Research summary · Josh D / Researcher

Local home AI (ia-local-casa) + Perseus Vault / perseus-ctx

2026-08-13 ET No git clone · WebFetch + PyPI JSON + GitHub API Wiki: ia-local-casa · perseus-vault · hermes-plugin-perseus-vault
Local-first MCP Hermes-adjacent MIT (code) Light theme

Bottom line

Two unrelated public projects that both speak to Josh’s local-LLM / Hermes / Grok Bot split: a Spanish home-PC document+photo RAG cookbook, and a US-company agent-memory stack with first-party Hermes wiring.

  • ia-local-casa — copy-paste home stack (Paperless + Ollama + ChromaDB + Immich + Open WebUI). MIT code + CC BY 4.0 docs. Personal-use, 2★. Pattern library, not a product.
  • Perseus — perseus-ctx PyPI 1.0.26 (live context renderer) + Vault Rust binary tag v2.23.0 (encrypted SQLite MCP memory) + Hermes memory plugin 1.1.0. Local binary is air-gap-ready; the plugin’s default URL is hosted (vault.perseus.observer).

1. ia-local-casa — home document/photo AI

Who / license

  • GitHub fwinchi/ia-local-casa
  • Author: handle only; “I’m 64 and not a programmer”
  • Built with Claude, ~35h / 8 sessions (author)
  • Code MIT © 2026 fwinchi
  • Docs CC BY 4.0 © 2026 fwinchi
  • Created 2026-08-06; 2★, 0 forks; Python 3.14

Tested hardware

  • “NASA”: Win11, RTX 5080 16 GB, 32 GB RAM, Docker Desktop
  • Backup: Orange Pi 5 Plus ARM64
  • gpt-oss:20b = largest that fits 16 GB VRAM (author)
  • No unverified minimum claimed

Three circuits (plus Immich separate)

CircuitPathQuery tool
Paperless-ngx + AIssistconsume folder → OCR → fields → sender scriptPaperless MCP via mcpo :8001
Document indexPDF/DOCX/TXT/ODT → bge-m3 → ChromaDBbuscar_en_documentos :8002
Photos/videosVLM descriptions (qwen3-vl:8b) → ChromaDBbuscar_fotos / buscar_videos :8003
Immich (separate)Faces/people, read-only external libraryDeterministic Immich API tools (ImmichMCP retired)

Chat UI: Open WebUI. MCP wrapped by mcpo 0.0.20 to OpenAPI. Local chat model: gptoss-paperless (gpt-oss:20b, num_ctx 16384, temp 0.1). World knowledge: Gemini via LiteLLM — local model “makes things up and defends them.” Stack assumes Spanish OCR/prompts. One tool per chat.

Security (author, from code)
mcpo + LiteLLM on 127.0.0.1. Paperless 8010 + Immich 2283 on LAN (phone; no extra auth — do not internet-expose). Ollama firewalled to WSL + phone. Docker images digest-pinned. Prompt-injection docs still pending; tools read-only by design.

Josh fit: reference architecture for local file RAG, not a Hermes/Grok Bot plugin. MCP idea matches Hermes more than Open WebUI’s mcpo bridge. Opposite of Grok Bot’s cloud computer for personal PDFs/photos.

2. Perseus family — context engine + encrypted memory

PieceWhatVersion / license (fetched)
perseus-ctx Python “resolve before context” renderer → .hermes.md / AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md. Optional MCP server. PyPI 1.0.26 (2026-08-01). MIT, Python ≥3.10, Beta. © 2026 Thomas Connally on GitHub LICENSE. MIT without patent grant (README). 34★ on GitHub perseus.
perseus-vault Rust MCP memory: one binary, one SQLite file, AES-256-GCM bodies, hybrid BM25+dense+RRF, bi-temporal history. Tag v2.23.0 (2026-08-10 13:01 ET). Cargo.toml still 2.23.0; main has later commits (2026-08-13). MIT © 2026 “perseus”. 47★ / 9 forks.
hermes-plugin-perseus-vault Hermes memory provider: prefetch, session distill, MEMORY.md mirror, optional AAR. plugin.yaml 1.1.0. MIT © 2026 Perseus Computing LLC. 1★. No GitHub releases. Token required.

How they connect

perseus-ctx renders live workspace facts (and optional @memory from Vault). Vault stores explicit remembers/captures. Hermes can use Vault two ways: local stdio MCP (perseus-vault serve) or the plugin over streamable-HTTP.

Plugin default: https://vault.perseus.observer/message + PERSEUS_VAULT_MCP_TOKEN. That is hosted. Air-gap = run the binary locally and override PERSEUS_VAULT_URL. Hosted terms/pricing/residency: unknown on fetched pages.

Do not flatten the MCP tool count
Same ingest, conflicting numbers: GitHub description 122 · README lede 137 · heading 65 · comparison matrix 130 / 103. Binary was not run.

Vendor-stated scores (not re-run)

Legal (quoted): Patent pending on resolve-before-context; PERSEUS™ trademark of Thomas Connally. USPTO number not on pages. Org: Perseus Computing LLC, US small business, SAM.gov “in progress.”

Josh fit: strongest Hermes add-on of the two topics — first-party .hermes.md target + memory plugin. Distinct from Tonbi Desktop UI plugins and Kanban board. Complements (does not replace) Casa-style file RAG. Grok Bot already has its own cloud memory; no Grok Bot plugin documented here.

Unknowns to keep labeled

  1. fwinchi’s real name / English-language operability without editing spa OCR + prompts.
  2. Vault advertised tool count; hosted Vault privacy; USPTO filing number.
  3. Whether plugin PR #21 (memory_bank via .hermes.md) is merged — it was still open.
  4. Author claim that LiteLLM had malicious PyPI versions in March 2026 — not checked here.

Wiki paths

Sources