Carnelia is an open-source research and engineering collective dedicated to removing the "Metadata Tax" from decentralized applications. We believe that for the local-first movement to succeed, it must scale beyond small documents and basic todo-apps. Our mission is to provide developers with a robust, production-grade database primitive that offers the auditability of a blockchain with the lightweight performance of a local SQLite file.

Our Core Initiative Our primary project is the Carnelia Engine, a Rust-based, lock-free database built on a novel Epoch-based Merkle Pruning (EMP) architecture. Unlike traditional CRDTs that suffer from unbounded history growth, Carnelia utilizes Merkle-DAGs to allow for secure, verifiable "state-checkpointing." This enables:

The 2026 Goal By the end of 2026, we aim to release the Carnelia 1.0 Core, accompanied by a suite of "Zero-Config" connectors for the modern web stack (React, Node.js, and PGlite). We are building for the next generation of Edge AI Agents and Privacy-First Collaboration Tools—software that needs to be as fast, resilient, and sovereign as the users who own it.

Why Support Us? The local-first ecosystem is currently fragmented between heavy academic frameworks and simplistic sync-layers. Carnelia sits in the middle: high-performance engineering that is accessible to every developer. Your support helps us fund deep-tech research, maintain our Rust core, and keep our infrastructure open and free for the many.