code_nav MCP

AI-native deterministic code navigation MCP server for Codex / CodeCLI.

code_nav gives coding agents compact, structured repo context without making them dump files into chat. It works in any git repo by detecting the repo root and using git-visible files.

There is no semantic search, no embeddings, no vector database, no graph index, no Qdrant, no CocoIndex, and no Zoekt.

Repository:

https://github.com/ARQAWA/code-nav-mcp

Install Prompt

Use INSTALL_AGENT_PROMPT.md with Codex / CodeCLI on the target machine.

The prompt installs one shared user-level code_nav MCP:

$HOME/.local/share/code-nav-mcp/app
$HOME/.local/bin/code-nav-mcp

It also installs/checks Probe, ast-grep, ripgrep, and RTK, configures Codex MCP globally, installs Code Navigation Rules, and verifies the MCP tools.

Tools

Local Development

npm install
npm run build
npm test
npm run doctor
npm run self-test

Run the MCP server locally:

node dist/cli.js mcp

Optional Repo Config

No per-repo config is required. Rare overrides can use .code-navrc.json:

{
  "max_file_bytes": 2097152,
  "extra_exclude": [],
  "extra_include": [],
  "markdown": "normal",
  "result_limit": 12
}