FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Short answers about branching, time travel, merge, and running agents against MongoDB. Something missing? Ask in Discussions.

01What is Argon?

Argon is an open-source (MIT) versioning layer for MongoDB. It adds Git-style branching, time travel, reviewable merges, and per-actor undo on top of real MongoDB — without replacing it. See features for the full list.

02Does MongoDB support branching natively?

No. MongoDB has no built-in branching, time travel, or merge. Postgres has Neon and MySQL has PlanetScale; Argon fills that gap for MongoDB as a self-hosted, open-source engine. Background: MongoDB database branching, explained.

03How is a branch different from mongodump/mongorestore?

A dump is a full copy with no shared history and no way to merge back. An Argon branch is a pointer into shared history — created in milliseconds at any data size, a few hundred bytes of metadata — and it stays a live, queryable database you can diff, merge, or discard.

04Do I need to change my application code or drivers?

No. argon checkout materializes a branch into a real MongoDB database and prints an ordinary connection string. Any driver, mongosh, or Compass connects to it — no SDK, no code changes.

05What are the requirements?

MongoDB running as a replica set (a one-node replica set is fine) or Atlas — change-stream capture does not work on a standalone mongod. The engine is a single Go binary, installed via Homebrew or npm, and is fully self-hosted.

06Is Argon free and open source?

Yes. Argon is MIT-licensed and self-hosted — the open-source engine is the product; the hosted console is a demo.

07How do AI agents use Argon?

Each agent gets its own TTL sandbox branch — a real MongoDB it can write to freely. You review the diff and merge what works, or discard the branch. Argon ships an MCP server (13 tools, listed in the official MCP Registry as io.github.argon-lab/argon) plus a LangGraph checkpointer and Mem0 factory via the argon-agents Python package. Details: Argon for agents.

08Is time travel a replacement for backups?

No. Keep real backups or point-in-time recovery for disaster recovery. Time travel is for everything short of catastrophe: debugging on historical data, audits, and recovering a collection by branching from just before the mistake — all without touching the live database. More: time travel vs PITR.

09How fast is creating a branch?

Milliseconds, independent of database size — a branch is a metadata write, not a copy. Every published number comes from the open benchmark suite you can run yourself with docker compose up.

10How do I install Argon?

brew install argon-lab/tap/argonctl on macOS, or npm install -g argonctl cross-platform. For agent frameworks: pip install "argon-agents[langgraph]". Then step through the interactive demo.