> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.echos.sh/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> EchOS — your personal AI knowledge system, self-hosted and agent-driven.

# Welcome to EchOS

EchOS is a personal AI knowledge system — self-hosted, agent-driven, and always private. It captures, organizes, and retrieves your knowledge through natural conversation across Telegram, the web, and the terminal.

<Note>
  EchOS is a personal project — built for one user, deployed on your own infrastructure. It is intentionally not multi-tenant.
</Note>

## What it feels like

You're walking and a thought hits. You open Telegram and say it out loud. Thirty seconds later it's in your knowledge base — transcribed, categorized, tagged, searchable. No app to open. No form to fill. No friction.

```
You:    Save this for me → [pastes article URL]
EchOS:  Saved. "How Rust handles memory safety" — tagged as rust, programming.
        I pulled the key points if you want a summary.

You:    What do I know about memory management?
EchOS:  Found 7 notes. The Rust piece you just saved, two older ones on GC pauses,
        a voice note from last Tuesday where you were ranting about malloc...

You:    Write a short post about it — my style, technical but readable
EchOS:  [drafts a post grounded in your actual notes, in your voice]
```

## Key features

* **Capture without friction** — Text, URLs, voice messages, photos. Through Telegram, the terminal, or the web.
* **Semantic search** — Hybrid full-text and vector search. Ask a question the way you'd ask a person.
* **Write in your voice** — Blog posts, threads, emails grounded in your notes, in your writing style.
* **Obsidian-compatible** — Every note is a plain `.md` file. Open `$ECHOS_HOME/knowledge/` in Obsidian (defaults to `~/echos/knowledge/`) and it just works.
* **Plugin system** — YouTube transcripts, article extraction, and you can build your own.

## Quick start

**Homebrew (macOS)**

```bash theme={null}
brew tap albinotonnina/echos
brew install echos
echos-setup
```

**One-liner (macOS + Linux)**

```bash theme={null}
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/albinotonnina/echos/main/install.sh | bash
```

**Manual**

```bash theme={null}
git clone https://github.com/albinotonnina/echos.git
cd echos && pnpm install && pnpm build
pnpm wizard
```

You'll need an LLM API key — either Anthropic (`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`) or any provider supported by pi-ai (`LLM_API_KEY`). Custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints are supported via `LLM_BASE_URL`. Everything else is optional.

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Deployment" icon="server" href="/deployment">
    Docker, systemd, VPS, and local setup
  </Card>

  <Card title="Interfaces" icon="comments" href="/interfaces">
    Telegram, Web API, and CLI usage
  </Card>

  <Card title="Architecture" icon="sitemap" href="/architecture">
    How the pieces fit together
  </Card>

  <Card title="Security" icon="shield" href="/security">
    What EchOS does with your data
  </Card>
</CardGroup>