Backend end-of-life: understand-anything (now) and cognee (0.19)

Date: 2026-07-11 · Status: understand-anything executed; cognee scheduled for 0.19

Context

Post-v0.18.0, the default KG update and retrieval paths are fully in-house: the typed ResearchGraph pipeline writes the graph (native code-graph extractor included), and ask retrieves via the LLM planner over KG primitives. The three bolted-on backends no longer participate in the default loop:

• understand-anything merged its external knowledge-graph.json into the ResearchGraph at compile — code-structure nodes now redundantly covered by code_graph_extractor.py (356 files re-extracted natively in the v0.18.0 release smoke). External remote-install tool, chronically stale artifacts.
• cognee duplicated the graph outward into its own store (cognify pass, bundle export) and contributed nothing back; default-install behavior was actively harmful pre-0.18.0 (log spam + OperationalError inside ask).
• rag-anything is KEPT as an optional extra: multimodal document RAG is a capability the KG genuinely lacks; isolated behind enabled: false + [raganything] extras with real test coverage.

Stage 1 — understand-anything removal (this change)

Remove: understand_anything_adapter.py, understand_anything_refresh.py, the compile-time merge_understand_anything_graph call, UA branches in integrations refresh, deps.py detection, project_setup.py external-tool entries, the doctor backend_artifacts UA arm, docs/integrations/ understand-anything.md (+ its 7 i18n copies), and every wizard/help mention.

Stubs (exit 2, one line, per the no-silent-aliases convention):

• tesserae integrations refresh understand-anything → removed — code-structure nodes are extracted natively; see tesserae code ingest

Preserved: UA-minted nodes already in compiled graphs are ordinary nodes and remain valid; nothing rewrites history. external_tools config entries for UA are ignored with a one-line stderr note (not an error) so old configs load.

Stage 2 — cognee removal (execute in 0.19)

Remove: cognee_adapter.py, cognee_direct.py, cognee_query.py, the cognify pass + bundle export in project.py, query --backend cognee (+ --cognee-search-type, --cognee-dataset), the [cognee] extra, wizard mentions, and memory_backends.cognee handling (ignored-with-note on load).

Stubs:

• tesserae query --backend cognee → removed in 0.19 — cognee was demoted in 0.18 and never fed the graph; use plain query or ask

Grace rationale: query --backend cognee shipped in 0.18.0; one release of stub-grace before deletion. If anything depends on it in the wild, the 0.18 cycle is when we'd hear.

Non-goals

rag-anything stays. If it also goes unused, extract it into a plugin rather than deleting — it is the only backend with a capability the KG lacks.