> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://toradb.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart

> From install to your first retrieval query

This guide gets you from install to your first retrieval query. Install ToraDB with `pip install toradb` ([Install](/install)), then continue below.

For the bundled `examples/full_example.py`, clone the [repository](https://github.com/sophatvathana/toradb) and run from the repo root.

## Run the bundled example

```bash theme={null}
python examples/full_example.py
```

This creates `examples/_demo_db` and walks through ingest, search strategies, SQL, and integrations.

## Use the CLI

```bash theme={null}
toradb query ./examples/_demo_db articles "Nikola Tesla motor"
toradb sql ./examples/_demo_db "SHOW TABLES"
toradb sql ./examples/_demo_db "SELECT tag, COUNT(*) FROM articles GROUP BY tag"
```

## Minimal Python flow

```python theme={null}
import toradb

db = toradb.local("./quickstart_db")
docs = db.create_table("docs", mode="text")
docs.add([
    "Nikola Tesla invented the alternating current induction motor",
    "Marie Curie studied radioactivity",
])

results = docs.search("Nikola Tesla alternating current motor", top_k=3)
print(results.to_pandas())
```

## Reindex (optional)

```bash theme={null}
toradb reindex ./quickstart_db docs --using BM25
```

## Next steps

* [Search strategies](/guides/search) — hybrid, dense, DiskANN, HYDE, CRAG
* [SQL guide](/guides/sql) — retrieval and analytics
* [Python SDK](/guides/python) — tables, ingest, and results
* [Contributing](/community/contributing) — development workflow


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.