Quick Start

This walkthrough takes about five minutes. At the end, Kifa is ingesting data, responding to queries, and reporting storage statistics.

1. Build from source

   Terminal

   git clone https://github.com/xosnrdev/kifa.git
   cd kifa
   cargo cb

   See Installation for pre-built binaries and system packages.

2. Ingest a transaction

   Pipe a JSON transaction into the ingester via stdin:

   Terminal

   echo '{"txn":"TXN-001","amount":5000,"status":"completed"}' | \
     ./target/release/kifa ingest --stdin -d ./data

   Kifa writes the entry to the write-ahead log and fsyncs it to disk. The process exits after stdin closes.

3. Query the stored entry

   Terminal

   ./target/release/kifa query -d ./data

   Output

   2026-01-31 18:30:00 UTC {"txn":"TXN-001","amount":5000,"status":"completed"}

   Each entry is ordered by a monotonically increasing nanosecond timestamp.

4. Check statistics

   Terminal

   ./target/release/kifa stats -d ./data

   Output

   Storage:
     Total entries: 1
     SSTables: 0
     Memtable: 1 entries
   
   WAL:
     Flush mode: Cautious
   
   Health:
     Time range: 2026-01-31 18:30:00 UTC - 2026-01-31 18:30:00 UTC

Next Steps

Ingestion Ingest from files, TCP, or UDP.

Choosing a Flush Mode Trade off durability and throughput.

Configuration TOML, environment variables, and CLI flags.

Deployment Systemd, signals, and production hardening.