Getting Started

Install Traverse, start the server, and run your first query in under five minutes.

Install

Download the latest release from the Traverse product page or follow the instructions for your platform:

Latest version: 0.5.0

# Download and extract
curl -LO /releases/traverse/latest/traverse-v0.5.0-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
tar xzf traverse-v0.5.0-x86_64-linux.tar.gz

# Move to PATH (optional)
sudo mv traverse-server traverse-cli traverse-admin traverse-bench /usr/local/bin/

# Start the server
traverse-server

# Download and extract
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri /releases/traverse/latest/traverse-0.5.0-x86_64-windows.zip -OutFile traverse.zip
Expand-Archive traverse.zip -DestinationPath traverse

# Start the server
.\traverse\traverse-server.exe

# Pull the image
docker pull truespar/traverse

# Run the server
docker run -p 7690:7690 -p 7691:7691 truespar/traverse

# With persistent data
docker run -p 7690:7690 -p 7691:7691 \
  -v traverse-data:/data \
  truespar/traverse --data /data

Each release includes four binaries: traverse-server, traverse-cli, traverse-admin, and traverse-bench.

Start the Server

Traverse runs fully in-memory by default. To persist databases to disk, add --data pointing to a directory. Each database is stored as a .tvdb file:

mkdir data
traverse-server --data ./data

The server listens on two ports:

• Bolt protocol on port 7690 — for drivers and the CLI
• HTTP API + Studio on port 7691 — for the web UI and REST API

On startup the server prints an API key (prefixed tvs_). You will need this to log in to Studio.

Connect with Studio

Open http://localhost:7691 in your browser. Enter the API key printed at startup to log in. Studio provides a visual query editor, graph explorer, schema browser, and import tools.

Connect with the CLI

The CLI connects via the Bolt protocol:

traverse-cli
# or specify a host
traverse-cli --bolt bolt://localhost:7690

Once connected you can run Cypher queries interactively:

traverse> CREATE (a:Person {name: "Alice"})-[:KNOWS]->(b:Person {name: "Bob"}) RETURN a, b;
traverse> MATCH (n:Person) RETURN n.name;

See the CLI reference for meta-commands and output formats.

Connect with a Bolt Driver

Traverse speaks Bolt 5.1–6.0, so any compatible driver works. Point it at bolt://localhost:7690:

from neo4j import GraphDatabase

driver = GraphDatabase.driver("bolt://localhost:7690")
with driver.session() as session:
    result = session.run("MATCH (n) RETURN n LIMIT 5")
    for record in result:
        print(record)

See the driver guides for your language: Python, JavaScript, Java, Go, Rust, .NET.

Import Data

For small datasets, use Cypher CREATE statements. For larger imports, use the admin tool:

# Import CSV files into a new .tvdb database
traverse-admin import \
  --nodes Person=people.csv \
  --edges KNOWS=friendships.csv \
  --output ./data/social.tvdb

Or import Cypher scripts:

traverse-admin cypher-import \
  --input data.cypher \
  --output ./data/mydb.tvdb

Restart the server (or start with the data directory) to load the new database. See Admin for the full import reference.

Next Steps

• Server Configuration — environment variables, TOML config, authentication
• Cypher — supported query language syntax
• HTTP API — REST endpoints for programmatic access
• Bench — download datasets and benchmark performance