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/CHLODSwitch to the working branch (v1):
git switch v1If you just want to test and see the current progress:
docker compose up --buildIf 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 viaglobal.cssusing tweakcn.
Setup:
cd heritage_graph_ui
npm install
npm run devAccess the app at:
- Landing page → http://localhost:3000
- Dashboard → http://localhost:3000/dashboard
The backend is powered by Django REST Framework and uses Clerk.com for authentication.
⚠️ Note: Make sure to set up the required.envfile (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 migrateCreate a superuser (optional, for admin access):
python manage.py createsuperuserRun the backend:
python manage.py runserverAccess the backend at:
- API → http://localhost:8000
- Admin dashboard → http://localhost:8000/admin (use superuser credentials)
- Start from the
v1branch. - Open an issue or submit a PR with improvements.
The license for this project is yet to be finalized. We’ll choose one that both empowers the community and benefits this project :-)