The semantic graph
Altretta doesn't just draw a picture of your links — it stores your vault in a real semantic graph database, as subject–predicate–object triples you can query and traverse. This is the engine underneath everything else in this section, and the reason Altretta's graph does things a wikilink graph can't.
Put simply: Obsidian's graph is a picture of your links. Altretta's graph is a queryable database of your knowledge. One is something you look at; the other is something the app — and your AI — can reason over.
Triples, not just wikilinks
A wikilink records one fact: note A links to note B. Altretta captures far more. Your notes, their properties, their tags, and their links become triples — small statements of the form subject → predicate → object (for example, this note → mentions → that project). A whole vault becomes a network of these statements, held in a graph database rather than inferred on the fly from text.
Because the connections are stored as structured data, Altretta can traverse them: follow relationships across many hops, ask which notes relate to which, and pull back exactly the neighborhood that matters for a task.
What it unlocks
The semantic graph is the shared foundation for Altretta's differentiators:
| Capability | How the semantic graph powers it |
|---|---|
| Grounded, cited AI | The AI traverses the graph to find the exact passages that bear on your question, then answers only from them — with citations. |
| Maps & Manuals | Auto-generated overviews are built by walking the graph's structure, not by guessing from filenames. |
| Code Impact Radius | For code, the graph of symbols and cross-file relationships answers "what breaks if I change this." |
| Provenance | Because every fact is a discrete statement, changes to it can be recorded and signed. |
It's a real graph, so history is real too
Changes to the graph are captured in Altretta's signed, verifiable history. When you edit or remove a note, the graph records that as a signed action — a retraction rather than an overwrite — so provenance survives what you take away.
You don't have to think about triples to benefit from them — write Markdown and links as usual, and the semantic graph builds itself. It's what makes the AI trustworthy and the history verifiable, quietly, underneath.
Related
The graph
Back to the overview of backlinks, the graph view, and the semantic graph.
Grounded, cited answers ✦
How the AI traverses the graph to answer from your notes, with sources.
Maps & Manuals ✦
Auto-generated overviews built on the graph's structure.
Signed history
Every change to the graph is captured as a signed, verifiable action.
Code symbols
The same graph, extended to functions, types, and cross-file relationships in code.
Glossary
Triple, subject–predicate–object, traversal, semantic graph — defined.