Storage

Store files, images, and attachments alongside your Crow data. Storage uses S3-compatible object storage (MinIO) so your files stay on your own infrastructure.

What is this?

Crow Storage gives your AI assistant the ability to save and retrieve files. It connects to a MinIO instance (or any S3-compatible service) running alongside your Crow server.

Files are organized by type — images, documents, audio, attachments — and accessible through MCP tools, HTTP endpoints, or the dashboard file browser.

Why would I want this?

• Research attachments — Save PDFs, datasets, and images alongside your research projects
• Blog assets — Upload images for blog posts without needing a separate hosting service
• File sharing — Share files with connected peers through the existing P2P sharing system
• Backup — Keep important files in a self-hosted storage layer you control

Setup

Storage requires a MinIO instance. The easiest way is Docker:

docker compose --profile full up --build

This starts MinIO alongside the gateway. For standalone MinIO:

docker run -d \
  --name minio \
  -p 9000:9000 \
  -p 9001:9001 \
  -v minio-data:/data \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=crowadmin \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=your-secure-password \
  minio/minio server /data --console-address ":9001"

Then add these to your .env:

MINIO_ENDPOINT=localhost
MINIO_PORT=9000
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=crowadmin
MINIO_SECRET_KEY=your-secure-password
MINIO_BUCKET=crow-storage
MINIO_USE_SSL=false

Run npm run mcp-config to regenerate your MCP configuration.

Uploading Files

Through your AI

Ask Crow to upload a file:

"Upload this image to storage"

"Save the PDF at ~/Downloads/paper.pdf to my research files"

Crow uses the crow_upload_file tool behind the scenes.

Through HTTP

Upload via the gateway's HTTP endpoint:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3001/storage/upload \
  -F "file=@photo.jpg" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

Through the dashboard

Open the Files panel in the dashboard and use the upload button. You can drag and drop files directly.

Browsing Files

Ask Crow to list your files:

"Show me my stored files"

"List all images in storage"

Or browse them visually in the dashboard's Files panel.

Getting File URLs

To use a stored file (for example, in a blog post or shared document):

"Get the URL for header-image.jpg"

Crow generates a presigned URL that expires after a configurable period (default: 1 hour). This keeps your files private while allowing temporary access.

Storage Quotas

Crow enforces a configurable storage quota (default: 5 GB / 5120 MB). Check your usage:

"How much storage am I using?"

The crow_storage_stats tool returns current usage, file count, and remaining quota. Adjust the quota in your .env:

CROW_STORAGE_QUOTA_MB=2048

Supported File Types

Storage validates MIME types before accepting uploads. Allowed types include:

• Images: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG
• Documents: PDF, plain text, Markdown, HTML
• Data: JSON, CSV, XML
• Audio: MP3, WAV, OGG

Unrecognized or potentially dangerous file types (executables, scripts) are rejected.

Deleting Files

"Delete the file old-draft.pdf from storage"

Deletion is permanent. Files are removed from both MinIO and the database index.