When NOT to Use This Skill

• Local-only operations with no vector search needs
• Simple key-value storage without semantic similarity
• Real-time streaming data without persistence requirements
• Operations that do not require embedding-based retrieval

Success Criteria

• Vector search query latency: <10ms for 99th percentile
• Embedding generation: <100ms per document
• Index build time: <1s per 1000 vectors
• Recall@10: >0.95 for similar documents
• Database connection success rate: >99.9%
• Memory footprint: <2GB for 1M vectors with quantization

Edge Cases & Error Handling

• Rate Limits: AgentDB local instances have no rate limits; cloud deployments may vary
• Connection Failures: Implement retry logic with exponential backoff (max 3 retries)
• Index Corruption: Maintain backup indices; rebuild from source if corrupted
• Memory Overflow: Use quantization (4-bit, 8-bit) to reduce memory by 4-32x
• Stale Embeddings: Implement TTL-based refresh for dynamic content
• Dimension Mismatch: Validate embedding dimensions (384 for sentence-transformers) before insertion

Guardrails & Safety

• NEVER expose database connection strings in logs or error messages
• ALWAYS validate vector dimensions before insertion
• ALWAYS sanitize metadata to prevent injection attacks
• NEVER store PII in vector metadata without encryption
• ALWAYS implement access control for multi-tenant deployments
• ALWAYS validate search results before returning to users

Evidence-Based Validation

• Verify database health: Check connection status and index integrity
• Validate search quality: Measure recall/precision on test queries
• Monitor performance: Track query latency, throughput, and memory usage
• Test failure recovery: Simulate connection drops and index corruption
• Benchmark improvements: Compare against baseline metrics (e.g., 150x speedup claim)

AgentDB Performance Optimization

What This Skill Does

Use this skill to apply comprehensive performance optimization techniques for AgentDB vector databases. Implement quantization strategies (binary, scalar, product) to achieve 4-32x memory reduction. Enable HNSW indexing for 150x-12,500x performance improvements. Configure caching strategies and deploy batch operations to reduce memory usage while maintaining accuracy.

Performance: <100µs vector search, <1ms pattern retrieval, 2ms batch insert for 100 vectors.

Prerequisites

Install Node.js 18+ and AgentDB v1.0.7+ via agentic-flow. Verify you have an existing AgentDB database or application ready for optimization.

---

Quick Start

Execute these steps to measure and optimize your AgentDB performance.

Run Performance Benchmarks

Execute benchmarks to establish baseline performance:

# Comprehensive performance benchmarking
npx agentdb@latest benchmark

# Results show:
# ✅ Pattern Search: 150x faster (100µs vs 15ms)
# ✅ Batch Insert: 500x faster (2ms vs 1s for 100 vectors)
# ✅ Large-scale Query: 12,500x faster (8ms vs 100s at 1M vectors)
# ✅ Memory Efficiency: 4-32x reduction with quantization

Enable Optimizations

import { createAgentDBAdapter } from 'agentic-flow/reasoningbank';

// Optimized configuration
const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  dbPath: '.agentdb/optimized.db',
  quantizationType: 'binary',   // 32x memory reduction
  cacheSize: 1000,               // In-memory cache
  enableLearning: true,
  enableReasoning: true,
});

---

Quantization Strategies

Select the appropriate quantization strategy based on your memory and accuracy requirements.

1. Binary Quantization (32x Reduction)

Apply binary quantization for maximum memory reduction:

Best For: Large-scale deployments (1M+ vectors), memory-constrained environments Trade-off: ~2-5% accuracy loss, 32x memory reduction, 10x faster

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'binary',
  // 768-dim float32 (3072 bytes) → 96 bytes binary
  // 1M vectors: 3GB → 96MB
});

Use Cases:

• Mobile/edge deployment
• Large-scale vector storage (millions of vectors)
• Real-time search with memory constraints

Performance:

• Memory: 32x smaller
• Search Speed: 10x faster (bit operations)
• Accuracy: 95-98% of original

2. Scalar Quantization (4x Reduction)

Best For: Balanced performance/accuracy, moderate datasets Trade-off: ~1-2% accuracy loss, 4x memory reduction, 3x faster

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'scalar',
  // 768-dim float32 (3072 bytes) → 768 bytes (uint8)
  // 1M vectors: 3GB → 768MB
});

Use Cases:

• Production applications requiring high accuracy
• Medium-scale deployments (10K-1M vectors)
• General-purpose optimization

Performance:

• Memory: 4x smaller
• Search Speed: 3x faster
• Accuracy: 98-99% of original

3. Product Quantization (8-16x Reduction)

Best For: High-dimensional vectors, balanced compression Trade-off: ~3-7% accuracy loss, 8-16x memory reduction, 5x faster

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'product',
  // 768-dim float32 (3072 bytes) → 48-96 bytes
  // 1M vectors: 3GB → 192MB
});

Use Cases:

• High-dimensional embeddings (>512 dims)
• Image/video embeddings
• Large-scale similarity search

Performance:

• Memory: 8-16x smaller
• Search Speed: 5x faster
• Accuracy: 93-97% of original

4. No Quantization (Full Precision)

Best For: Maximum accuracy, small datasets Trade-off: No accuracy loss, full memory usage

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'none',
  // Full float32 precision
});

---

HNSW Indexing

Hierarchical Navigable Small World - O(log n) search complexity

Automatic HNSW

AgentDB automatically builds HNSW indices:

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  dbPath: '.agentdb/vectors.db',
  // HNSW automatically enabled
});

// Search with HNSW (100µs vs 15ms linear scan)
const results = await adapter.retrieveWithReasoning(queryEmbedding, {
  k: 10,
});

HNSW Parameters

// Advanced HNSW configuration
const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  dbPath: '.agentdb/vectors.db',
  hnswM: 16,              // Connections per layer (default: 16)
  hnswEfConstruction: 200, // Build quality (default: 200)
  hnswEfSearch: 100,       // Search quality (default: 100)
});

Parameter Tuning:

• M (connections): Higher = better recall, more memory
  • Small datasets (<10K): M = 8
  • Medium datasets (10K-100K): M = 16
  • Large datasets (>100K): M = 32
• efConstruction: Higher = better index quality, slower build
  • Fast build: 100
  • Balanced: 200 (default)
  • High quality: 400
• efSearch: Higher = better recall, slower search
  • Fast search: 50
  • Balanced: 100 (default)
  • High recall: 200

---

Caching Strategies

In-Memory Pattern Cache

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  cacheSize: 1000,  // Cache 1000 most-used patterns
});

// First retrieval: ~2ms (database)
// Subsequent: <1ms (cache hit)
const result = await adapter.retrieveWithReasoning(queryEmbedding, {
  k: 10,
});

Cache Tuning:

• Small applications: 100-500 patterns
• Medium applications: 500-2000 patterns
• Large applications: 2000-5000 patterns

LRU Cache Behavior

// Cache automatically evicts least-recently-used patterns
// Most frequently accessed patterns stay in cache

// Monitor cache performance
const stats = await adapter.getStats();
console.log('Cache Hit Rate:', stats.cacheHitRate);
// Aim for >80% hit rate

---

Batch Operations

Batch Insert (500x Faster)

// ❌ SLOW: Individual inserts
for (const doc of documents) {
  await adapter.insertPattern({ /* ... */ });  // 1s for 100 docs
}

// ✅ FAST: Batch insert
const patterns = documents.map(doc => ({
  id: '',
  type: 'document',
  domain: 'knowledge',
  pattern_data: JSON.stringify({
    embedding: doc.embedding,
    text: doc.text,
  }),
  confidence: 1.0,
  usage_count: 0,
  success_count: 0,
  created_at: Date.now(),
  last_used: Date.now(),
}));

// Insert all at once (2ms for 100 docs)
for (const pattern of patterns) {
  await adapter.insertPattern(pattern);
}

Batch Retrieval

// Retrieve multiple queries efficiently
const queries = [queryEmbedding1, queryEmbedding2, queryEmbedding3];

// Parallel retrieval
const results = await Promise.all(
  queries.map(q => adapter.retrieveWithReasoning(q, { k: 5 }))
);

---

Memory Optimization

Automatic Consolidation

// Enable automatic pattern consolidation
const result = await adapter.retrieveWithReasoning(queryEmbedding, {
  domain: 'documents',
  optimizeMemory: true,  // Consolidate similar patterns
  k: 10,
});

console.log('Optimizations:', result.optimizations);
// {
//   consolidated: 15,  // Merged 15 similar patterns
//   pruned: 3,         // Removed 3 low-quality patterns
//   improved_quality: 0.12  // 12% quality improvement
// }

Manual Optimization

// Manually trigger optimization
await adapter.optimize();

// Get statistics
const stats = await adapter.getStats();
console.log('Before:', stats.totalPatterns);
console.log('After:', stats.totalPatterns);  // Reduced by ~10-30%

Pruning Strategies

// Prune low-confidence patterns
await adapter.prune({
  minConfidence: 0.5,     // Remove confidence < 0.5
  minUsageCount: 2,       // Remove usage_count < 2
  maxAge: 30 * 24 * 3600, // Remove >30 days old
});

---

Performance Monitoring

Database Statistics

# Get comprehensive stats
npx agentdb@latest stats .agentdb/vectors.db

# Output:
# Total Patterns: 125,430
# Database Size: 47.2 MB (with binary quantization)
# Avg Confidence: 0.87
# Domains: 15
# Cache Hit Rate: 84%
# Index Type: HNSW

Runtime Metrics

const stats = await adapter.getStats();

console.log('Performance Metrics:');
console.log('Total Patterns:', stats.totalPatterns);
console.log('Database Size:', stats.dbSize);
console.log('Avg Confidence:', stats.avgConfidence);
console.log('Cache Hit Rate:', stats.cacheHitRate);
console.log('Search Latency (avg):', stats.avgSearchLatency);
console.log('Insert Latency (avg):', stats.avgInsertLatency);

---

Optimization Recipes

Recipe 1: Maximum Speed (Sacrifice Accuracy)

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'binary',  // 32x memory reduction
  cacheSize: 5000,             // Large cache
  hnswM: 8,                    // Fewer connections = faster
  hnswEfSearch: 50,            // Low search quality = faster
});

// Expected: <50µs search, 90-95% accuracy

Recipe 2: Balanced Performance

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'scalar',  // 4x memory reduction
  cacheSize: 1000,             // Standard cache
  hnswM: 16,                   // Balanced connections
  hnswEfSearch: 100,           // Balanced quality
});

// Expected: <100µs search, 98-99% accuracy

Recipe 3: Maximum Accuracy

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'none',    // No quantization
  cacheSize: 2000,             // Large cache
  hnswM: 32,                   // Many connections
  hnswEfSearch: 200,           // High search quality
});

// Expected: <200µs search, 100% accuracy

Recipe 4: Memory-Constrained (Mobile/Edge)

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'binary',  // 32x memory reduction
  cacheSize: 100,              // Small cache
  hnswM: 8,                    // Minimal connections
});

// Expected: <100µs search, ~10MB for 100K vectors

---

Scaling Strategies

Small Scale (<10K vectors)

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'none',    // Full precision
  cacheSize: 500,
  hnswM: 8,
});

Medium Scale (10K-100K vectors)

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'scalar',  // 4x reduction
  cacheSize: 1000,
  hnswM: 16,
});

Large Scale (100K-1M vectors)

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'binary',  // 32x reduction
  cacheSize: 2000,
  hnswM: 32,
});

Massive Scale (>1M vectors)

const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'product',  // 8-16x reduction
  cacheSize: 5000,
  hnswM: 48,
  hnswEfConstruction: 400,
});

---

Troubleshooting

Issue: High memory usage

# Check database size
npx agentdb@latest stats .agentdb/vectors.db

# Enable quantization
# Use 'binary' for 32x reduction

Issue: Slow search performance

// Increase cache size
const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  cacheSize: 2000,  // Increase from 1000
});

// Reduce search quality (faster)
const result = await adapter.retrieveWithReasoning(queryEmbedding, {
  k: 5,  // Reduce from 10
});

Issue: Low accuracy

// Disable or use lighter quantization
const adapter = await createAgentDBAdapter({
  quantizationType: 'scalar',  // Instead of 'binary'
  hnswEfSearch: 200,           // Higher search quality
});

---

Performance Benchmarks

Test System: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, 64GB RAM

Operation	Vector Count	No Optimization	Optimized	Improvement
Search	10K	15ms	100µs	150x
Search	100K	150ms	120µs	1,250x
Search	1M	100s	8ms	12,500x
Batch Insert (100)	-	1s	2ms	500x
Memory Usage	1M	3GB	96MB	32x (binary)

---

Learn More

• Quantization Paper: docs/quantization-techniques.pdf
• HNSW Algorithm: docs/hnsw-index.pdf
• GitHub: https://github.com/ruvnet/agentic-flow/tree/main/packages/agentdb
• Website: https://agentdb.ruv.io

---

Category: Performance / Optimization Difficulty: Intermediate Estimated Time: 20-30 minutes

Core Principles

AgentDB Performance Optimization operates on 3 fundamental principles:

Principle 1: Trade Memory for Speed Through Intelligent Quantization

Compress vectors by 4-32x with minimal accuracy loss (1-5%) using binary, scalar, or product quantization strategies.

In practice:

• Binary quantization reduces 768-dim vectors from 3GB to 96MB (32x) with 95-98% accuracy retention
• Scalar quantization achieves 4x reduction (3GB to 768MB) with 98-99% accuracy for production workloads
• Select quantization based on memory constraints vs accuracy requirements (mobile = binary, production = scalar)

Principle 2: O(log n) Search Complexity via HNSW Indexing

Replace O(n) linear scans with hierarchical navigable small world graphs for 150-12,500x performance improvements.

In practice:

• HNSW automatically builds multi-layer proximity graphs during insertion
• Search navigates graph layers for sub-millisecond retrieval (100µs vs 15ms linear)
• Tune M (connections), efConstruction (build quality), efSearch (recall) for performance/accuracy balance

Principle 3: Batch Operations and Caching Eliminate Redundant Work

Aggregate operations and cache frequent patterns to achieve 500x faster batch inserts and <1ms cache hits.

In practice:

• Batch insert 100 vectors in 2ms vs 1s for sequential inserts (500x speedup)
• LRU cache (1000-5000 patterns) serves 80%+ queries from memory (<1ms) vs database (2ms)
• Automatic pattern consolidation merges similar entries to reduce storage by 10-30%

Common Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Solution
Sequential Inserts	1s for 100 vectors due to individual database writes and index updates	Use batch insert pattern: collect all patterns, insert in single transaction (2ms for 100 vectors)
Full Precision Everywhere	3GB memory for 1M vectors causes OOM on mobile/edge devices	Apply binary quantization (96MB, 32x reduction) with <5% accuracy loss for memory-constrained environments
Ignoring Cache Tuning	Cache too small = low hit rate, too large = memory waste and eviction overhead	Set cacheSize based on workload: 100-500 (small), 500-2000 (medium), 2000-5000 (large). Monitor hit rate >80%

Conclusion

AgentDB Performance Optimization transforms vector search from memory-intensive, slow operations into production-ready systems capable of handling millions of vectors with sub-millisecond latency. By applying quantization strategies tailored to your accuracy requirements, enabling HNSW indexing for logarithmic search complexity, and implementing intelligent caching and batch operations, you achieve 150-12,500x performance improvements while reducing memory footprint by 4-32x.

Use this skill when scaling to large vector datasets (>10K vectors), deploying to memory-constrained environments (mobile, edge devices), or optimizing production systems requiring <10ms p99 latency. The key insight is strategic trade-offs: quantization trades minimal accuracy for massive memory savings, HNSW trades insertion time for exponentially faster search, and caching trades memory for latency reduction. Start with balanced configurations (scalar quantization, M=16, cacheSize=1000) and tune based on benchmarks for your specific workload.