[Question]: Disable inmemory sqllite database

[szambet]

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Question

I handle already memory on my side with a custom flow in mongodb, i load the messages at the beginning of the initialization into the agent ctx therefore i don't need llamaindex to use the sqllite in memory to sink message history.

Is there a way to disable the in memory database altogether? @AstraBert

I am refererring to this: https://developers.llamaindex.ai/python/framework/module_guides/deploying/agents/memory/#remote-memory

[dosubot]

There isn’t a single flag or config to disable the in-memory SQLite database in LlamaIndex. Instead, you can avoid it by explicitly providing a custom chat store backend—like MongoChatStore—when you set up your agent or service context. If you do this, the default SQLite backend won’t be instantiated or used for message history sinking (source).

If you’re using your own MongoDB flow and want LlamaIndex to skip SQLite entirely, make sure you pass your MongoDB chat store instance wherever LlamaIndex expects a chat store. For short-term memory, LlamaIndex currently only supports SQLite by default, so if you need NoSQL for short-term memory, you’ll need to subclass the Memory component and implement MongoDB support yourself (source).

Let me know if you need a code example for wiring up a custom chat store!

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[szambet]

@dosubot i dont want to use the llamaindex chatstore at all in any form - i already have a db i handle with different structure and complexity. I will pass it at runtime whenever a user is adding a chat, i will create a agent with ctx and memory i retrieved from the db separately

[dosubot]

LlamaIndex always expects some kind of memory or chat store object—even if you don’t want to persist or manage chat history through it. There’s no built-in flag or config to fully disable the internal chat store; if you don’t provide one, it defaults to an in-memory store (like SQLite or SimpleChatStore) see source.

To avoid using any internal chat store, you can create a minimal “no-op” implementation that fulfills the required interface but doesn’t actually store or retrieve anything. For example, subclass BaseChatStore and have all methods return empty lists or do nothing see interface. Then, pass this stub wherever LlamaIndex expects a chat store or memory backend.

This lets you manage all chat history externally and prevents LlamaIndex from sinking messages to its own database. If you need a code example for a no-op chat store, let me know!

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[AstraBert]

Technically you can replace the in-memory SQLite with your own database (the snippet to do so is in the same doc page you linked), but the database has to be a relational one: we do not support NoSQL dbs like Mongo unfortunately.
You can refer to this issue for further details on adding Mongo to the memory: #18979

[szambet]

Technically you can replace the in-memory SQLite with your own database (the snippet to do so is in the same doc page you linked), but the database has to be a relational one: we do not support NoSQL dbs like Mongo unfortunately. You can refer to this issue for further details on adding Mongo to the memory: #18979

Thanks Clelia, is there a way i can avoid it altogether? Can i pass it a empty BaseChatStore as dosu is mentioning?
If it works, we can do a PR to disable this.

We have a application running way before this was feature was implemented, i can't edit the chatstore now to a reletional db... it would mean duplicating the storage.

[AstraBert]

Our memory is a Pydantic model, so, since the chat store (or, as we call it now, the sql_store), is of type SQLAlchemyChatStore per this line:

llama_index/llama-index-core/llama_index/core/memory/memory.py

Line 237 in 4a4bbae

sql_store: SQLAlchemyChatStore = Field(

The only ways I can see out of this are:

• Adding an Optional to the typing, and you pass None, but this would require additional adjustments to the memory downstream (not sure we really want that)
• You subclass the SQLAlchemyChatStore making it basically a mock chat store that does not do anything and does not create an in-memory DB

[szambet]

Thanks Clelia, really helpful. i'll try to mock the SQLAlchemyChatStore class and let you know. In case we can do a PR for this to be available to others.

[AstraBert]

Yeah sure! Let me know when you create the PR