Skip to content

fox1245/NeoGraph

Folders and files

NameName
Last commit message
Last commit date

Latest commit

 

History

413 Commits
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Repository files navigation

NeoGraph

The C++ graph agent engine with Python bindings.
Performance · Self-evolution · Embedded-ready · Lightweight — all four, one binary.
Pick any three: many frameworks. Pick all four: just NeoGraph.

PyPI Python versions License

Four Axes · Cookbooks · Quick Start · Python Binding · Concepts · C++ Examples · Python Examples · Troubleshooting · API Reference · Doxygen · vs LangGraph


NeoGraph 16-second promo — 5µs engine overhead, 5.5MB RSS at 10K concurrent, 1.2MB static binary, fits Raspberry Pi
16s · the numbers · click for the 1080p MP4 (662 KB)

NeoGraph 15-second promo v2 — graph engine in motion, 10-line Python, every LangGraph capability built in
15s · what you actually ship · click for the 1080p MP4 (740 KB)

The four axes — measurable, each independently verifiable

Axis Measured value Reproduce
Performance 5 µs engine overhead · 10 K concurrent in 5.5 MB · p99 17 µs flat Engine overhead · L3 cache fit
🧬 Self-evolution LLM judge → graph_def hot-swap · 5 customer → 3 emergent topology cluster self_evolving_chatbot cookbook
🔌 Embedded-ready 1.2 MB stripped binary · libc.so.6 only · runs on RPi Zero 2W · MCU-class possible Embedded / robotics
🪶 Lightweight 2 wheel deps (certifi + pydantic) · multi-tenant 1 K customer → 29 MB · t2.micro 1 K concurrent OK multi_tenant_chatbot cookbook

Each row is a single command away — no setup, no API key needed except the live-LLM cookbook variants.

What is NeoGraph?

NeoGraph is a C++17 graph-based agent orchestration engine that brings LangGraph-level capabilities to C++. Define agent workflows as JSON, execute them with parallel fan-out, checkpoint state for time-travel debugging, and integrate any LLM provider — all without Python.

#include <neograph/neograph.h>
#include <neograph/llm/openai_provider.h>
#include <neograph/graph/react_graph.h>

auto provider = neograph::llm::OpenAIProvider::create({
    .api_key = "sk-...", .default_model = "gpt-4o-mini"
});
auto engine = neograph::graph::create_react_graph(provider, std::move(tools));

neograph::graph::RunConfig config;
config.input = {{"messages", json::array({{{"role","user"},{"content","Hello!"}}})}};
auto result = engine->run(config);

Why NeoGraph?

Python + LangGraph C++ + NeoGraph (measured)
~500 MB runtime (Python + deps) 1.1 MB static binary (stripped, example_plan_executor)
~300 MB steady RSS 2.9 MB peak RSS (Plan & Executor run)
2–8 s import / cold start < 250 ms end-to-end (crash + resume cycle included)
GIL-limited parallelism asio::thread_pool fan-out + lock-free RequestQueue
Cloud / server only Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, Jetson, drones, IoT, edge

All figures are from example_plan_executor on x86_64 Linux built with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=MinSizeRel, -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections, -static-libstdc++ -static-libgcc -Wl,--gc-sections, then stripped. Only runtime dependency is libc.so.6. See the Benchmarks section below for the reproduction command.

Engine overhead vs. leading frameworks

Per-invocation overhead on identically-shaped graphs, no I/O / no LLM — just node dispatch + state writes + reducer calls. Lower is better. NeoGraph row 는 2026-05-13 master HEAD 에서 재측정 (g++ 13 Release -O3 -DNDEBUG, WSL2 + taskset -c 3 chrt -f 99 isolation). Python framework rows 는 2026-04-22 reference run 그대로 — 2026-04-29 ±10% 재검증.

Framework seq (3-node chain) par (fan-out 5 + join, v1.0 default)¹ Slowdown vs. NeoGraph
NeoGraph master (this repo) 5.0 µs 11.6 µs
Haystack 2.28 140 µs 278 µs 28× / 24×
pydantic-graph 1.87 227 µs 280 µs² 45× / 24ײ
LangGraph 1.1.10 643 µs 2,262 µs 128× / 195×
LlamaIndex Workflow 0.14 1,565 µs 4,374 µs 313× / 377×
AutoGen GraphFlow 0.7.5 3,127 µs 7,281 µs 625× / 627×

¹ NeoGraph 의 par 행은 v1.0 기본 워커 수 (= 1) 에서 측정. 시퀀셜

  • CPU-tiny fan-out 의 dispatch 비용만 잰다. 진짜 병렬 wallclock 이 필요한 그래프 (sleep-바운드 시뮬, sync HTTP 등) 는 engine-> set_worker_count_auto() 한 줄로 hardware_concurrency 만큼 워커를 풀어준다 — examples/36_classifier_fanout.cpp 의 5 분류기 fan-out 은 그 한 줄로 wall time 25.2 ms 순차 → 6.0 ms 병렬 (4.22× speedup). NeoGraph row 는 master HEAD 에서 재측정 (WSL2 taskset+chrt isolation); 다른 framework 행은 2026-04-29 reference run (당시 NeoGraph v0.2.3 = 5.0 / 14.4 µs, 두 번째 숫자만 v1.0 cycle 의 fan-out 회귀 fix e5ecb08 로 14.4 → 11.6 µs 개선). ² pydantic-graph cannot fan out; emulated as a 6-node chain.

This is the cost of one engine round-trip. Real LLM graphs spend most of their time in network I/O, but every super-step pays this once — at 100k requests/day a 600 µs framework sheds an hour of CPU that NeoGraph spends in 5 seconds. Reproducible end-to-end: benchmarks/README.md.

NeoGraph is the only graph agent engine for C++. If you're building agents in robotics, embedded systems, games, high-frequency trading, or anywhere Python isn't an option — this is it.

Flagship cookbooks — what the four axes enable

Two production-shaped cookbooks demonstrate categories of agent infrastructure that other frameworks structurally can't reach.

Multi-tenant chatbot — 1 K customer in one process

examples/cookbook/multi_tenant_chatbot/ — JSON graph-as-data + compile cache → one process serves N customers each with their own agent topology.

Run Wall RSS peak LLM calls Errors
Mock provider · 1 000 concurrent · 3 distinct topology 5 ms 5.25 MB 0 0
Real OpenAI gpt-4o-mini · 1 000 concurrent · 6 customer 50.2 s 29 MB 2 330 0

LangGraph for the same multi-tenant shape needs process per customer (StateGraph is a Python object — can't be safely round-tripped through JSON). 1 000 customer × ~80 MB LG baseline = ~80 GB. NeoGraph: one process, 30 MB. ~2 700× memory ratio.

A t2.micro ($0.01/hour, 1 GB RAM) instance running NeoGraph holds ~10 K concurrent in-flight LLM coroutines comfortably. LangGraph for the same load needs m5.2xlarge ($0.38/hour) at minimum.

Self-evolving chatbot — harness reshapes itself live

examples/cookbook/self_evolving_chatbot/ — the multi-tenant infrastructure above + an LLM judge that watches each customer's conversation and rewrites their graph_def. Customer harness evolves to fit user behavior with zero deploy / zero restart.

Demo Customers Turns Evolution observed Distinct engines
server.cpp (Alice solo) 1 5 simple → fanout at turn 3 2
server_multi.cpp 5 25 4 of 5 patterns matched hypothesis; eve oscillated 3

Multi-customer run's distinct-engine count (3) ≈ behavior cluster count, even with 5 customers — emergent cluster discovery falls out for free. At 1 000 customer scale, distinct shapes typically converge to ~10 → engine memory stays nearly constant.

LangGraph + StateGraph as a Python class cannot do this — runtime reshape requires module reload + in-flight conversation state loss. NeoGraph's graph-as-JSON model: evolution = one JSON transform.

"AI agent that builds itself" — a vision that's been around since AutoGPT (2023). NeoGraph is the first framework where it's a production-ready cookbook, not an academic prototype.


Using NeoGraph from your CMake project

The pip install route is Python-only — the wheel doesn't ship C++ headers. For a C++ project, the simplest path is FetchContent, which behaves like pip install for CMake:

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
    NeoGraph
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/fox1245/NeoGraph.git
    GIT_TAG        main
)
# Optional: turn off heavy components you don't need.
set(NEOGRAPH_BUILD_EXAMPLES OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
set(NEOGRAPH_BUILD_PYBIND   OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(NeoGraph)

add_executable(my_agent main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_agent PRIVATE
    neograph::core neograph::llm neograph::a2a)

That's the entire integration. See the AI National Assembly cookbook for a 600-line demo built this way (4 personas, A2A multi-process, OpenAI-backed) — including a friction journal of what a fresh user trips over.

흔한 함정 5선 — 신참이 첫 30분에 부딪치는 것들

NeoGraph 처음 쓰는 사람이 가장 자주 막히는 5 가지. 미리 한 번 훑어두면 디버깅 30분 절약됩니다.

  1. 결과는 result.channel<T>("name") 으로 꺼내세요 (example 51) result.output["counter"] 식 직접 접근은 react_graph 같은 일부 빌더에서만 통합니다. raw GraphEngine::compile 그래프는 output["channels"]["counter"]["value"] 한 겹 더 들어간 모양이라 직접 접근하면 깨집니다. 도우미 함수 result.channel<T>("counter") 는 두 모양 모두 처리.

  2. 노드 안에서 Storein.ctx.store (example 43) engine->set_store(...)Store 박으면 v0.7+ 부터는 노드 본문에서 in.ctx.store->get(ns, key) 한 줄로 닿습니다. 옛 패턴 (NodeFactory 람다에서 shared_ptr<Store> 캡처) 도 계속 동작하지만 새 코드는 in.ctx.store 가 깔끔.

  3. neograph::graph:: 서브네임스페이스GraphEngine, GraphNode, RunConfig, RunResult 는 모두 neograph::graph:: 안에 있습니다. 매번 풀 경로로 쓰기 싫으면 파일 위에 using namespace neograph::graph; 한 줄. Provider, Tool, json 같은 것들은 neograph:: 바로 아래.

  4. <httplib.h> 직접 쓰는 TU 는 CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT 정의 필수 (issue #16) 여러분 코드에서 httplib::Server 같은 걸 직접 쓴다면, <httplib.h> 를 include 하기 전에 반드시 매크로를 정의하세요. 안 하면 NeoGraph 의 cpp-httplib 와 ABI 가 안 맞아서 (One Definition Rule 위반) 런타임에 getaddrinfo 안에서 SEGV. v0.8+ 부터는 컴파일 타임에 자동 검출됩니다 (<neograph/api.h>#error 가드).

    #define CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT   // ← 반드시 먼저
    #include <httplib.h>

    또는 CMake 측에서:

    target_compile_definitions(your_target PRIVATE CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT)
  5. GCC 13 코루틴 ICE — Ubuntu 24.04 기본 GCC 13.3 에서 co_await x.foo_async(...) 형태가 internal compiler error: in build_special_member_call, at cp/call.cc:11096 으로 죽습니다. 컴파일러 버그라 코드는 멀쩡. 회피: GCC 14 업그레이드, 또는 co_spawn 대신 neograph::async::run_sync(awaitable) 로 sync-bridge. 자세한 안내는 troubleshooting.md "Build errors".

각 항목의 더 깊은 내용은 troubleshooting.md 와 링크된 예제 / 이슈에 있습니다.

A minimal LLM-only chatbot (no tools, no streaming)

The shortest C++ that runs a real OpenAI multi-turn chatbot — useful as a template since the wider examples lean on create_react_graph

  • tools and obscure how the bare wiring looks:
#include <neograph/neograph.h>
#include <neograph/llm/openai_provider.h>

using namespace neograph::graph;        // GraphEngine, NodeContext, RunConfig,
                                         // InMemoryCheckpointStore live here.
                                         // (RunConfig stays under graph::; the
                                         //  README quickstack uses it directly.)

int main() {
    // OpenAIProvider exposes two factories:
    //   * `create(Config)`        → unique_ptr<OpenAIProvider> (transferable)
    //   * `create_shared(Config)` → shared_ptr<Provider>       (copyable, the
    //                               natural fit for NodeContext::provider
    //                               and for sharing across multiple nodes
    //                               or A2A servers)
    // For a chatbot the shared-ptr peer is what you want — drop straight
    // into NodeContext, no std::move dance.
    neograph::llm::OpenAIProvider::Config cfg;
    cfg.api_key       = std::getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY");
    cfg.default_model = "gpt-4o-mini";
    auto provider = neograph::llm::OpenAIProvider::create_shared(cfg);

    NodeContext ctx;
    ctx.provider     = provider;
    ctx.model        = "gpt-4o-mini";
    ctx.instructions = "Reply in one short sentence.";

    neograph::json definition = {
        {"name", "chatbot"},
        {"channels", {{"messages", {{"reducer", "append"}}}}},
        {"nodes",    {{"llm",       {{"type", "llm_call"}}}}},
        {"edges", neograph::json::array({
            {{"from", "__start__"}, {"to", "llm"}},
            {{"from", "llm"},       {"to", "__end__"}}
        })}
    };

    // C++ compile() takes (definition, ctx, store) directly — Python's
    // GraphEngine.compile takes the same trailing arg as a keyword
    // (or use engine.set_checkpoint_store afterwards; both equivalent).
    auto store  = std::make_shared<InMemoryCheckpointStore>();
    auto engine = GraphEngine::compile(definition, ctx, store);

    for (std::string line; std::getline(std::cin, line); ) {
        RunConfig cfg;
        cfg.thread_id        = "session-1";
        cfg.input            = {{"messages", neograph::json::array({
            {{"role", "user"}, {"content", line}}
        })}};
        cfg.resume_if_exists = true;     // multi-turn memory: load prior
                                          // checkpoint, append new turn

        auto r   = engine->run(cfg);
        auto msgs = r.output["channels"]["messages"]["value"];
        std::cout << "Bot: " << msgs.back()["content"].get<std::string>() << "\n";
    }
}

Four small things that are easy to miss:

  • neograph::graph:: sub-namespaceGraphEngine, RunConfig, NodeContext, InMemoryCheckpointStore, GraphState all live under neograph::graph::. using namespace neograph::graph (or a handful of using declarations) keeps the call sites flat. neograph::llm:: and neograph::a2a:: stay separate on purpose so consumers can pick which sub-libraries they link against.
  • Two factories on OpenAIProvidercreate(Config)unique_ptr<OpenAIProvider> (transferable ownership), create_shared(Config)shared_ptr<Provider> (copyable; drops straight into NodeContext::provider). For a chatbot or any multi-node graph the shared_ptr peer is the intended path; the unique flavour is for callers that want short-lived ownership before transferring elsewhere via std::move.
  • neograph::json is a yyjson-backed nlohmann subsetjson::array(...), j["k"], j.value(k, default), j.contains(k) work like nlohmann; element-wise iterators and .front() / .back() on objects do not. The full surface map is in include/neograph/json.h's top docstring.
  • <cppdotenv/dotenv.hpp> for OPENAI_API_KEY loading is bundled at deps/cppdotenv/dotenv.hpp. The in-tree examples reach it via target_include_directories(... PRIVATE ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/deps); consumers using FetchContent can add target_include_directories(my_agent PRIVATE ${neograph_SOURCE_DIR}/deps) and #include <cppdotenv/dotenv.hpp>. It's a header-only single file; not part of the public install.
  • If you also #include <httplib.h> in your own code (e.g. for your own httplib::Server SSE endpoint), every TU that does so MUST #define CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT before the include — or set it via target_compile_definitions(your_target PRIVATE CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT) globally. NeoGraph's SchemaProvider .cpp defines it; if your TUs don't match, the linker silently picks one httplib::ClientImpl layout and the mismatched TU reads members at wrong offsets → SEGV inside getaddrinfo on the first LLM call. Issue #16 documented the trap end-to-end; see docs/troubleshooting.md → "C++ consumers — httplib.h macro consistency" for the audit recipe and the one-line fix.

Python Binding

NeoGraph ships as a pip-installable package — the same C++ engine, driven from a Jupyter notebook, Gradio app, or FastAPI service:

pip install neograph-engine
import neograph_engine as ng

@ng.node("greet")
def greet(state):
    return [ng.ChannelWrite("messages",
        [{"role": "assistant", "content": f"Hello, {state.get('name')}!"}])]

definition = {
    "name": "demo",
    "channels": {"name": {"reducer": "overwrite"},
                 "messages": {"reducer": "append"}},
    "nodes":    {"greet": {"type": "greet"}},
    "edges":    [{"from": ng.START_NODE, "to": "greet"},
                 {"from": "greet", "to": ng.END_NODE}],
}
engine = ng.GraphEngine.compile(definition, ng.NodeContext())
result = engine.run(ng.RunConfig(thread_id="t1", input={"name": "NeoGraph"}))
print(result.output["channels"]["messages"]["value"])
# [{'role': 'assistant', 'content': 'Hello, NeoGraph!'}]

20 wheels + sdist per release (Linux x86_64 / aarch64, macOS arm64, Windows x64 · Python 3.9–3.13). Full guide — ReAct with a real LLM, async, custom reducers, the LangGraph-divergence list, in-tree observability, Docker-free deployment: docs/python-binding.md.

Quick Start

Requirements

  • C++20 compiler — coroutines are on the public API surface as of 2.0.0. Verified toolchains:
    • GCC 13.3 — core + all tests green. The OpenAI Responses built-in-tools demo (example_openai_responses_ws_tools) is skipped because GCC 13 trips a coroutine-cleanup ICE (build_special_member_call at cp/call.cc:11096); the rest of the project is unaffected and the skip is automatic.
    • GCC 14.2+ — everything including the tools demo.
    • Clang 18+ — everything including the tools demo.
    • MSVC 2022 — core builds + non-Postgres tests in CI; runtime not yet load-tested.
  • CMake 3.16+.
  • OpenSSL (HTTPS), libpq (optional, Postgres checkpoint), SQLite3 (optional, SQLite checkpoint).

Platform support

Platform Tier Notes
Linux x86_64 (Ubuntu 24.04, GCC 13) GA Reference — 429/429 ctest green, ASan/UBSan/LSan/TSan clean (CI gates), Valgrind clean (11/11 no-key examples 0 leak/error after stale-.so trap fix)
macOS (Apple Silicon, Clang) beta CI builds + non-Postgres tests; runtime differences (coroutine scheduling, SIGPIPE) not yet exercised in production
Linux ARM64 (Ubuntu 24.04, GCC 13) beta Native ARM64 CI gate via GitHub-hosted ubuntu-24.04-arm runner — full ctest green every push (no QEMU). Wheel CI uses the same native runner. Bare-metal ARM64 hardware (Raspberry Pi, Graviton) load testing still pending. Stripped binary ~1 MB.
Windows (MSVC 2022, x64) beta Native VS 2022 / MSVC 19.44 build verified — 382/382 ctest pass on Win11, sustained-burst stress 162.04 M graph runs / 5 min @ ~540 k rps with bench_sustained_concurrent (0 err, peak 73.6 MB, leak_suspect=false). MCP stdio + PG async socket wrap still need a real-traffic soak.

CI matrix (GitHub Actions): build-and-test (Ubuntu, full with PG service), build-macos, build-windows, bench-regression (3 committed floors). See CHANGELOG.md for the full stability rationale per platform.

Build

git clone https://github.com/fox1245/NeoGraph.git
cd NeoGraph
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

Run an example (no API key needed)

./example_custom_graph      # Mock ReAct agent
./example_parallel_fanout   # Parallel fan-out/fan-in (3 researchers run concurrently)
./example_send_command      # Dynamic Send + Command routing

Integration

FetchContent (recommended):

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(neograph
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/fox1245/NeoGraph.git
  GIT_TAG main)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(neograph)

target_link_libraries(my_app PRIVATE neograph::core neograph::llm)

add_subdirectory:

add_subdirectory(deps/neograph)
target_link_libraries(my_app PRIVATE neograph::core neograph::llm)

Features

Core Engine (neograph::core)

  • JSON-defined graphs — No recompilation to change agent workflows
  • Super-step execution — Pregel BSP model with cycle support
  • Parallel fan-out/fan-inasio::experimental::make_parallel_group on the engine's executor; opt-in asio::thread_pool for CPU-bound branches via set_worker_count(N)
  • Send (dynamic fan-out) — Nodes spawn N parallel tasks at runtime
  • Command (routing override) — Nodes control routing + state in one return
  • Checkpointing — Full state snapshots at every super-step
  • HITL (Human-in-the-Loop)interrupt_before / interrupt_after + resume()
  • State managementget_state(), update_state(), fork(), time-travel
  • Dynamic breakpointsthrow NodeInterrupt("reason") from any node
  • Retry policies — Per-node exponential backoff with configurable limits
  • Stream modesEVENTS | TOKENS | VALUES | UPDATES | DEBUG bitflags
  • Subgraphs — Hierarchical composition via JSON (Supervisor pattern)
  • Intent routing — LLM-based classification + dynamic routing
  • Cross-thread Store — Namespace-based shared memory across threads
  • Custom nodes — Register via NodeFactory with zero framework changes

LLM Providers (neograph::llm)

  • OpenAIProvider — OpenAI, Groq, Together, vLLM, Ollama (any OpenAI-compatible API)
  • SchemaProvider — Claude, Gemini, and any custom provider via JSON schema
  • Built-in schemas"openai", "claude", "gemini" embedded at build time
  • Agent — ReAct loop with streaming support

MCP Client (neograph::mcp)

  • HTTP transport — JSON-RPC 2.0 over Streamable HTTP, session-aware
  • stdio transportMCPClient({"python", "server.py"}) spawns the MCP server as a child subprocess and exchanges newline-delimited JSON-RPC over its stdin / stdout; subprocess lifetime is tied to the last MCPTool that references it
  • Tool discoveryget_tools() auto-discovers tools from either transport; returned MCPTools plug straight into Agent / GraphEngine

Utilities (neograph::util)

  • RequestQueue — Lock-free worker pool with backpressure (moodycamel::ConcurrentQueue)

Examples

# Example Description API Key
01 react_agent Basic ReAct agent with calculator tool Required
02 custom_graph JSON-defined graph with mock provider No
03 mcp_agent Real MCP server tool integration Required
04 checkpoint_hitl Checkpointing + Human-in-the-Loop (interrupt/resume) No
05 parallel_fanout Parallel fan-out/fan-in via make_parallel_group (3 workers) No
06 subgraph Hierarchical graph composition (Supervisor pattern) No
07 intent_routing Intent classification + expert routing No
08 state_management get_state / update_state / fork / time-travel No
09 all_features All 6 advanced features in one demo No
10 send_command Dynamic Send fan-out + Command routing override No
11 clay_chatbot Multi-turn chatbot UI (Clay + Raylib) Optional
12 rag_agent RAG agent with in-memory vector search (CLI) Required (OpenAI)
13 openai_responses ReAct via OpenAI /v1/responses through SchemaProvider Required (OpenAI)
14 plan_executor Plan & Executor: 5-way Send + crash/resume via pending_writes No
15 reflexion Self-critique loop until acceptance (Anthropic) Required (Anthropic)
16 tree_of_thoughts BFS over LLM thought branches, top-k pruning Required (Anthropic)
17 self_ask Follow-up decomposition across multiple hops Required (Anthropic)
18 multi_agent_debate Proponent / opponent / judge pattern Required (Anthropic)
19 rewoo Reasoning WithOut Observation — plan once, fan out, synthesize Required (Anthropic)
20 mcp_hitl MCP + checkpoint HITL (interrupt_before tool dispatch, resume after approval) Required (OpenAI)
21 mcp_fanout Parallel MCP tool calls via Send fan-out inside one super-step No
22 mcp_stdio MCP over stdio transport — subprocess MCP server spawned by the client Required (OpenAI)
23 mcp_multi One agent routing tools across two MCP servers (HTTP + stdio) Required (OpenAI)
24 mcp_feedback Human-feedback loop — draft answer, operator pushes back, agent revises Required (OpenAI)
25 deep_research open_deep_research-style multi-step web research loop (Crawl4AI + Anthropic) Required (Anthropic)
26 postgres_react_hitl ReAct + Postgres-backed checkpoint HITL — survives process restart Required (Anthropic + Postgres)
27 async_concurrent_runs Hosting many concurrent agent runs on one shared asio::io_context No
28 corrective_rag Corrective RAG (arXiv:2401.15884) — retrieve → evaluator routes to refine / web / both → generate, all over /v1/responses Required (OpenAI)
29 responses_envelope Wire-level dump of /v1/responses's output[] envelope — debug/pedagogy aid for understanding tool-calling shape before SchemaProvider flattens it Required (OpenAI)
30 reasoning_effort Same prompt at reasoning.effort ∈ {none, low, medium, high} on a reasoning model — compares wall, hidden-CoT tokens, and answer Required (OpenAI, reasoning model)

Every API-using example above auto-loads .env from the cwd or any parent directory via the bundled cppdotenv, so the recipe is just echo 'OPENAI_API_KEY=...' > .env && ./example_*. Process-environment values still take precedence if both are set.

Run with a real LLM

# Set your API key (auto-loaded by every API-using example via cppdotenv)
echo "OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-..." > .env

# ReAct agent with OpenAI
./example_react_agent

# MCP agent (start demo server first: python examples/demo_mcp_server.py)
./example_mcp_agent http://localhost:8000 "What time is it?"

# Visual chatbot
cmake .. -DNEOGRAPH_BUILD_CLAY_EXAMPLE=ON && make example_clay_chatbot
./example_clay_chatbot --live

Architecture

NeoGraph architecture — core / llm / mcp / util with internal class breakdown

GraphEngine is a thin super-step orchestrator that delegates to four purpose-built classes extracted in the 0.1 refactor:

  • GraphCompiler — pure JSON → CompiledGraph parser.
  • Scheduler — signal-dispatch routing plus barrier accumulation.
  • NodeExecutor — retry loop (async-native with timer-based backoff), parallel fan-out via asio::experimental::make_parallel_group, Send dispatch.
  • CheckpointCoordinator — save / resume / pending-writes lifecycle behind a (store, thread_id) façade.

Each class has a dedicated unit-test suite so engine behaviour is verifiable without spinning up a full run. See docs/reference-en.md §7b for the full API surface.

Dependency Isolation

Link target What gets pulled in
neograph::core yyjson (compiled, bundled), asio (header-only, standalone)
neograph::core + llm + OpenSSL (httplib stays PRIVATE)
neograph::core + mcp + OpenSSL (httplib stays PRIVATE)
neograph::util + moodycamel::ConcurrentQueue (header-only)

httplib is never exposed to your code. core has zero network dependencies. Taskflow was removed in 3.0 — parallel fan-out now runs on asio's coroutine primitives (see Features).

Concurrency & Async

Two models out of the box: thread-per-agent (sync) — share one compiled engine across threads with distinct thread_ids — and coroutine async — one asio::io_context hosts thousands of agents without a thread per run. Plus a bundled lock-free RequestQueue for fixed-pool backpressure and PostgresCheckpointStore for restart-surviving state.

Full patterns, safe-concurrency rules, and the Postgres setup: docs/concurrency.md · async migration guide: docs/ASYNC_GUIDE.md.

JSON Graph Definition

{
  "name": "research_agent",
  "channels": {
    "messages": {"reducer": "append"},
    "findings": {"reducer": "append"},
    "__route__": {"reducer": "overwrite"}
  },
  "nodes": {
    "planner":    {"type": "llm_call"},
    "researcher": {"type": "tool_dispatch"},
    "classifier": {
      "type": "intent_classifier",
      "routes": ["deep_dive", "summarize"]
    },
    "inner_agent": {
      "type": "subgraph",
      "definition": { "...nested graph..." }
    }
  },
  "edges": [
    {"from": "__start__", "to": "planner"},
    {"from": "planner", "condition": "has_tool_calls",
     "routes": {"true": "researcher", "false": "classifier"}},
    {"from": "researcher", "to": "planner"},
    {"from": "classifier", "condition": "route_channel",
     "routes": {"deep_dive": "inner_agent", "summarize": "__end__"}}
  ],
  "interrupt_before": ["researcher"]
}

Comparison with LangGraph

Feature LangGraph (Python) NeoGraph (C++)
Graph engine StateGraph GraphEngine
Checkpointing MemorySaver + Postgres/SQLite/Redis CheckpointStore (interface) + InMemory + Postgres
HITL interrupt_before/after interrupt_before/after + NodeInterrupt
get_state / update_state Yes Yes
Fork Yes Yes
Time travel get_state_history get_state_history
Subgraphs CompiledGraph as node SubgraphNode (JSON inline)
Parallel fan-out Static make_parallel_group (+ opt-in asio::thread_pool)
Send (dynamic fan-out) Send() NodeResult::sends → parallel_group fan-out
Command (routing+state) Command(goto, update) NodeResult::command
Retry policy RetryPolicy RetryPolicy + exponential backoff
Stream modes values/updates/messages EVENTS/TOKENS/VALUES/UPDATES/DEBUG
Cross-thread Store Store (Postgres) Store (interface) + InMemory
Multi-LLM LangChain required SchemaProvider built-in (3 vendors)
MCP support None (separate impl) MCPClient built-in
Performance Python (GIL) C++20 coroutines + asio
Memory footprint ~300MB+ ~10MB
Edge/embedded Not possible Raspberry Pi, Jetson, IoT

Project Structure

NeoGraph/
├── include/neograph/
│   ├── neograph.h              # Convenience header
│   ├── types.h                 # ChatMessage, ToolCall, ChatCompletion
│   ├── provider.h              # Provider interface (abstract)
│   ├── tool.h                  # Tool interface (abstract)
│   ├── graph/
│   │   ├── types.h             # Channel, Edge, NodeContext, GraphEvent,
│   │   │                       # NodeInterrupt, Send, Command, RetryPolicy, StreamMode
│   │   ├── state.h             # GraphState (thread-safe channels)
│   │   ├── node.h              # GraphNode, LLMCallNode, ToolDispatchNode,
│   │   │                       # IntentClassifierNode, SubgraphNode
│   │   ├── engine.h            # GraphEngine, RunConfig, RunResult
│   │   ├── checkpoint.h        # CheckpointStore, InMemoryCheckpointStore
│   │   ├── store.h             # Store, InMemoryStore (cross-thread memory)
│   │   ├── loader.h            # NodeFactory, ReducerRegistry, ConditionRegistry
│   │   └── react_graph.h       # create_react_graph() convenience
│   ├── llm/
│   │   ├── openai_provider.h   # OpenAI-compatible provider
│   │   ├── schema_provider.h   # Multi-vendor LLM (JSON schema driven)
│   │   ├── agent.h             # ReAct agent loop
│   │   └── json_path.h         # JSON dot-path utilities
│   ├── mcp/
│   │   └── client.h            # MCP client + tool wrapper
│   └── util/
│       └── request_queue.h     # Lock-free worker pool
├── src/
│   ├── core/                   # 13 source files (engine + compiler/scheduler/executor/coordinator split)
│   ├── llm/                    # 3 source files
│   └── mcp/                    # 1 source file
├── schemas/                    # Built-in LLM provider schemas
│   ├── openai.json
│   ├── claude.json
│   └── gemini.json
├── deps/                       # Vendored dependencies
│   ├── yyjson/                 # Compiled C JSON library (yyjson.c + yyjson.h)
│   ├── asio/                   # Standalone asio (header-only, C++20 coroutines)
│   ├── httplib.h               # cpp-httplib (PRIVATE to llm/mcp)
│   ├── concurrentqueue.h       # moodycamel lock-free queue
│   ├── cppdotenv/              # .env loader (example 13)
│   ├── clay.h                  # Clay UI layout
│   └── clay_renderer_raylib.c  # Clay + raylib renderer glue (example 11)
├── benchmarks/                 # NeoGraph vs LangGraph engine-overhead bench
├── examples/                   # 30+ runnable C++ examples + cookbooks (multi-file scenarios)
└── scripts/
    └── embed_schemas.py        # Build-time schema embedding

CMake Targets

Target Description Dependencies
neograph::core Graph engine + types yyjson (bundled), asio (header-only), Threads
neograph::async asio HTTP/SSE helpers core + OpenSSL
neograph::llm LLM providers + Agent core + OpenSSL (httplib PRIVATE)
neograph::mcp MCP client core + OpenSSL (httplib PRIVATE)
neograph::a2a Agent-to-Agent client + server + caller node core + async + OpenSSL (httplib PRIVATE)
neograph::postgres PostgresCheckpointStore core + libpq
neograph::sqlite SqliteCheckpointStore core + libsqlite3
neograph::util RequestQueue core + concurrentqueue

Build Options

Option Default Description
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_LLM ON Build LLM provider module
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_MCP ON Build MCP client module
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_A2A ON Build Agent-to-Agent module (client + server + caller node)
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_UTIL ON Build utility module
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_POSTGRES ON Build PostgresCheckpointStore (libpq)
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_SQLITE ON Build SqliteCheckpointStore (libsqlite3)
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_EXAMPLES ON Build example programs
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_CLAY_EXAMPLE OFF Build Clay+Raylib chatbot (fetches Raylib)
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_BENCHMARKS OFF Build micro/load benchmark binaries
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_TESTS OFF Build unit tests (GoogleTest auto-fetched)
NEOGRAPH_BUILD_PYBIND OFF Build Python bindings (pybind11 auto-fetched)
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS OFF Build neograph_* as .so/.dylib/.dll instead of .a. Wired on every supported platform; native MSVC DLL load test still pending — see "Shared library mode" below.

Shared library mode

Pass -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON at configure time to ship libneograph_core.so, libneograph_llm.so, libneograph_mcp.so, libneograph_async.so, and libneograph_sqlite.so instead of static archives. Build-tree binaries get an $ORIGIN-relative RPATH so they find the libraries beside themselves with no LD_LIBRARY_PATH gymnastics.

Trade-offs (Linux, stripped, measured 2026-04-25):

Configuration Single agent binary N agents on same host
Static (default) ~2.2 MB per agent N × 2.2 MB
Shared ~0.25 MB per agent N × 0.25 MB + 13.1 MB shared .so set (one-time)

Crossover at N≈7 agents. For deployments shipping multiple NeoGraph agents on the same host (or for staged-rollout scenarios where one subsystem like the LLM provider is patched independently of the rest) shared mode is strictly better. For a single-agent embedded edge deployment, static keeps everything in one self-contained binary.

Patch-update size example: replacing libneograph_llm.so (one subsystem, ~4 MB) updates every agent on the host without rebuilding or redeploying any of them.

Windows: BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON links cleanly — every public class / free function with an out-of-line .cpp definition carries NEOGRAPH_API, which expands to __declspec(dllexport) inside the engine's TUs and __declspec(dllimport) for downstream consumers (see include/neograph/api.h). Verified on Linux shared builds (libneograph_*.so + 429/429 ctest green) and on native MSVC 19.44 (98f43fd — VS 2022 BuildTools, x64 Release, OpenSSL 3.0.17 from PG17 bundle): 382/382 ctest pass and the bench_sustained_concurrent harness held c=1000 for 5 minutes on Win11 (162.04 M graph runs, 0 err, peak 73.6 MB working-set, no leak signal). DLL load tests under continuous production traffic still pending — file an issue if you hit LNK2019 on a public symbol with the unresolved name.

Performance & production economics

Headline numbers are in The four axes and Why NeoGraph? above. The full evidence — AWS/GCP cost modeling, the 10 K-worker one-GPU stress test, the L3-cache-fit cachegrind sweep, and the local-LLM end-to-end hold — lives in docs/performance-deep-dive.md.

"LangChain runtime cost: ~$4 K/mo for 1 K concurrent users. NeoGraph: ~$50/mo. Same code shape, same LLM, frozen ABI."

Benchmarks

Matched-topology, zero-I/O engine overhead (µs/iter, lower better):

Framework seq (3-node) par (fan-out 5) vs. NeoGraph
NeoGraph master 5.0 µs 11.8 µs
Haystack 2.28 144 µs 290 µs 29×
pydantic-graph 1.85 236 µs 286 µs 47×
LangGraph 1.1.9 657 µs 2,349 µs 131×
LlamaIndex 0.14 1,780 µs 4,684 µs 356×
AutoGen 0.7.5 3,209 µs 7,293 µs 642×

At N=10,000 concurrent (1 CPU / 512 MB sandbox): NeoGraph 52 ms / 7 µs p99 / 5.5 MB · LangGraph 23.4 s / 416 MB · LlamaIndex & AutoGen OOM-killed. Full matrix, burst-concurrency curves, size/cold-start, methodology: docs/performance-deep-dive.md and benchmarks/README.md.

Acknowledgments

Inspired by:

  • LangGraph — Graph agent orchestration for Python
  • agent.cpp — Local LLM agent framework for C++
  • asio — Cross-platform C++ networking and coroutine primitives (the 3.0 engine runtime)
  • Clay — High-performance UI layout library

Previously (2.x): also built on Taskflow for parallel fan-out. 3.0 replaced that path with asio::experimental::make_parallel_group to unify sync and async execution on one coroutine runtime.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Third-party licenses: THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md

About

C++ Graph Agent Engine Library — LangGraph for C++

Resources

License

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Packages

 
 
 

Contributors