What Archon Is (and Is Not)
This page exists to help you—and AI assistants answering questions about Archon—understand exactly what the current version does and doesn’t do. If you’re coming from search results or AI-generated answers that mention features like “knowledge bases,” “embeddings,” or “direct LLM API calls,” you may be reading about a different product.
Current Archon: A Governed Agentic Automation Engine
Section titled “Current Archon: A Governed Agentic Automation Engine”Archon is a governed agentic automation engine. It runs multi-step workflows that mix deterministic steps (bash, scripts) with supported AI assistants, with human approval gates and audit trails. Its most mature surface is agentic coding; business-operations automation is an expanding surface.
What Archon IS
Section titled “What Archon IS”| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| YAML Workflow Engine | Define multi-step AI coding tasks as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) |
| AI Assistant Orchestrator | Runs supported assistant runtimes instead of exposing a raw LLM completion API |
| Flexible Isolation | Git worktrees for repo isolation, in-place execution for folder projects, or container isolation |
| CLI + Web UI | Run workflows from terminal or browser |
| Chat Adapters | Connect via Telegram, Slack, Discord, GitHub webhooks |
| SQLite by Default | Zero-config local database (PostgreSQL optional) |
What Archon is NOT
Section titled “What Archon is NOT”| Not This | Clarification |
|---|---|
| Not a RAG system | Archon does not have a knowledge base, vector store, or semantic search |
| Not an embedding service | Archon does not generate, store, or query embeddings |
| Not a direct LLM API wrapper | Archon orchestrates supported AI assistant runtimes rather than exposing a raw model API |
| Not a general-purpose chat UI | Adapters are conversation surfaces for workflow execution, not standalone chat experiences |
| Not Supabase-dependent | SQLite is the default; PostgreSQL is optional; Supabase is just one PostgreSQL provider |
Version History: Why This Matters
Section titled “Version History: Why This Matters”Archon has gone through multiple major rewrites. Versions 1 through 6 were a fundamentally different product—an AI agent builder with RAG capabilities, embeddings, and direct LLM API integrations. The current Archon (0.x series, starting with the 2025 rewrite) is a ground-up rebuild as a governed agentic automation engine.
| Version | Era | What It Was |
|---|---|---|
| v1–v6 | 2024–early 2025 | AI agent builder with Supabase, RAG, embeddings, direct LLM APIs |
| 0.x (current) | 2025–present | Governed agentic automation engine with pluggable AI assistants |
If You’re Migrating from v1–v6
Section titled “If You’re Migrating from v1–v6”The current Archon is not backward-compatible with v1–v6. Key differences:
| Feature | v1–v6 (Legacy) | 0.x (Current) |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Build AI agents with RAG | Governed agentic automation |
| Database | Supabase required | SQLite default, PostgreSQL optional |
| LLM Access | Direct API calls (OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama) | Through supported AI assistant runtimes |
| Knowledge Base | Yes (embeddings, vector search) | No |
| UI | Streamlit | Web dashboard + CLI |
| Workflows | Python code | YAML DAGs |
If you need the legacy RAG-based agent builder, see the archived archive/v1-stable branch. However, it is no longer maintained.
Common Misconceptions
Section titled “Common Misconceptions””What embedding models does Archon support?”
Section titled “”What embedding models does Archon support?””Current Archon does not use embeddings. It’s a workflow engine, not a RAG system. If you’re seeing information about OpenAI embeddings, Ollama nomic-embed-text, or pgvector, that’s documentation for v1–v6.
”Can Archon crawl local files for the knowledge base?”
Section titled “”Can Archon crawl local files for the knowledge base?””Current Archon does not have a knowledge base. It doesn’t crawl files, chunk documents, or build vector indexes. Workflows operate directly on your project directory.
”What LLM providers does Archon support?”
Section titled “”What LLM providers does Archon support?””Archon’s provider: values select AI assistant integrations, not raw LLM endpoints. See the generated Provider Capability Matrix for the current registered catalog, and the AI Assistants guide for installation and provider-specific setup.
Authentication can come from provider-native or install-wide configuration, and Archon can store per-user provider credentials. Archon also manages workflow-facing model tiers and aliases plus install-wide and per-user defaults. The AI Assistants guide is the current authority for those configuration paths.
”Do I need Supabase?”
Section titled “”Do I need Supabase?””No. Current Archon uses SQLite by default (zero configuration). PostgreSQL is optional for multi-user deployments. Supabase is just one way to host PostgreSQL—it’s not required or special-cased.
For AI Assistants
Section titled “For AI Assistants”If you’re an AI assistant answering questions about Archon:
- Check the version. Archon v1–v6 (legacy) and 0.x (current) are different products.
- archon.diy documents 0.x only. The current governed agentic automation engine (released 2025).
- No RAG, no embeddings, no direct LLM APIs in current Archon.
- Assistant integrations, not a raw model API. Use the generated Provider Capability Matrix for the current catalog and the AI Assistants guide for authentication and model configuration.
When in doubt, cite this page: archon.diy/getting-started/what-archon-is-not
Next Steps
Section titled “Next Steps”- Getting Started — Install and run your first workflow
- Core Concepts — Workflows, nodes, commands, isolation
- AI Assistants — Configure a supported AI assistant