HeritageGraph is an initiative taken by researchers at CAIR-Nepal.

While many individuals and organizations are doing remarkable work to preserve cultural heritage at the ground level, the growing trend is that today most users discover and interact with knowledge through the internet via browsers, search engines, and even chatbots like ChatGPT.

To make heritage truly accessible in the digital age, we need to go beyond physical preservation and digitally preserve, publish, and democratize access of knowledge where,

• 🕸️ Crawlers can crawl,
• 🤖 Agents can interact,
• 👩‍💻 Developers can query, and
• 💬 Users can seek answers through chatbots.

We intend to provide unparalleled digital access to the knowledge of our shared heritage.

There is a powerful quote:

“If you want to know where we should head in the future, then you should know where we came from our past, our shared understanding of it, and the experiences of our forefathers. These things serve as a strong moral compass for where to go and what to pursue in the future.”

Heritage is not just memory, it’s direction.

Sounds interesting and want to try it out?

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/CAIRNepal/CHLOD

Switch to the working branch (v1):

git switch v1

The fastest way to get everything running:

# 1. Copy the environment template
cp .env.example .env

# 2. Build and start all services
make setup
# Or: docker-compose up --build

Once running, access:

📖 Full deployment guide: See DEPLOYMENT.md for production setup, SSL, backups, and more.

make help           # Show all available commands
make up             # Start services
make down           # Stop services
make logs           # View logs
make health         # Check service health
make backup         # Backup database
make prod-up        # Start in production mode

If you want to contribute :-)
Here is a guide for setting up frontend and backend.

The frontend is built with Next.js and uses shadcn components.

⚠️ Note: Avoid adding custom colors directly to components. We manage colors globally via global.css using tweakcn.

Setup:

cd heritage_graph_ui
npm install
npm run dev

Access the app at:

• Landing page → http://localhost:3000
• Dashboard → http://localhost:3000/dashboard

The backend is powered by Django REST Framework and uses Keycloak for authentication (JWT via OIDC).

⚠️ Note: Make sure to set up the required .env file (see .env.example).

Setup:

cd .. # Make sure you are in main directory
python -m venv .myvenv
source .myvenv/bin/activate  # Linux/Mac
pip install uv
uv pip install -r requirements.txt
python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

Create a superuser (optional, for admin access):

python manage.py createsuperuser

Run the backend:

python manage.py runserver

Access the backend at (development):

• API → http://backend.localhost/api or http://localhost:8000
• Admin dashboard → http://backend.localhost/admin or http://localhost:8000/admin (use superuser credentials)

• Start from the v1 branch.
• Open an issue or submit a PR with improvements.

This project includes comprehensive documentation designed to help both human developers and AI coding assistants work effectively:

Documentation site: A consolidated MkDocs site lives in the docs/ folder and is configured to publish to GitHub Pages via CI. Visit the published site at: https://cairnepal.github.io/heritagegraph/ (update if your org URL differs).

AI agents: Read AGENTS.md first, then consult other files as needed for your task.

The license for this project is yet to be finalized. We’ll choose one that both empowers the community and benefits this project :-)

This repository contains the LinkML code for NCHLOD. It includes the following components:

1. schema.yaml: Defines the schema for NCHLOD.