orchid-rag-chroma

ChromaDB vector-backend plugin for on-disk, zero-infrastructure RAG.

orchid-rag-chroma is the ChromaDB vector-backend plugin. It provides on-disk, zero-infrastructure RAG — no external server needed — and auto-registers via Python entry points. Bundled as a dependency of orchid-cli for out-of-the-box vector search.

Installation

pip install orchid-ai orchid-rag-chroma

For CLI users, orchid-cli already depends on orchid-rag-chroma — no extra install needed.

What It Provides

Component	Class	Purpose
Vector backend	`ChromaRepository`	Full `OrchidVectorStoreRepository` implementation
Filter builder	`_build_where`	Orchid scope → ChromaDB metadata filter translation

Auto-Registration

[project.entry-points."orchid.vector_backends"]
chroma = "orchid_rag_chroma:_register"

The plugin reads CHROMA_PATH from the environment to switch from HTTP to persistent (local on-disk) mode. orchid-cli sets a persistent path by default (~/.orchid/chroma).

Configuration

rag:
  vector_backend: chroma
  embedding_model: text-embedding-3-small

Set CHROMA_PATH in the environment for persistent mode, e.g.:

export CHROMA_PATH=~/.orchid/chroma

Without CHROMA_PATH the plugin talks HTTP to the Chroma server at chroma_host / chroma_port (defaults localhost:8000).