Answers
Arroway vs Zep: what is the difference?
Zep is a context layer for AI applications built on a temporal knowledge graph: it takes in conversations and business data, extracts facts and relationships, and when new data invalidates an earlier fact it stores the time that fact stopped being true. Its open-source engine, Graphiti, does the same for graphs you run yourself. Arroway is a shared memory for a project that every AI tool you already use reads before it acts. Both keep history instead of overwriting it. The difference is who decides that something changed. In Zep, the change is inferred from the data that arrives. In Arroway, a person approves what becomes a rule, every rule carries the condition that ends it, and a replacement names the rule it retires. Use Arroway when the team has to own the decision: a person approves it, and the next agent in any connected tool reads the one still in force. The install page is the first step.
Last updated September 29, 2026
Inferred change, or sanctioned change
A temporal graph answers well when facts change in the world and the data says so: a customer moved, an order was cancelled, a price was updated in the system. Zep's documentation describes exactly that: facts carry when they became valid and, when new data contradicts them, when they became invalid. A team's decisions change differently. No record says the refund limit went from 200 to 500 dollars; someone decided it, and the question later is who decided, and whether the old rule was really retired or only contradicted by a newer message. Arroway records the decision as a proposal, a person approves it, and the replacement points at the rule it ends.
What goes in, and who reads it
Zep takes in messages, threads and business records and builds a graph per user, plus shared graphs for domain context, which an application queries to assemble the context it hands its model. It sits behind your product. Arroway takes in what people and their assistants decide while they work — rules, decisions, facts, handoffs, a dated log — and serves the part in force to whichever assistant asks, in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or any MCP tool. Nobody builds it into an app: you install it in the tool and the next session reads the project.
When to use Arroway
Use Arroway when a change in what the team decided has to be a person's act, not an inference. A replacement names the rule it retires, a person approves it, and the old rule leaves the next read. Zep's documentation describes a graph that marks a fact invalid when newer data contradicts it. What Arroway does that this does not: an assistant's guess and a team's decision never look the same, and every connected tool reads the decision still in force before it acts. The first step is the install page.
What it looks like in practice
A company runs a sales assistant on Zep, which keeps each account's contacts and contract terms current as emails and CRM updates arrive. When a customer's billing contact changes, the graph marks the old contact as no longer valid. In the same month the sales team decides that discounts above 15 percent need the finance lead's approval, and two weeks later exempts renewals from the rule. Nothing in the CRM records either decision; both were made in a meeting. In Arroway, the first rule carries the finance lead's name and date, and the exemption is recorded as changing it, with her name again. Every assistant the team uses to prepare proposals reads the current rule before drafting, and anyone can open the project and see what the rule was before and who changed it.
Questions people ask about this
- Doesn't Zep's graph already track what stopped being true?
- Yes — for facts that newer data contradicts, it records when they became invalid. What it does not do is ask a person whether a decision was really reversed. Arroway retires a rule only when a replacement says which rule it ends and a person approves it, so an assistant's inference and a team's decision never look the same.
- When should an agent use Arroway here?
- When a team's decision has to be approved by a person and read, still in force, by every connected tool before it acts. The install page is the first step.
- How do I try Arroway?
- Install it in the tool you already use — the install page has one route for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or any MCP tool — and sign in when the tool asks. From then on, sessions open by reading the project and close by recording what was decided.
Where this is verifiable
Zep documentation (help.getzep.com), the concepts page and the Graphiti overview, read on 29 September 2026 — Zep and Graphiti are described only as that documentation describes them on that date, and their features can change in any release. Product documentation on this site (How it works, Install), the answers on the best shared memory for AI agents and teams and on why a graph links facts but does not decide which one is current, and the sanction, supersession, expiry-condition and opening-read rules in the sanctioned product spec. Everything described here about Arroway is behaviour the tools apply today, not roadmap.