Substrate

Substrate is Aionis’s durable evidence sidecar.

Use it when you want Aionis to keep a longer-lived evidence surface for backup, audit, migration, preview context, and stronger ordinary-memory recall while the Runtime remains the source of guide decisions.

What It Adds

Capability	What it gives you
Durable evidence mirror	Runtime memory, decision traces, feedback, and snapshots can be mirrored for long-term inspection.
Ordinary-memory recall	Facts, source spans, aliases, entities, and topic keys become easier to recover for QA-style context.
Preview context	Hosts and operators can inspect candidate context before it becomes Agent-facing prompt material.
Backup and migration	Substrate can preserve evidence history across local Runtime resets or migrations.
Optional ANN search	Zvec can accelerate candidate search when the data volume grows.

Substrate strengthens recall. Aionis Runtime still governs admission.


Runtime SQLite -> Substrate evidence mirror -> candidate recall
       -> Runtime guide -> use_now / inspect_before_use / do_not_use / rehydrate

Install

Install through the guided setup:


npx aionis setup

Choose Substrate or Zvec options when the installer asks for optional storage and recall surfaces.

You can also add the package directly:


npm install --save-dev @aionis/substrate

Runtime Configuration

Enable Substrate as a recall source:


export RECALL_ENGINE_MODE="hybrid"
export RECALL_SUBSTRATE_SIDECAR_ENABLED="true"
export RECALL_SUBSTRATE_PATH="./data/substrate.sqlite"

For local development, keep RECALL_SUBSTRATE_FAIL_OPEN=false when you want configuration errors to fail loudly instead of silently falling back.

What It Improves

Substrate is useful for two different memory shapes:

Memory shape	Runtime alone	Runtime + Substrate
Execution memory	Governed active path, feedback, rehydrate, and audit	Longer-lived evidence mirror for replay, migration, and inspection
Ordinary memory	Governed recall-backed guide output	Better evidence coverage for factual QA and source-span recovery

In the v0.3 verification snapshot on a 50-sample MemoryData replay, the Runtime + Substrate path improved exact answer hits from 43/50 to 48/50 and evidence coverage from 47/50 to 50/50.

Safety Model

Substrate does not bypass Aionis admission.

Substrate can propose recall candidates.
Runtime guide still decides what becomes use_now, inspect_before_use, do_not_use, or rehydrate.
Scope, lifecycle, authority, and feedback attribution still belong to the Runtime.

This keeps the product shape simple: stronger recall below, strict governance above, auditable memory influence throughout.