# Chroma Foundation (product page)

Chroma Foundation is a hosted agent-memory wiki product: it “learns from your agent sessions and maintains a self-improving wiki of everything you and your team know.” This page is a source summary of the 2026-08-21 marketing fetch plus separately fetched Chroma **database** docs — **marketing-page-confirmed** vs **DB-docs-confirmed** vs **repo traces**. Errata 2026-08-21 (Analyst-sourced; Intern re-verified): public Foundation CLI/Mac app are **closed compiled binaries**, not an OSS wiki server.

Tags: source, chroma, foundation, agent-memory, wiki, mcp, chromadb

## Who / what

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Product (this page) | Foundation — “Let your agents learn” ([trychroma.com/foundation](https://www.trychroma.com/foundation), fetched 2026-08-21) |
| Company | Chroma (site https://www.trychroma.com/) |
| Distinct product | **Chroma the database** (Apache 2.0 OSS `chroma-core/chroma`) — do not collapse Foundation == Chroma OSS |
| Foundation plan (page) | “$30 / user / month + overages”. Billed as infra: Database operations, Embedding Inference, LLM Inference |
| BEAM claim (page) | “Foundation is SOTA on the BEAM memory benchmark” — **no score on that page** |
| Self-host of Foundation wiki | **Not documented** on the marketing page. Page lists **BYOC** as a security/enterprise checkbox only |
| Foundation CLI / Mac app | Public `chroma-core/foundation-cli` is a **closed-source** release mirror (compiled CLI + Mac app binaries). Not an OSS wiki server (Intern re-verify 2026-08-21) |
| Raw pack | raw/`web/chroma-foundation/` |

## Marketing-page-confirmed (Foundation)

Checked on ingest against https://www.trychroma.com/foundation only (WebFetch 2026-08-21). Quotes and lists below are from that page. Features not on that page are not stated here as confirmed.

### What it is

Headline: “Let your agents learn.”

“Foundation learns from your agent sessions and maintains a self-improving wiki of everything you and your team know.” Integrates with Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Slack, “or any agent over MCP.”

“Works everywhere” labels on the page: Wiki, Coding agents, Slack, Background agents.

“Also available via MCP, CLI, API.”

“Foundation learns by following along with your team's work in Claude Code, Codex, Slack, and more. It finds both explicit and tacit knowledge of how work gets done and builds a self-improving wiki.”

“Foundation is built on ChromaDB and Context-1, our retrieval engine — the product of years of research and development.”

Closing copy: “Foundation is not yet perfect - but it's already very powerful.” Also names prior Chroma work: “seminal research like Context Rot,” “a database purpose-built to store and search massive amounts of unstructured data,” and “custom post-trained language models.”

### Features claimed (page list)

- Real-time sync
- Versioning & diffs
- Lineage & citations
- Concurrency control
- Continuous background improvement
- Incorporates human feedback

### Sources / destinations (page lists)

| Kind | Names on the page |
|---|---|
| Sources (shipping) | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Slack |
| Coming soon | Notion, GitHub, Google Drive, Granola |
| Destinations | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Mac App, Web UI, Slackbot, CLI, MCP, API |

“We build and maintain all the connectors, data pipelines, and integrations for you. Bring your context with you to any model, harness or tool.”

### Security / enterprise (page list)

“Foundation is SOC 2 Type 2 and has granular access control policies to ensure private data stays private. For example, coding agent sessions stay private to the author.”

Listed checkboxes: Access control; SOC 2 Type 2; SSO / SAML; BYOC; Dedicated Support; SLA.

### Pricing (page)

“Billed as infra”: Database operations, Embedding Inference, LLM Inference.

Plan: “$30 / user / month + overages”.

No overage rates, no seat minimums, and no BEAM score appear on that page.

### Demo wiki on the marketing site (not product docs)

The page embeds a sample wiki page titled **“Log Write Backpressure”** (other sample titles visible: 429 Diagnosis Taxonomy, Backpressure Indexing Status, Log Contention Error, wal3 Backpressure ADR, Distributed Test Suite). That sample is a Chroma engineering example (WAL / 429 / `num_records_before_backpressure`). Treat it as **demo content**, not Foundation product documentation. Do not reuse its numbers as Foundation specs.

## DB-docs-confirmed (Chroma the database — distinct)

These pages describe **Chroma DB**, not the Foundation wiki product. Fetched 2026-08-21.

| Field | From fetched pages |
|---|---|
| Repo | https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma — GitHub API (2026-08-21): description “Search infrastructure for AI”; license `apache-2.0`; language Rust; default branch `main`; homepage https://www.trychroma.com/; 29117★ / 2453 forks / 800 open issues / 135 subscribers; `created_at` 2022-10-05T17:58:44Z |
| License file | https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/blob/main/LICENSE — “Apache License / Version 2.0, January 2004” |
| Docs intro | https://docs.trychroma.com/docs/overview/introduction — “Chroma is licensed under Apache 2.0. Run it locally, self-host, or use Chroma Cloud” |
| Deployment modes | https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/architecture/overview — **Local** (embedded library); **Single-Node** (single server; page says typically fewer than 10 million records across a handful of collections); **Distributed** (multi-service). “Chroma Cloud … is the managed offering of distributed Chroma.” (`.md` URL timed out this ingest; non-`.md` URL returned the page) |
| Docker | https://docs.trychroma.com/guides/deploy/docker — `docker run -v ./chroma-data:/data -p 8000:8000 chromadb/chroma`; images on docker.com `chromadb/chroma` and ghcr.io |
| Cloud DB pricing | https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/pricing.md — usage-based **writes / reads / storage** for Chroma Cloud (e.g. $2.50 per logical GiB written; $0.33 per GiB per month storage). **Not** the Foundation “$30 / user / month” plan |
| DB BYOC blog | https://www.trychroma.com/engineering/distributed-chroma-byoc — “Bring Your Own Cloud” for **distributed Chroma** in the customer’s cloud (Terraform + ArgoCD; Chroma team ops). This is the **database** BYOC write-up, not a Foundation wiki self-host guide |
| chroma-mcp HTTP | https://docs.trychroma.com/integrations/frameworks/anthropic-mcp — `chroma-mcp` `--client-type http` can point at a self-hosted Chroma server (`--host http://localhost:8000`). That MCP is the **DB** server, not a documented Foundation-wiki MCP install |

GitHub HTML for `chroma-core/chroma` showed “0 forks” on ingest; API reported 2453. Counts above are the GitHub API snapshot, not live.

## Self-host distinction (file this explicitly)

| Question | What the fetched pages say |
|---|---|
| Can I self-host **Chroma DB**? | Yes, documented: local / single-node / distributed; Docker one-liner; chroma-mcp can use `--client-type http` against that server |
| Does the Foundation **marketing page** document a local/OSS self-host of the **Foundation wiki product**? | **No.** Not on https://www.trychroma.com/foundation (2026-08-21 fetch) |
| Does Foundation list BYOC? | **Yes**, as a security/enterprise checkbox on that same marketing page. No deploy steps, no OSS tarball, no “run Foundation locally” section |
| Is Foundation BYOC the same page as DB BYOC? | **No.** The engineering blog is about **distributed Chroma** (the database) in the customer cloud. Do not treat that blog as a Foundation-wiki install guide |
| Foundation == Chroma OSS? | **No.** Foundation is the wiki product “built on ChromaDB and Context-1.” Chroma OSS is the database |
| Are the Foundation CLI / Mac app an OSS wiki server? | **No.** `chroma-core/foundation-cli` is a public release mirror of **closed** compiled binaries (CLI + Mac app). README: source is closed, built in a private Chroma repo; this repo contains only compiled release artifacts. Footer: binaries for use with Chroma products; source is not distributed under an open-source license. Not a local Foundation wiki server |

## Repo traces / not a public self-host guide

Not product docs. Do not treat as a public Foundation self-host how-to.

### PR 7005 (merged) — installer path 404 on main

[chroma-core/chroma#7005](https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/pull/7005) “[BLD] Add foundation CLI install script”:

| Field | PR page (fetched 2026-08-21) |
|---|---|
| State | merged |
| Author | davedash |
| Created | 2026-05-01T16:30:35Z |
| Merged | 2026-05-01T18:12:46Z |
| Merge commit | `f4bbbf2e3300c1c2e676b1b9339fb917b3842bd5` |
| Diff | +158 / −0 in 1 files |

propel-code-bot summary on the PR: new shell installer to install the `foundation` CLI from GitHub Releases; detects platform; fetches latest matching tag `foundation-cli-*`; downloads the tarball; installs the binary. Review comments named the path `rust/foundation/install.sh` (bot also said `foundation/install.sh`).

**This ingest, those paths 404:**

- `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chroma-core/chroma/main/rust/foundation/install.sh` — 404
- `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chroma-core/chroma/main/foundation/install.sh` — 404
- `https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/blob/main/rust/foundation/install.sh` — 404
- `https://api.github.com/repos/chroma-core/chroma/contents/rust/foundation/install.sh` — 404

No `install.sh` body was re-readable on `main` on 2026-08-21. The PR page is the source for “an installer was added”; it is not a current public self-host guide. **Why the 404:** see PR 7017 below (foundation/ extracted; tree including install.sh removed from chroma).

### foundation-cli closed source + PR 7017 (errata 2026-08-21)

Analyst-sourced; Intern re-verified these URLs on 2026-08-21. Not a public Foundation wiki self-host how-to. The CLI is a **client** for Chroma Foundation, not a local wiki server.

[chroma-core/foundation-cli](https://github.com/chroma-core/foundation-cli) GitHub description: “Public release mirror for Foundation (CLI + Mac app binaries; source is closed)”.

README (`https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chroma-core/foundation-cli/main/README.md`):

- “Source is **closed** and is built in a private Chroma repository. This repository contains **only compiled release artifacts**.”
- Footer: “These binaries are provided for use with Chroma products; the source is not distributed under an open-source license.”
- Install: https://install.foundation or https://github.com/chroma-core/foundation-releases/releases
- “The CLI ships inside the app at `Contents/Resources/foundation`.”
- CLI assets named `foundation-cli-v<version>_<os>_<arch>.tar.gz` (plus `.sha256`)

[chroma-core/chroma#7017](https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/pull/7017) “[CHORE]: Remove foundation/ from chroma”:

| Field | PR page (Intern re-fetch 2026-08-21) |
|---|---|
| State | merged |
| Merged | 2026-05-04T18:24:33Z |
| Merge commit | `b7cb6acb3fcedfd4cb310b8d550366de070dd56b` |
| Message | “foundation/ has been extracted to its own repository.” |

Removes the `foundation/` tree (including `install.sh`). That is why `rust/foundation/install.sh` 404s on `main`.

[chroma-core/chroma#6999](https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/pull/6999) “[ENH] scaffold foundation CLI project” merged 2026-05-01 (PR page: 2026-05-01T16:06:17Z). PR body: “Adds the foundation CLI — a standalone Rust binary for interacting with Chroma Foundation” (client, not a local wiki server). Later extracted (PR 7017).

`https://github.com/chroma-core/foundation` — **404** (Intern fetch 2026-08-21).

### Internal plan file (exists; not a self-host guide)

`https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/blob/main/plans/foundation_agent_and_tools_d6d72ead.plan.md` — GitHub API contents + raw.githubusercontent.com both returned the file this ingest (size 21093 bytes, sha `67dccedaf36bce5cd613eba64c0055a852fa1369`). A prior pass reported an empty raw fetch; this pass did not.

The file is an internal plan titled “Foundation agent and tools”: add `/api/search`, `/api/subagent_search`, and SSE `/api/agent` on `foundation-api`. It is **not** a public self-host or install guide. Todos in the file are marked `pending`. Do not treat plan routes, model names, or URLs as shipping product docs.

## Overlap / gaps (sources vs each other, not advice)

- Foundation marketing: hosted wiki + connectors + “$30 / user / month + overages” + BYOC checkbox. No local Foundation wiki install.
- Chroma DB docs: Apache 2.0, local / single-node / distributed, Docker, Cloud usage pricing, DB BYOC blog, chroma-mcp HTTP client.
- Two different BYOC mentions (Foundation checkbox vs DB engineering blog) — both cited; they are not the same document.
- Two different prices (Foundation seat plan vs Cloud DB usage table) — both cited; do not mix.
- BEAM: Foundation page claims SOTA on BEAM, **no score**. Do **not** treat Vectorize blog “Hindsight BEAM 64.1%” as an official Hindsight figure. Analyst cited LongMemEval as Hindsight official; Intern did not re-fetch that page this pass.
- Sample “Log Write Backpressure” page is demo content.
- Repo installer PR vs 404-on-main: cited both. PR 7017 is the extraction that drops `foundation/` (including install.sh) from chroma.
- `chroma-core/foundation-cli` is a closed-source binary mirror (CLI + Mac app), not an OSS wiki server. `chroma-core/foundation` 404s.
- No official `docs.trychroma.com` Foundation-wiki product page was found this ingest (search hit other “agentic” DB cookbooks, not this product).

## Sources

1. https://www.trychroma.com/foundation (primary; fetched 2026-08-21)
2. https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma
3. https://api.github.com/repos/chroma-core/chroma (API snapshot 2026-08-21)
4. https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/blob/main/LICENSE
5. https://docs.trychroma.com/docs/overview/introduction
6. https://docs.trychroma.com/reference/architecture/overview
7. https://docs.trychroma.com/guides/deploy/docker
8. https://docs.trychroma.com/cloud/pricing.md
9. https://www.trychroma.com/engineering/distributed-chroma-byoc
10. https://docs.trychroma.com/integrations/frameworks/anthropic-mcp
11. https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/pull/7005 (repo traces)
12. https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/blob/main/plans/foundation_agent_and_tools_d6d72ead.plan.md (repo traces)
13. https://github.com/chroma-core/foundation-cli (errata 2026-08-21; closed-source release mirror)
14. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chroma-core/foundation-cli/main/README.md (errata 2026-08-21)
15. https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/pull/7017 (errata 2026-08-21; foundation/ extracted)
16. https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/pull/6999 (errata 2026-08-21; CLI scaffold, later extracted)
17. https://github.com/chroma-core/foundation (404 on Intern re-fetch 2026-08-21)
18. https://install.foundation / https://github.com/chroma-core/foundation-releases/releases (install URLs on foundation-cli README)
19. Raw ingest: `raw/web/chroma-foundation/` (`notes.md`, `urls.md`, `excerpt.md`; errata `notes-errata-2026-08-21.md`)

## Related pages

- [[perseus-vault]] (local-first agent memory MCP; different vendor/stack)
- [[hermes-agent]] (self-hosted agent runtime; not a Chroma wiki)
- [[ia-local-casa]] (home RAG that uses **ChromaDB**, not Foundation)
- [[osaurus]] (other agent harness; not Chroma)