Architecture
warning
This page is still under construction, and should be read as a scratchpad
Overview
- Jan has a modular architecture and is largely built on top of its own modules.
- Jan uses a local file-based approach for data persistence.
- Jan provides an Electron-based Desktop UI.
- Jan provides an embeddable inference engine, written in C++, called Nitro.
Extensions
Jan has an Extensions API inspired by VSCode. In fact, most of Jan's core services are built as extensions.
Jan supports the following OpenAI compatible extensions:
| Jan Module | Description | API Docs |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | Inference | /chats |
| Models | Models | /models |
| Assistants | Apps | /assistants |
| Threads | Conversations | /threads |
| Messages | Messages | /messages |
Modules
Modules are low level, system services. It is similar to OS kernel modules. Modules provide abstractions to basic, device level functionality like working with the filesystem, device system, databases, AI inference engines, etc.
Jan follows the dependency inversion principle such that modules expose the interfaces that extensions can then implement.