---
okf: "0.1"
type: service
visibility: private
status: active
updated: 2026-07-29
links:
  - ../runbooks/kb-query-deploy.md
---

# kb-query

FastAPI search API in front of the module-5 KB retrieval engine
(`packages/kb-retrieval/`). Runs on **PIHA**, bound to PIHA's LAN IP only
(`exposure: private`, same class as paperless/nextcloud — no public ingress
yet). This is a **search API, not chat**: no answer synthesis over results,
that's phase 5.

## Endpoints

| Endpoint | Method | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| `/` | GET | Search UI (Jinja2 shell + `/static/app.js`, no login yet — plan §8 OIDC is a later step) |
| `/static/*` | GET | UI assets (`app.js`, `style.css`) |
| `/healthz` | GET | `{"status": "ok", "sol_status": "up"\|"down", "fallback_status": "up"\|"down"\|"unconfigured"}` — `sol_status` comes from the embed router's ~30 s-cached SOLARIA probe (same world view `/search` routes by), `fallback_status` is a live cheap probe of ollama-piha; no auth required (monitoring must reach it) |
| `/search?q=<text>&mode=cascade\|flat` | GET | `query_text -> embed -> cascade_query/flat_query -> results`, `mode` defaults to `cascade` |

`/search` response shape (module 5 phase 4 plan §4, `summary`/`summary_tags`
added in Krok 4 for the UI's per-envelope result header — additive, does not
change any field the plan §4 shape already defined):

```json
{
  "query": "...", "mode": "cascade", "sol_status": "up", "embed_backend": "solaria",
  "results": [
    {"envelope_id": "paperless:119", "source": "paperless", "dist": 0.34,
     "chunk_index": 2, "text": "...", "link": "https://paper.kapala.org/documents/119/details",
     "summary": "...", "summary_tags": ["..."]},
    {"envelope_id": "<Message-ID>", "source": "gmail", "dist": 0.44,
     "chunk_index": 0, "text": "...", "subject": "...", "from": "...", "date": "...",
     "link": null, "mail_ui_url": null, "summary": null, "summary_tags": []}
  ]
}
```

`dist` is never filtered server-side — the 0.45/0.55 colour thresholds (below)
are a frontend concern, not an API contract. `summary`/`summary_tags` come
from `document_summary` for `SUMMARY_MODEL`; `null`/`[]` when the envelope
has no summary yet.

## Frontend (Krok 4, plan §7)

One page, served from this same FastAPI process — no separate frontend
container, no node build step (plan §2 decision 4): `app/templates/index.html`
(Jinja2 shell) + `app/static/app.js` (vanilla JS, `fetch()` to `/search`) +
`app/static/style.css`. Wszystko po polsku.

- Pole zapytania + submit (Enter lub przycisk), przełącznik trybu
  kaskada/flat (domyślnie kaskada — checkbox "tryb flat (debug)").
- Wyniki grupowane po `envelope_id` (dokument): nagłówek trafienia to
  streszczenie dokumentu (`summary`, tor haiku) gdy dostępne, w przeciwnym
  razie `envelope_id`; chunki są rozwijanymi fragmentami (`<details>`) pod
  nagłówkiem, posortowane po `dist`.
- Kolorowanie progów (fazy 3, zweryfikowane bramką): `dist < 0.45` zielony,
  `0.45–0.55` żółty (nadal renderowany, z wizualnym ostrzeżeniem), `> 0.55`
  nigdy nie renderowany jako pojedynczy wynik. Jeśli po tym filtrze żadna
  grupa nie zostaje nic do pokazania (wszystkie trafienia > 0.55, albo brak
  trafień w ogóle), całość zastępuje komunikat "Brak odpowiedzi w KB dla
  tego zapytania" z najlepszym (najniższym) zaobserwowanym `dist` w nawiasie.
- Źródło: Paperless → link "Otwórz w Paperless" (`link`); Gmail → metadane
  (`subject`/`from`/`date`) + przycisk "Kopiuj Message-ID" (`envelope_id`
  **jest** Message-ID, plan §2 decyzja 3) — nie ma dokąd linkować, więc
  kopiowalny identyfikator zamiast martwego linku.
- Stopka pokazuje `sol_status` dyskretnie (odświeżane z `/healthz` przy
  starcie strony i po każdym wyszukiwaniu).

## Embed path — active SOLARIA→PIHA fallback (Krok 2, plan §2 D2/§5)

Query embeddings go through `app/embed_router.py` (`EmbedRouter`, one instance
per process):

1. SOLARIA's health verdict (`GET /api/tags`, 1.5 s timeout) is **cached for
   30 s** — no per-request probing.
2. Verdict `up` → embed on `EMBED_PRIMARY_URL` (SOLARIA GPU, ~207 ms) under a
   hard 3 s timeout.
3. A failure **during a real embed** flips the verdict to `down` for one TTL
   window and the **same request** is served from `EMBED_FALLBACK_URL`
   (`ollama-piha`, CPU, `OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE=0` — slower, single seconds, but
   alive) — the user never sees a SOLARIA error while a fallback exists.
4. Verdict `down` → straight to the fallback until the TTL expires; when
   SOLARIA wakes up, traffic returns to the GPU within ≤30 s.

Every `/search` response and log line says which backend embedded the query
(`embed_backend: "solaria"|"piha"`, log `backend=…` in `kb-query.embed`) —
needed to debug result quality per backend. `sol_status` in the response is
the router's world view; the UI footer renders `down` as
„SOLARIA: offline (fallback embed)".

**Model invariant, both halves:** at startup kb-query pins `EMBED_MODEL`
(bge-m3) to `document_chunk.model`/`document_summary.embedding_model` (below);
additionally each backend is verified once, at its first use, that its
`/api/tags` actually lists `EMBED_MODEL`. A backend serving the wrong model is
a **loud ERROR + 500** — never a silent distance computation across two
different embedding spaces. Verification is lazy because SOLARIA may be asleep
at boot and must not block startup.

`/search` returns **503** only when BOTH backends are unreachable (or
`EMBED_FALLBACK_URL` is unset — then the pre-fallback behaviour applies);
`/healthz` still answers, same tolerance pattern as `llm-gateway`.

## Startup invariant (hard-fail)

At startup, kb-query queries `document_chunk.model` and
`document_summary.embedding_model` for the set of models behind *active*
embeddings, and refuses to start (crash-loop, visible via container restarts)
if the configured `EMBED_MODEL` (default `bge-m3`) isn't in both sets. This
guards against querying with an embedding space that doesn't match what's
actually indexed — see `app/startup.py` for why the check reads
`document_summary.embedding_model` and not `.model` (the latter is the LLM
that *wrote* the summary, e.g. `claude-haiku-4-5`, not the embedder).

## Configuration

`.env` — **gitignored**, copy from `env.example`. Required: `LAN_BIND_IP`,
`KB_DSN`. On PIHA also set `EMBED_FALLBACK_URL=http://192.168.31.5:11434`
(ollama-piha). Optional (defaults in parentheses): `EMBED_PRIMARY_URL`
(`http://solaria:11434`), `EMBED_PRIMARY_NAME`/`EMBED_FALLBACK_NAME`
(`solaria`/`piha`), `EMBED_HEALTH_TTL_S` (30), `EMBED_HEALTH_TIMEOUT_S` (1.5),
`EMBED_PRIMARY_TIMEOUT_S` (3), `EMBED_MODEL` (`bge-m3`), `SUMMARY_MODEL`
(`claude-haiku-4-5`). `OLLAMA_URL` was **renamed** to `EMBED_PRIMARY_URL` in
Krok 2 — if an old `.env` sets `OLLAMA_URL`, it is ignored.

## Ingress (`kb.kapala.org`, plan §8)

Wired up 2026-07-23 (`docs/sessions/2026-07-23-kb-f4-ingress.md`), **no code
change in this service** — pure infra step:

- npm@PIHA proxy host #35: `kb.kapala.org` → `http://192.168.31.5:8230`,
  cert #49 (`*.kapala.org` wildcard, DNS-01 via Cloudflare, expires
  2026-09-28) — same pattern as `paper.`/`vikunja.`/`ha.kapala.org`.
- Pi-hole Local DNS (`/etc/pihole/custom.list` on PIHA, runtime, not in Git):
  `kb.kapala.org` → `192.168.31.5`. **This is the first `kapala.org` entry in
  that file** — every other `kapala.org` vhost (paper/ha/immich/vikunja/forgejo)
  has no LAN override and resolves via the public Cloudflare record
  (Tailscale IP) even from LAN, a hairpin the plan assumed was already avoided
  for those too. Not fixed here (out of this task's scope — no other vhosts
  touched); worth a follow-up if it matters for those services.
- Cloudflare A record `kb.kapala.org` → `100.108.208.3` (Tailscale PIHA, DNS
  only): added manually by the operator (no CF API token available in the
  environment that did the rest of this step), verified against Cloudflare's
  own authoritative NS and 8.8.8.8/1.1.1.1 — resolves everywhere now, both
  LAN (via Pi-hole override) and Tailscale/public (via this record).

**No auth.** OIDC (plan §8: `authlib`, `/login`, `/auth/callback`) is explicitly
**not implemented** — confirmed no forward-auth/reverse-proxy-level auth pattern
exists anywhere in this repo (NPM community edition doesn't support it either);
the three precedents (paperless/nextcloud/vikunja) all do OIDC inside the app.
Building that is real service code (`authlib` dependency, session middleware,
Forgejo OAuth2 app registration) — deliberately deferred to a separate session,
decision confirmed with the operator 2026-07-23. Until then `kb.kapala.org` is
reachable by anyone on the LAN/tailnet with no login, same as before this vhost
existed.

## Out of scope for this step

- OIDC login (see above) — separate session, needs `authlib` + Forgejo OAuth2 app.
- Calibration verdict for the fallback (plan §5 steps 4–5: live PIHA
  measurements → keep/tune/degrade decision) — the mechanism is built and
  default-on when `EMBED_FALLBACK_URL` is set; the measurements are the
  operator's post-deploy step (see `services/ollama-piha/README.md`).
