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

# qOS — the agentic operating system

> qOS is the operating system HQ built for agents, in Rust, top to bottom — a data layer of its own systems rather than a stack of stapled-together APIs.

Every HQ conversation runs on a real, hardware-isolated machine, and that machine runs **qOS** — the operating system we built for agents. It is written in Rust, top to bottom. We didn't staple it together from other people's APIs; we built the data layer ourselves, so agents never wait on someone else's infrastructure.

For where this fits in the wider picture — the roster of specialists and the machine behind each conversation — see [How HQ works](/concepts/how-hq-works).

## Why build the layer ourselves

The systems below run in production for large-scale ingestion. Building them ourselves, in Rust, is a choice about performance and robustness: an agent reaches search, cache, storage, a graph, email, a browser, documents, and extraction without leaving the platform, and the model layer and memory sit right next to them, sharing the same hardware, isolation, and audit trail.

## The data layer

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Search">
    Hybrid keyword and semantic search across everything, served from memory. Typesense-compatible, rebuilt in Rust.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Cache">
    Microsecond-class shared memory — a multi-threaded, Redis-class in-memory store with a same-machine shared-memory path.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Storage">
    Object storage for every artifact — an S3-compatible, masterless store with self-healing and erasure coding.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Graph">
    Query connected data — an in-memory graph database speaking openCypher and ISO GQL over Neo4j-compatible Bolt.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Content & I/O

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Email">
    Send and receive real email — a two-way mail platform that authenticates and classifies inbound, with the full DKIM, SPF, DMARC, and ARC stack.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Browser">
    Drive a real web browser — a custom browser built in Rust that behaves like a person on the live web. See [Web & browser control](/concepts/browser).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Documents">
    Read and parse PDFs — a native-quality document engine with text extraction, forms, redaction, and signing.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Extraction">
    Pull data out of any file — one Rust library for image metadata and PDF text, images, and structure.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Runtime

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Inference">
    Frontier models, and our own — multi-model routing across providers, plus open models on GPUs we run. See [Models & inference](/concepts/models).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Memory">
    Remembers and learns from work — a layered memory system that consolidates between sessions, with user-facing governance.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Skills">
    Composable, per-agent skills — enable, disable, or tailor them per agent; an agent can install what else it needs.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Integrations">
    Connect the tools you use — MCP-native, with local CLIs first-class, all in one safe environment.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Note>
  Each agent reaches a broad range of tools through MCP and locally installed CLIs and skills, all in one sandbox that behaves like a normal Linux server, fully the agent's.
</Note>