Explain a Symbol
explain_symbolExplains a symbol's source plus selected environment axes—callers, callees, implementations, tests, siblings, quality—in one call, replacing multiple separate queries.
Instructions
Explain a symbol: its source PLUS a chosen environment, as ONE dense AI-Builder-Markdown slice - the cold-read in a single call instead of 4-6 (get_context + find_usages + find_implementations + find_tests_for + ...). 'include' selects the environment axes (any combination): callers (the members that reference it, with their bodies, and their owner types as structure - not the calling types whole), callees (what it calls/depends on, depth 1), implementations (the types implementing it, if it's an interface), tests (its covering test cases), siblings (naming/file-convention kin), quality (complexity / efferent-coupling hotspot metrics). A partial type renders as ONE block per project it is compiled into (its declaration fragments are folded, a leading comment says which files) instead of one identical block per file; a file compiled into several projects whose block reads the same in each renders once, naming them. An empty include returns just the symbol's source - and then the manifest names the axes you could have asked for, so that answer is a stated choice rather than a silent default; an include token that names no axis is reported as dropped, whether or not a sibling token was valid. A leading manifest comment discloses what each merge axis actually found - so '(none)' is an honest negative (no impl / no caller / no test), not 'not asked' - unless its 'run:' segment says the analysis run was incomplete. Pass a type or method simple name (use find_symbol to disambiguate). Recall-safe (reads persisted facts); prefer it over export_markdown for one symbol's world. Multi-TFM solutions are deduplicated to one logical project per name (NEWEST TFM's instance, matching find_symbol's view).
Tool call template
Replace each placeholder with a value matching the input schema. Only required parameters are included; add optional parameters as needed.
{
"id": 1,
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"arguments": {
"sessionId": "<sessionId>",
"symbol": "<symbol>"
},
"name": "explain_symbol"
}
}Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| lean | No | Lean slice (default TRUE): drop the <AI_CONTEXT_SPEC>/<AI_CONTEXT_META> format-rules preamble and omit enabled-but-empty graph sections. Set false for the full AI-Builder-MD document with the format contract. | |
| budget | No | Optional token budget (floored at 8000). Compacts/drops method bodies and, when the neighborhood overflows, drops the least-relevant types. The center symbol is always kept - with its full source when that fits, otherwise as STRUCTURE (identity, members, every method signature) plus a leading note that names the measured size of the full-code render and the budget that would hold it, so a 2000-line type under budget:8000 costs ~2000 tokens, not ~24000. The bundled environment (callers / tests / siblings / implementations) is BUDGET-BOUND - under a tight budget it is dropped to fit (a leading comment names the drops so you can ask for one by name). Omitted, the slice still renders against a ceiling (the active MCP profile's token budget, else a ~10000-token default budget) that bounds the merged environment - relevant above all with include=["callees"], whose outward neighborhood is the widest slice this server produces. | |
| symbol | Yes | The type or method simple name to center on (use find_symbol to disambiguate), or the qualified Type.Member form to focus ONE declaration of a shared method name - the same string find_usages / find_tests_for / impact_of_change resolve. A bare name that matches several declarations seeds them all (a whole family can then be budget-capped), and the manifest says so and names the qualified form. | |
| include | No | Which environment axes to include (any combination, case-insensitive): callers, callees, implementations, tests, siblings, quality. Empty/omitted = just the symbol's source. | |
| sessionId | Yes | The session_id returned by analyze_solution. Also takes an absolute .sln/.slnx/.slnf path, analyzed on first use. |