Skip to main content
Glama
rohithmahesh3

mcp-semantic-search

MCP Semantic Search

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that indexes codebases using semantic embeddings for natural language search.

Python Version License

Features

  • 🔍 Semantic Code Search – Find code using natural language queries instead of exact text matching

  • ⚡ Fast Indexing – Efficient chunking and batch embedding with background processing

  • 🧠 Smart Chunking – Language-aware code splitting:

    • Python: Function/class boundary detection

    • Others: Line-based with configurable overlap

  • 🌐 Multi-language Support – Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, TSX, Markdown, YAML, JSON, HTML, CSS, Bash, SQL, and more

  • 👀 Live Watch – Automatically re-index on file changes with debouncing

  • 🔄 Incremental Updates – Reindex only changed files without full rebuild

  • 🗑️ Deletion Handling – Automatically removes chunks for deleted files

  • 📊 Status Tracking – Real-time indexing progress and queue monitoring

Related MCP server: Acemcp

Quick Start

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.12 or higher

  • Qdrant vector database (running locally or remotely)

  • Google Gemini API key

Installation

# Using uvx (recommended - no installation needed)
uvx mcp-semantic-search

# Or install with pip
pip install mcp-semantic-search

Configuration

Set environment variables:

export GEMINI_API_KEY="your_gemini_api_key"
export QDRANT_URL="http://localhost:6333"

Optional environment variables:

# Embedding model (default: text-embedding-004)
export GEMINI_EMBEDDING_MODEL="text-embedding-004"

# Chunk configuration (defaults: 50/10/5)
export CHUNK_MAX_LINES=50        # Max lines per chunk
export CHUNK_OVERLAP_LINES=10    # Overlap between chunks
export CHUNK_MIN_LINES=5         # Min lines for valid chunk

Or create a .env file:

GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key
QDRANT_URL=http://localhost:6333

Running Qdrant

# Using Docker
docker run -p 6333:6333 qdrant/qdrant

# Or using docker-compose
echo '
services:
  qdrant:
    image: qdrant/qdrant
    ports:
      - "6333:6333"
' | docker-compose -f - up

Usage with Claude Code

Edit your Claude Code MCP configuration file (~/.claude.json or ~/.config/claude/config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-search": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-semantic-search"],
      "env": {
        "GEMINI_API_KEY": "your_gemini_api_key_here",
        "QDRANT_URL": "http://localhost:6333"
      }
    }
  }
}

For a local installation (after pip install mcp-semantic-search):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-search": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "mcp-semantic-search",
      "env": {
        "GEMINI_API_KEY": "your_gemini_api_key_here",
        "QDRANT_URL": "http://localhost:6333"
      }
    }
  }
}

With optional chunk configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-search": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-semantic-search"],
      "env": {
        "GEMINI_API_KEY": "your_gemini_api_key_here",
        "QDRANT_URL": "http://localhost:6333",
        "CHUNK_MAX_LINES": "50",
        "CHUNK_OVERLAP_LINES": "10",
        "CHUNK_MIN_LINES": "5"
      }
    }
  }
}

Method 2: Using CLI

claude mcp add semantic-search \
  -e GEMINI_API_KEY="$GEMINI_API_KEY" \
  -e QDRANT_URL="$QDRANT_URL" \
  -- uvx mcp-semantic-search

Available Tools

Tool

Description

Returns

index_codebase(root_dir, force_reindex, max_files)

Index the codebase

{"status": "success", "files_queued": N}

search_code(query, limit, score_threshold)

Semantic search across all files

{"query": "...", "count": N, "results": [...]}

search_file(query, file_path, limit)

Search within a specific file

{"query": "...", "file": "...", "results": [...]}

get_status()

Check indexing status

{"collection": {...}, "queue": {...}}

start_live_watch(root_dir, debounce_seconds)

Start file watching

{"status": "success", "running": true}

stop_live_watch()

Stop file watching

{"status": "stopped", "running": false}

clear_index()

Reset the entire index

{"status": "success", "message": "..."}

Example Workflow

# Index your codebase (auto-starts on first use)
index_codebase(root_dir="/path/to/project")
# Returns: {"status": "success", "files_queued": 1234}

# Search for code using natural language
search_code("how does authentication work")
# Returns:
# {
#   "query": "...",
#   "count": 5,
#   "results": [
#     {
#       "file": "src/auth/middleware.py",
#       "lines": "10-25",
#       "score": 0.876,
#       "content": "..."
#     },
#     ...
#   ]
# }

# Check indexing status
get_status()
# Returns:
# {
#   "collection": {"total_chunks": 12345, "files_indexed": 1234},
#   "queue": {"running": true, "queued": 0, "pending": 0}
# }

# Enable live watching (auto-index on file changes)
start_live_watch(root_dir="/path/to/project")

Configuration

Chunking Configuration

Control how code is split into searchable chunks:

# Smaller chunks = more precise results, more storage
export CHUNK_MAX_LINES=30

# Larger chunks = more context per result
export CHUNK_MAX_LINES=100

# Adjust overlap for context continuity
export CHUNK_OVERLAP_LINES=15

Variable

Default

Description

CHUNK_MAX_LINES

50

Maximum lines per chunk

CHUNK_OVERLAP_LINES

10

Overlap between chunks

CHUNK_MIN_LINES

5

Minimum lines for valid chunk

Search Configuration

# Adjust search parameters
search_code(
    query="your query",
    limit=20,                 # More results (default: 10)
    score_threshold=0.3       # Lower threshold = more results (default: 0.5)
)

Development

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/mcp-semantic-search.git
cd mcp-semantic-search

# Install in development mode
pip install -e .

Testing

# Test with a small subset
python -c "
from mcp_semantic_search import GeminiEmbedder, QdrantCodeStore, index_repository

embedder = GeminiEmbedder()
store = QdrantCodeStore()

# Test with just 5 files
stats = index_repository(
    root_dir='.',
    embedder=embedder,
    store=store,
    max_files=5
)
print(stats)
"

# Test semantic search
python -c "
from mcp_semantic_search import GeminiEmbedder, QdrantCodeStore

embedder = GeminiEmbedder()
store = QdrantCodeStore()

query_embedding = embedder.embed_query('authentication')
results = store.search(query_embedding, limit=5)

for r in results:
    print(f'{r[\"file_path\"]}:{r[\"start_line\"]} ({r[\"score\"]:.2f})')
    print(r['content'][:200])
    print('---')
"

Technical Details

  • Embedding Model: Google text-embedding-004 (768 dimensions)

  • Vector Database: Qdrant with cosine similarity

  • Chunking Strategy:

    • Python: AST-based function/class boundary detection

    • Others: Line-based with configurable chunk size and overlap

  • File Watching: Watchdog with 3-second debouncing

  • Deduplication: SHA256 hash-based, unchanged files are skipped

  • Background Processing: FIFO queue for incremental reindexing

Supported Languages

Extension

Language

.py

Python

.js

JavaScript

.ts

TypeScript

.jsx

JSX

.tsx

TSX

.md

Markdown

.yaml, .yml

YAML

.json

JSON

.html

HTML

.css

CSS

.sh

Bash

.sql

SQL

.txt

Text

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Acknowledgments

A
license - permissive license
-
quality - not tested
D
maintenance

Maintenance

Maintainers
Response time
Release cycle
Releases (12mo)
Commit activity

Resources

Unclaimed servers have limited discoverability.

Looking for Admin?

If you are the server author, to access and configure the admin panel.

Related MCP Servers

  • A
    license
    A
    quality
    C
    maintenance
    Enables semantic code search across codebases with automatic incremental indexing. Searches return relevant code snippets with file paths and line numbers based on natural language queries.
    Last updated
    1
    810
    Apache 2.0
  • A
    license
    A
    quality
    F
    maintenance
    Provides code repository indexing and semantic search capabilities, allowing natural language queries to find relevant code snippets with automatic incremental indexing and multi-language support.
    Last updated
    1
    29
    358
    ISC
  • A
    license
    A
    quality
    D
    maintenance
    Provides intelligent semantic code search using local AI embeddings, enabling natural language queries to find relevant code by meaning rather than exact keywords. Indexes codebases in the background with smart project detection and privacy-first local processing.
    Last updated
    6
    35
    199
    MIT
  • A
    license
    -
    quality
    F
    maintenance
    Enables semantic code search for AI assistants by indexing codebases with embeddings and Tree-sitter, returning relevant snippets via natural language queries.
    Last updated
    15
    MIT

View all related MCP servers

Related MCP Connectors

  • Enterprise code intelligence for M&A, security audits, and tech debt. Hosted server with 200k free.

  • Give your AI agent a persistent map of your project's structure, dependencies, and bugs.

  • Token-efficient search for coding agents over public and private documentation.

View all MCP Connectors

Latest Blog Posts

MCP directory API

We provide all the information about MCP servers via our MCP API.

curl -X GET 'https://glama.ai/api/mcp/v1/servers/rohithmahesh3/mcp-semantic-search'

If you have feedback or need assistance with the MCP directory API, please join our Discord server