Arivu's New Direction: A Self-Hosted Second Brain

Arivu began as a way to stop useful links from disappearing into a bookmark archive. That problem still matters, but saving and summarizing links is only one part of building knowledge.

Arivu is a self-hosted second brain and private knowledge workspace. It brings bookmarks, notes, annotations, imported material, links, search, and a knowledge graph into one system that you operate.

Its core loop is simple:

1. Capture a link, note, quote, or file without designing a taxonomy first.
2. Understand original passages, with your own notes or optional source chat.
3. Remember by revisiting material or trying a short source quiz.
4. Reuse notes and answers with links back to their evidence.

Four primary destinations

Arivu now has four primary destinations.

Home is the starting point for recent material and ordinary dated notes.

Library is the unified collection. It leads with bookmarks, ordinary notes, and annotations. Generated concepts and entities remain available in a separate derived view and in Graph.

Notes is a first-class writing workspace. A note can stand alone, link to saved material, and receive backlinks.

Search finds saved text locally. Ask opens a passage preview before sending a question to a configured AI provider.

Review and Graph are secondary destinations under More.

Home, Library, Notes, and Search are primary. Review and Graph sit under More. Capture, imports, exports, the browser extension, and the CLI remain available.

AI is optional

Arivu does not require a model provider to be useful. Capture, notes, explicit links, backlinks, local extraction, full-text search, source preview, and graph structure work without one.

Source conversations and quizzes require a configured provider and explicit destination consent. Replies cite exact quotes, but you still need to check whether the quote supports each claim.

That distinction matters. The knowledge system should not stop working because an external model is unavailable.

Ownership is part of the direction

Arivu’s core runs as a single Go binary backed by SQLite. On supported hosts, the installer can separately manage an isolated native runtime for complete background capture. Data can be backed up and exported, and existing browser extension, CLI, import, export, and administration workflows remain intact.

Self-hosting is a tradeoff: you operate the instance and its backups. In return, the workspace, database, and provider choices stay under your control.

This is a sharper product than the earlier all-purpose workflow. Arivu is not trying to become a social network, a team collaboration suite, or a full project manager. It is focused on helping an individual turn captured material into connected, retrievable knowledge.

See the current feature map or start with the Capture and Library guide.