Structured, quantitative
Tables, transactions, logs, metrics.
Context Lake
Build agents that
know the right answer
The Context Lake is the unified context layer for enterprise data, giving every agent governed, up-to-date facts linked to their sources.
Teams that use Zep
Teams that use Zep
Context is scattered across the business
Agents need the right context to complete tasks correctly. That context spans business systems, documents, and conversations. Unifying it across agents requires governance, isolation, and retrieval at scale.
The Context Lake unifies that context in one governed system, serving what each agent’s task requires.
Across every agent. Every user.
Every source of data.
Every source of data.
Context Lake
one system of record across all of it
Context graphs at scale
The Context Lake
The Context Lake unifies enterprise data into millions of context graphs, managed and governed as one system. It runs on Konig, Zep’s graph database service.
Context Lake1,402,891active graphs
| Type | Subject | Entities | Facts | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| User | user_8a32e1f9 | 247 | 1,204 | 2m |
| Org | customer_acme_co | 89 | 412 | 14s |
| Agent | agent_voyager | 1,820 | 9,330 | now |
| Domain | domain_billing | 64 | 218 | 5m |
| User | user_d72b40c1 | 186 | 731 | 1m |
| Org | customer_initech | 142 | 603 | 38s |
| Agent | agent_atlas_v3 | 2,447 | 10,580 | 12s |
| Domain | domain_pricing | 31 | 127 | 8m |
Access controlRetentionProvenanceAudit
Retrieval latency · p95
10K148 ms
100K152 ms
1M156 ms
10M161 ms
100M168 ms
Retrieval under 200ms
Zep retrieves context in under 200 milliseconds, regardless of graph size or count.
Governance in the data layer
Zep enforces access and retention policies across graphs and records query activity for audit—all within the data layer.
Acme is migrating to Entra ID.
↓ traced_fromSlack messagepriya.shah · 2026-03-09
“We’re moving from Okta to Entra ID this quarter.”Trace facts to sources
Trace each fact to the source it came from, and audit any answer back to its origin.
Unified context
How Context Lake works
Zep ingests data from across your business, builds a context graph for each user, customer, account, or domain, and retrieves the context each task needs.
1 Ingest
Send data from across your business
Each record keeps a link to its source.
Business data
Documents
Conversations
2 Build
Build a context graph for each user, account, or domain
Facts are dated and updated as your data changes.
3 Retrieve
Retrieve the context each task depends on
Filtered by policy and returned in one call.
Policy filter
Account: Acme
Renewal: October 31
SSO setup is blocked.
Confirm SSO setup
before renewal.Next to your data lake, not instead of it
Keep your data lake for analytics. Use the Context Lake to provide context for agents.
Data
Your Data Lake
Structured, quantitative
Tables, transactions, logs, metrics.
Context Lake
Structured and unstructured data
Use records, documents, conversations, and events as sources of context.
Query model
Your Data Lake
SQL, batch analytics
Optimized for aggregation and retrospective analysis.
Context Lake
Graph traversal, semantic
Temporal context graphs with entity-aware retrieval.
Latency
Your Data Lake
Seconds-to-minutes
Batch jobs, scheduled pipelines, dashboard refresh.
Context Lake
Sub-200ms retrieval
Real-time context at agent inference speed.
Consumers
Your Data Lake
Dashboards & ML
BI tools, data scientists, reporting pipelines.
Context Lake
Agents & assistants
Agents and assistants retrieve context for their tasks.
Governance
Your Data Lake
Row & column ACLs
Table-level permissions, role-based access.
Context Lake
Entity-level ABAC
Attribute-based policies, retention rules, full audit trail.
Recognition
Context infrastructure for the enterprise
“We can easily see Zep becoming a de facto partner in this layer of the enterprise agent stack.”
Research
We wrote the paper on context graphs
January 2025 · arXiv 2501.13956Runs in Graphiti and Zep
Shared context, governed access
Policies decide what context each agent can retrieve and which skills it can use. Every request is logged.
Access control
Attribute-based access control
Use attributes to control what context each agent can retrieve.
Retention
Retention policies
Data expires on the schedule you set. Legal hold blocks deletion when compliance requires it.
Audit trail
22:14/graph/search200115ms
22:11/entity/search4034ms
22:09/graph/search200110ms
Audit and API logs
Detailed logs of every request and access decision, ready for audit.
Choose where to deploy Zep
Zep Cloud, Zep Cloud with your own encryption keys, or a deployment in your VPC.
Managed
Cloud
Use Zep's managed service. No infrastructure to run. Start in minutes.
- SOC 2 Type II
- HIPAA BAA
BYOK
Cloud + Your Own Keys
Use Zep's managed service with your own encryption keys. You control the keys that encrypt data at rest.
- SOC 2 Type II
- HIPAA BAA
BYOC
Bring Your Own Cloud
Deploy Zep inside your VPC. Your network, your perimeter, your compliance boundary.
Start with the Context Lake
Unify your business data into governed context for your agents.