CodeGraph

🎉 1.0 Released!

Already installed? Run codegraph upgrade to update in place.

Follow @getcodegraph on X for updates.

Supercharge Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode, Hermes Agent, Gemini, Antigravity, and Kiro with Semantic Code Intelligence

~16% cheaper · ~58% fewer tool calls · 100% local

Documentation & Website →

The CodeGraph platform is coming — for every PR, know exactly what to test, what could break, which flows are affected, and whether business logic is compromised.

Get early beta access to the hosted product · getcodegraph.com

Related MCP server: astllm-mcp

Get Started

1. Install the CLI

No Node.js required — one command grabs the right build for your OS:

# macOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colbymchenry/codegraph/main/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colbymchenry/codegraph/main/install.ps1 | iex

npm i -g @colbymchenry/codegraph

CodeGraph bundles its own runtime — nothing to compile, no native build, works the same everywhere. The installer puts codegraph on your PATH but doesn't change your current shell — open a new terminal before the next step so the command resolves.

Upgrade any time with codegraph upgrade — it detects how you installed (bundle, npm, or npx) and updates in place. Add --check to see if an update is available, or codegraph upgrade <version> to pin one.

2. Wire up your agent(s)

In a new terminal, run the installer to connect CodeGraph to the agents you use:

codegraph install

Detects and auto-configures Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, opencode, Hermes Agent, Gemini CLI, Antigravity IDE, and Kiro — wiring the CodeGraph MCP server into each. This is the step that connects CodeGraph to your agent; installing the CLI in step 1 does not do it on its own. (Shortcut: npx @colbymchenry/codegraph downloads and runs this in one go.)

3. Initialize each project

cd your-project
codegraph init

codegraph init creates the local .codegraph/ directory and builds the full graph in the same step — one command, done.

4. No more syncing!

Auto-sync is enabled by default. CodeGraph watches the project and updates the graph on every file change — while your agent edits code, or you add, modify, or delete files. The index is never stale, and there is nothing to re-run.

Uninstall

Changed your mind? One command removes CodeGraph from every agent it configured:

codegraph uninstall

Reverses the installer — strips CodeGraph's MCP server config, instructions, and permissions from each configured agent. Your project indexes (.codegraph/) are left untouched; remove those per-project with codegraph uninit. Use --target to remove from specific agents, or --yes to run non-interactively.

Why CodeGraph?

When Claude Code explores a codebase, it spawns Explore agents that scan files with grep, glob, and Read — consuming tokens on every tool call.

CodeGraph gives those agents a pre-indexed knowledge graph — symbol relationships, call graphs, and code structure. Agents query the graph instantly instead of scanning files.

Benchmark Results

Tested across 7 real-world open-source codebases spanning 7 languages, comparing an agent (Claude Code, headless) answering one architecture question with and without CodeGraph. Each cell is the savings at the median of 4 runs per arm. Re-validated on Opus 4.8 (2026-06-02), on the current build (codegraph_explore as the primary tool).

Average: 16% cheaper · 47% fewer tokens · 22% faster · 58% fewer tool calls

CodeGraph cuts tokens, tool calls, and wall-clock time on every repo — across small, medium, and large codebases — and answers them with near-zero file reads, while the no-CodeGraph agent spends its budget on grep/find/Read discovery. codegraph_explore shows the answer in full — the mechanism plus the exact methods you asked about, even when they're buried in a multi-thousand-line file — while collapsing redundant interchangeable implementations to signatures, so the response is sized to the answer rather than the file count. Cost stays flat-to-cheaper everywhere — largest on the small repos (Alamofire, OkHttp), roughly break-even on the most response-heavy ones (Excalidraw, Tokio), where CodeGraph trades the no-CodeGraph agent's many small grep/read round-trips for a few large, cache-heavy tool responses.

VS Code · ~10k files

Excalidraw · ~640 files

Django · ~3k files

Tokio · ~790 files

OkHttp · ~645 files

Gin · ~110 files

Alamofire · ~110 files

Methodology. Each arm is claude -p (Claude Opus 4.8) run headlessly against the repo with --strict-mcp-config: WITH = CodeGraph's MCP server enabled, WITHOUT = an empty MCP config. Built-in Read/Grep/Bash stay available to both. Same question per repo, 4 runs per arm, median reported. Cost = the run's total_cost_usd; Tokens = total tokens processed (input incl. cached + output); Time = wall-clock; Tool calls = every tool invocation, including those inside any sub-agents the model spawns. Repos cloned at --depth 1 and indexed by the same CodeGraph build that served them. Re-validated 2026-06-02 on the current build. These numbers are lower than the prior Opus 4.7 validation — not a CodeGraph regression but a stronger native baseline: Opus 4.8 greps/reads efficiently on the main thread instead of fanning out into large Explore-subagent sweeps, so the no-CodeGraph arm is leaner than it used to be. Per-repo numbers move run-to-run with how hard the without-arm thrashes (the median-of-4 smooths it, but tails remain — e.g. Django's without-arm hit $2.71/14m one batch).

Queries:

Why CodeGraph wins: with the index available, the agent answers directly — usually one codegraph_explore returns the relevant source — and stops, usually with zero file reads. Without it, the agent spends most of its budget on discovery (find/ls/grep) before reading the right code. CodeGraph only helps when queried directly, so its instructions steer agents to answer directly rather than delegate exploration to file-reading sub-agents — otherwise a sub-agent reads files regardless and CodeGraph becomes overhead.

Key Features

When your agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, opencode) launches codegraph serve --mcp, three layers keep the index in step with your code — and make sure the agent never gets a silent wrong answer in the brief window between an edit and the next sync:

1. File watcher with debounced auto-sync. A native FSEvents / inotify / ReadDirectoryChangesW watcher captures every source-file create / modify / delete and triggers a re-index after a debounce window (default 2000ms, tunable via CODEGRAPH_WATCH_DEBOUNCE_MS, clamped to [100ms, 60s]). Bursts of edits collapse into a single sync.

2. Per-file staleness banner. During the brief debounce window, MCP tool responses that would reference a still-pending file prepend a ⚠️ banner naming it and telling the agent to Read it directly. Pending files NOT referenced by the response surface as a small footer instead. Either way, the agent gets an explicit signal — validated with Claude Code, where the agent literally says "Reading the file directly for the live content" before opening it.

3. Connect-time catch-up. When the MCP server (re)connects, codegraph runs a fast (size, mtime) + content-hash reconciliation against the working tree before answering the first query — so edits made while no MCP server was running (a git pull from the terminal, edits from another editor, a previous agent session that exited) get absorbed on the next session's first tool call.

agent writes src/Widget.ts
  → watcher fires (<100ms)
  → debounce (default 2s)
  → sync; Widget.ts is in the index
  → next agent query sees it

Verify any time with codegraph_status (via MCP) or codegraph status (CLI). If anything is pending, you'll see a ### Pending sync: section naming the files and their edit age.

The handful of cases where manual codegraph sync makes sense: the watcher is disabled (sandboxed environments, or CODEGRAPH_NO_DAEMON=1), or you're scripting against the index outside an agent session and want a pre-flight sync at the start of your script.

→ Full deep-dive in Guides → Indexing a Project.

Framework-aware Routes

CodeGraph detects web-framework routing files and emits route nodes linked by references edges to their handler classes or functions. Querying callers of a view/controller now surfaces the URL pattern that binds it.

Mixed iOS / React Native / Expo bridging

Real iOS and React Native codebases live across multiple languages — a Swift caller invokes an Objective-C selector that's been auto-bridged, a JS file calls into a native module via the React Native bridge, a JSX component delegates to a native view manager. Static tree-sitter extraction stops at each language boundary. CodeGraph bridges them so trace, callers, callees, and impact connect end-to-end across the gap.

Validated on real codebases (small + medium + large for each bridge):

Each bridge emits edges tagged provenance:'heuristic' with metadata.synthesizedBy: set to a stable channel name (e.g. swift-objc-bridge, rn-event-channel, fabric-native-impl, expo-module-extract), so the agent can tell at a glance how a hop got into the graph.

Quick Start

1. Run the Installer

npx @colbymchenry/codegraph

The installer will:

• Ask which agent(s) to configure — auto-detects installed ones from: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, opencode, Hermes Agent, Gemini CLI, Antigravity IDE, Kiro

• Prompt to install codegraph on your PATH (so agents can launch the MCP server)

• Ask whether configs apply to all your projects or just this one

• Write each chosen agent's MCP server config, plus a small marker-fenced CodeGraph section in the agent's instructions file (CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / GEMINI.md) — that's how subagents and non-MCP agents learn the codegraph explore / codegraph node commands, since the MCP server's own guidance only reaches the main agent. Removed cleanly by codegraph uninstall.

• Set up auto-allow permissions when Claude Code is one of the targets

• Initialize your current project (local installs only)

Non-interactive (scripting / CI):

codegraph install --yes                              # auto-detect agents, install global
codegraph install --target=cursor,claude --yes       # explicit target list
codegraph install --target=auto --location=local     # detected agents, project-local
codegraph install --print-config codex               # print snippet, no file writes

2. Restart Your Agent

Restart your agent (Claude Code / Cursor / Codex CLI / opencode / Hermes Agent / Gemini CLI / Antigravity IDE / Kiro) for the MCP server to load.

3. Initialize Projects

cd your-project
codegraph init

Builds the per-project knowledge graph index, which then auto-syncs on every file change. A single global codegraph install works in every project you open — no need to re-run the installer per project.

That's it — your agent will use CodeGraph tools automatically when a .codegraph/ directory exists.

Install globally:

npm install -g @colbymchenry/codegraph

Add to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codegraph": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "codegraph",
      "args": ["serve", "--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.claude/settings.json (optional, for auto-allow):

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_search",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_explore",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_callers",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_callees",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_impact",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_node",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_status",
      "mcp__codegraph__codegraph_files"
    ]
  }
}

CodeGraph's MCP server delivers its usage guidance to your agent automatically, in the MCP initialize response. In short, it tells the agent to:

• Answer structural questions directly with CodeGraph — it is the pre-built index, so a grep/read loop just repeats work it already did. Treat the returned source as already read.

• Pick the tool by intent: codegraph_explore for almost anything — "how does X work", a flow/"how does X reach Y", or surveying an area (one call returns the relevant symbols' source grouped by file); codegraph_search to just locate a symbol; codegraph_callers for every call site (including callback registrations); codegraph_node for one symbol's full source + callers, or to read a file like the Read tool.

• Trust the results — don't re-verify with grep, and check the staleness banner after edits.

• In a workspace with no index, CodeGraph announces itself inactive and serves no tools — indexing stays your decision.

The exact text is src/mcp/server-instructions.ts — the single source of truth for the main agent. Because subagents and non-MCP harnesses never see the MCP guidance, the installer also writes a four-line marker-fenced section into the agent's instructions file pointing at the codegraph explore / codegraph node CLI equivalents.

How It Works

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                            Claude Code                            │
│                                                                   │
│   "How does a request reach the database?"                        │
│       calls CodeGraph tools directly — no Explore sub-agent       │
│                                 │                                 │
└─────────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┘
                                  │
                                  ▼
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        CodeGraph MCP Server                       │
│                                                                   │
│       explore · search · callers · callees · impact · node        │
│                                 │                                 │
│                                 ▼                                 │
│                       SQLite knowledge graph                      │
│          symbols · edges · files · FTS5 full-text search          │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

1. Extraction — tree-sitter parses source code into ASTs. Language-specific queries extract nodes (functions, classes, methods) and edges (calls, imports, extends, implements).

2. Storage — Everything goes into a local SQLite database (.codegraph/codegraph.db) with FTS5 full-text search.

3. Resolution — After extraction, references are resolved: function calls → definitions, imports → source files, class inheritance, and framework-specific patterns.

4. Auto-Sync — The MCP server watches your project using native OS file events. Changes are debounced (2-second quiet window), filtered to source files only, and incrementally synced. The graph stays fresh as you code — no configuration needed.

CLI Reference

codegraph                         # Run interactive installer
codegraph install                 # Run installer (explicit)
codegraph uninstall               # Remove CodeGraph from your agents (inverse of install)
codegraph init [path]             # Initialize in a project (--index to also index)
codegraph uninit [path]           # Remove CodeGraph from a project (--force to skip prompt)
codegraph index [path]            # Full index (--force to re-index, --quiet for less output)
codegraph sync [path]             # Incremental update
codegraph status [path]           # Show statistics
codegraph unlock [path]           # Remove a stale lock file that's blocking indexing
codegraph query <search>          # Search symbols (--kind, --limit, --json)
codegraph explore <query>         # Relevant symbols' source + call paths in one shot (same output as the codegraph_explore MCP tool)
codegraph node <symbol|file>      # One symbol's source + callers, or read a file with line numbers (same output as codegraph_node)
codegraph files [path]            # Show file structure (--format, --filter, --max-depth, --json)
codegraph callers <symbol>        # Find what calls a function/method (--limit, --json)
codegraph callees <symbol>        # Find what a function/method calls (--limit, --json)
codegraph impact <symbol>         # Analyze what code is affected by changing a symbol (--depth, --json)
codegraph affected [files...]     # Find test files affected by changes (see below)
codegraph daemon                  # Manage background daemons — pick one to stop (alias: daemons)
codegraph telemetry [on|off]      # Show or change anonymous usage telemetry
codegraph upgrade [version]       # Update to the latest release (--check, --force)
codegraph version                 # Print the installed version (also -v, --version)
codegraph help [command]          # Show help, optionally for one command

codegraph affected

Traces import dependencies transitively to find which test files are affected by changed source files.

codegraph affected src/utils.ts src/api.ts         # Pass files as arguments
git diff --name-only | codegraph affected --stdin   # Pipe from git diff
codegraph affected src/auth.ts --filter "e2e/*"     # Custom test file pattern

CI/hook example:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
AFFECTED=$(git diff --name-only HEAD | codegraph affected --stdin --quiet)
if [ -n "$AFFECTED" ]; then
  npx vitest run $AFFECTED
fi

MCP Tools

When running as an MCP server, CodeGraph exposes a focused set of four tools — measured agent behavior showed a leaner list steers agents to the right tool and saves context every session:

Four more tools (codegraph_callees, codegraph_impact, codegraph_files, codegraph_status) stay fully functional but unlisted by default — measured across eval runs, agents never or rarely picked them, and their information already arrives inline on the four above (explore's blast-radius section, node's dependents note, a symbol's body as its callee list). Re-enable any of them with the CODEGRAPH_MCP_TOOLS environment variable (e.g. CODEGRAPH_MCP_TOOLS=explore,node,search,callers,impact), or use their CLI equivalents (codegraph callees / impact / files / status).

In a workspace with no .codegraph/ index, the server announces itself inactive and lists no tools — agents work normally with their built-in tools, and indexing stays your decision.

Library Usage

CodeGraph can be embedded directly. The npm package re-exports its programmatic API, so both import and require resolve the CodeGraph class in your own process — handy for embedding it in an app (e.g. an Electron main process).

import CodeGraph from '@colbymchenry/codegraph';
// CommonJS works too:
//   const { CodeGraph } = require('@colbymchenry/codegraph');

const cg = await CodeGraph.init('/path/to/project');
// Or: const cg = await CodeGraph.open('/path/to/project');

await cg.indexAll({
  onProgress: (p) => console.log(`${p.phase}: ${p.current}/${p.total}`)
});

const results = cg.searchNodes('UserService');
const callers = cg.getCallers(results[0].node.id);
const context = await cg.buildContext('fix login bug', { maxNodes: 20, includeCode: true, format: 'markdown' });
const impact = cg.getImpactRadius(results[0].node.id, 2);

cg.watch();   // auto-sync on file changes
cg.unwatch(); // stop watching
cg.close();

Lower-level building blocks are exported from the same entry point for callers that drive the graph directly: DatabaseConnection, QueryBuilder, getDatabasePath, initGrammars / loadGrammarsForLanguages, and FileLock.

Embedding requirements

• Install from npm (npm i @colbymchenry/codegraph) so the matching per-platform package — which carries the compiled library and its dependencies — is fetched alongside the shim.

• The API runs on your runtime, so it needs Node 22.5+ for the built-in node:sqlite (Electron qualifies when its bundled Node is 22.5+). The CLI and MCP server are unaffected — they run on the self-contained bundled runtime.

• TypeScript types ship with the package. As with any Node-targeting library, keep @types/node available and skipLibCheck: true (the common default).

Configuration

There isn't any — CodeGraph is zero-config, with no config file to write or keep in sync. Language support is automatic from the file extension; there's nothing to wire up per language.

What it skips out of the box:

• Dependency, build, and cache directories — node_modules, vendor, dist, build, target, .venv, Pods, .next, and the like across every supported stack — so the graph is your code, not third-party noise. This holds even with no .gitignore.

• Anything in your .gitignore — honored in git repos via git, and in non-git projects by reading .gitignore directly (root and nested).

• Files larger than 1 MB — generated bundles, minified JS, vendored blobs.

To keep something else out, add it to .gitignore. To pull a default-excluded directory back in (say you really do want a vendored dependency indexed), add a negation — !vendor/. The defaults apply uniformly, so committing a dependency or build directory doesn't force it into the graph; the .gitignore negation is the explicit opt-in.

Telemetry

CodeGraph collects anonymous usage statistics — which tools and commands get used, which languages get indexed — to guide where language and agent support work goes. Never any code, paths, file or symbol names, queries, or IP addresses; usage is aggregated locally into daily totals before anything is sent, and the ingest endpoint is public code in this repo that enforces the documented field list. The installer asks up front; turn it off any time:

codegraph telemetry off    # or: CODEGRAPH_TELEMETRY=0, or DO_NOT_TRACK=1

TELEMETRY.md lists every field, with the off-switches and the full data-handling story.

Supported Platforms

Every release ships a self-contained build (bundled Node runtime — nothing to compile) for all three desktop OSes, on both Intel/AMD (x64) and ARM (arm64):

See Get Started for the one-line install commands.

Supported Agents

The interactive installer auto-detects and configures each of these — wiring up the MCP server (which delivers its own usage guidance, so no instructions file is written):

• Claude Code

• Cursor

• Codex CLI

• opencode

• Hermes Agent

• Gemini CLI

• Antigravity IDE

• Kiro

Supported Languages

Measured cross-file coverage

Impact and blast-radius queries are only as good as the dependency graph behind them, so coverage is measured rather than asserted. Fair coverage = the share of symbol-bearing source files that have at least one resolved cross-file dependent — something that imports, calls, references, or (through a framework convention) routes to them — on a real-world benchmark repo per language. The residual is always a genuine static-analysis frontier (runtime dynamic dispatch, reflection / DI containers, framework-convention entry points, vendored third-party code), never hidden by gaming the denominator.

Framework routing is validated the same way, on a canonical app per framework: Express 100%, FastAPI 98%, Flask 100%, NestJS 96.8%, Gin 96.5%, Axum 100%, Rocket 93.8%, Vapor 100%, Laravel 92%, Rails 89.6%, React Router 100% — and the convention/reflection-heavy ones at their honest static-analysis ceiling: ASP.NET 83.9%, Spring 83.3%, Drupal 78.9%, Play 76.3%, Django 74.1%. SvelteKit, Vue/Nuxt, and Astro use file-based routing, so their page/endpoint coverage is the Svelte/SvelteKit (100%), Vue/Nuxt (93.5%), and Astro (93.0% — every src/pages/ file maps to a route node on the two validation repos) figures in the table above.

Troubleshooting

"CodeGraph not initialized" — Run codegraph init in your project directory first.

Indexing is slow — Check that node_modules and other large directories are excluded. Use --quiet to reduce output overhead.

MCP hits database is locked — current builds shouldn't: CodeGraph bundles its own Node runtime and uses Node's built-in node:sqlite in WAL mode, where concurrent reads never block on a writer. If you still see it:

• You're on an old (pre-0.9) install. Reinstall to get the bundled runtime — curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colbymchenry/codegraph/main/install.sh | sh (macOS/Linux), irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colbymchenry/codegraph/main/install.ps1 | iex (Windows), or npm i -g @colbymchenry/codegraph@latest.

• codegraph status shows Journal: other than wal — WAL couldn't be enabled on this filesystem (common on network shares and WSL2 /mnt), so reads can block on writes. Move the project (with its .codegraph/ folder) onto a local disk.

MCP server not connecting — Your agent starts the server itself, so you don't launch it by hand. Make sure the project is initialized and indexed (codegraph status) and that the path in your MCP config is correct. If it still won't connect, re-run codegraph install to rewrite the config.

Missing symbols — The MCP server auto-syncs on save (wait a couple seconds). Run codegraph sync manually if needed. Check that the file's language is supported and isn't inside a .gitignored or default-excluded directory (e.g. node_modules, dist).

Sharing one checkout between Windows and WSL — Don't point both at the same .codegraph/: the background-server lock and the SQLite index are tied to the OS that wrote them, and SQLite locking across the WSL2/Windows filesystem boundary is unreliable. Give each side its own index in the same tree by setting CODEGRAPH_DIR to a distinct name on one of them — e.g. CODEGRAPH_DIR=.codegraph-win on Windows, leaving WSL on the default .codegraph. CodeGraph skips any sibling .codegraph-* directory when indexing and watching, so the two never trip over each other.

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License

MIT

Made for AI coding agents — Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, opencode, Hermes Agent, Gemini CLI, Antigravity IDE, and Kiro

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