Docs menu · For AI Agents

Strata ships a single, complete usage guide generated from the installed build — targeting rules, every capability, branches, and time travel. It is the first thing to hand an agent that is about to use Strata, and it is reachable three ways. All three return the same guide, matched to the version you have installed, so it can never describe a surface your binary does not have.

From the CLI

strata agents guide prints the guide as markdown, with no network call:

strata --cache agents guide
## Targeting a database

1. Explicit path or `--db <path>` — always wins: `strata ./my-db kv get k`
2. `STRATA_DB=<path>` — set once per session, used when no path is passed
3. `--cache` — explicit in-memory database (nothing persisted)

Because it is offline and version-matched, it is safe to pipe straight into an agent’s context at the start of a session.

From the Python SDK

The stratadb package exposes the same guide as a module-level function, so an agent working in Python never has to shell out:

import stratadb

print(stratadb.agents_guide())   # the same guide, matched to the wheel's engine

From the MCP server

Over MCP, the guide is the strata_guide tool — the server’s own instructions tell a client to call it first when unsure how anything works. See The MCP server.

Why three front doors

An agent might reach Strata through a shell, through Python, or through an MCP client. Each entry point returns the identical guide from the identical source, so whichever way the agent arrives, it gets the same authoritative instructions — and they always match the installed version. When you need the structured surface rather than the prose, use the command index.

agents: this page as markdown → /docs/agents/agents-guide.md