- and MySQL-wire compatible. Optional: vector search, code-graph indexing, MCP server, FIPS, HA tiers. Binary name: heliosdb-nano. Crate: heliosdb-nano on crates.io.
Pick a skill
| If the task is about… | Read |
|---|
| Installing the binary, building from source, listing features | heliosdb-nano-install |
| Opening a connection (embedded, PG wire, MySQL wire, REPL, Python) | heliosdb-nano-connect |
| Tables / indexes / views / triggers / introspection | heliosdb-nano-schema |
| INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE / SELECT / EXPLAIN | heliosdb-nano-query |
| BEGIN / COMMIT / SAVEPOINT / bulk-load patterns | heliosdb-nano-transactions |
| Branching: fork-test-discard sandboxes, create / switch / drop / AS OF forks (merge: see warning there) | heliosdb-nano-branches |
Time-travel queries (AS OF <ts>), snapshots, LSN | heliosdb-nano-time-travel |
| Backup / restore (dump / restore subcommands) | heliosdb-nano-backup |
| HNSW vector indexes, similarity search, hybrid search | heliosdb-nano-vector |
| Indexing source code, LSP-style queries, git hook | heliosdb-nano-code-graph |
| RAG ingest (PDF/docs/email/QA), seed+expand+rerank | heliosdb-nano-graph-rag |
| MCP server, 16-tool catalog, stdio/HTTP/WS transports | heliosdb-nano-mcp |
| Daemon mode, TLS, auth, HA tiers, user management | heliosdb-nano-server |
| Docker, Fly.io, Railway, Render, systemd | heliosdb-nano-deploy |
| Tracing, slow-query log, /health, metrics | heliosdb-nano-observability |
| Migrating from sqlite3 / Postgres / MySQL | heliosdb-nano-migrate |
| Pre-merge validation methodology (required before any release) | heliosdb-nano-merge-validation |
| Multi-tenancy: tenants, plans, isolation modes, RLS policies | heliosdb-nano-tenant |
Sanity-check the install (one-liner)
heliosdb-nano --version && heliosdb-nano --help
Expected: version ≥ 3.22.x, then a usage block listing subcommands start | stop | status | init | repl | dump | restore (and code-graph if built with --features code-graph).
What the binary does NOT include by default
Without explicit cargo features, these surfaces are absent — recipes that need them will fail with "unknown subcommand" or "feature not enabled":
code-graph subcommand → needs --features code-graph- MCP server → needs
--features mcp-endpoint
- Local embedder → needs
--features code-embed
- FIPS crypto → needs
--features fips (and --no-default-features)
- HA tier 2/3, dedup, A/B routing → needs
--features ha-full (or per-tier flags)
Default features that ARE on: encryption, vector-search, ring-crypto, ha-tier1.
See heliosdb-nano-install for build recipes and _index/feature-matrix.md for the full flag → skill mapping.
Verb map at a glance
For the full A→Z verb catalog (every CLI flag, REPL meta-command, public API method, MCP tool), see _index/verb-map.md.
See also
AGENTS.md at repo root — the Codex-/generic-agent-readable aggregated reference.README.md "Agentic Operations" section — how to install these skills globally.
