Install

Run it in two minutes.

No signup, no arguments. A clarify, a refuse, and a disclose print on your machine as real wire JSON.

Run it — Python

One command installs columna-core (the algebra) and columna-server (the wire + demo) — Apache-2.0, on PyPI; each is installable separately.

pip install columna
columna-server demo --play

Requires Python 3.10–3.13, 64-bit.

The three-mood transcript that prints is the same one this site is built from — generated by running the shipped package.

pip says “no matching distribution found for columna”

You are almost certainly on Python 3.14, or on 32-bit Python. columna-core depends on datasketches for HLL, and datasketches 5.x publishes no 3.14 wheels on any platform and no 32-bit Windows wheels at all. We declare requires-python = ">=3.10,<3.14" so pip refuses cleanly and says why, instead of dropping you into a C++ source build that fails minutes later. Install into a 3.10–3.13 64-bit interpreter.

Python 3.14 support arrives when datasketches ships cp314 wheels, or via the optional-extras split already scoped as WP-1.1.

Connect an agent — MCP

The demo serves five read-only tools over MCP stdio. To wire it into Claude Desktop, add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "columna": { "command": "columna-server", "args": ["demo"] }
  }
}

See the full config + a real clarify → refuse → disclose transcript.

Run the server — Docker

The read-only demo image (also what powers the live demo endpoint):

docker run --rm ghcr.io/datumwise/columna-demo demo --play

Serves only the packaged demo Manifold; read-only by construction.

Or just watch it run

The live demo on this site executes the same package against a hosted endpoint — see the four moods on the homepage ↓.