locidx

Local-first code indexer and search. Index a codebase once, then search it instantly — offline, private, and with zero dependencies.

locidx builds a SQLite index of your project, respects .gitignore-style rules, updates incrementally, and gives you three ways to query it: a CLI, an interactive TUI, and a Model Context Protocol server so AI agents can search your code too.

Why locidx?

• Zero dependencies. Python 3.9+ standard library only. No pip install battle royale — the indexer, CLI, TUI, and MCP server all use sqlite3, curses, and json.

• Private and local-first. Everything lives in SQLite files on your machine. No network, no telemetry, no "send us your code" to get search.

• Fast and incremental. Only files whose mtime changed are re-read. Searching reads the database, never the filesystem.

• gitignore-aware. Real .gitignore semantics: negation, anchoring, **, directory-only patterns — plus optional --ignore globs and per-directory .locidxignore files.

• One tool, three interfaces. Terminal, TUI, and MCP — the same index serves all three.

Related MCP server: Code-Index-MCP

Install

# From source (no install needed to run — just clone and use ./locidx)
git clone https://github.com/wenn-id/locidx
cd locidx

# Or install the package (creates the `locidx` command)
python -m pip install .

You can also run it straight from the checkout without installing:

python -m locidx.cli --help

Quick start

# 1. Index a project (creates .locidx.sqlite inside it)
locidx index ~/src/myproject --stats

# 2. Search it
locidx find "def parse_" ~/src/myproject

# 3. Language stats
locidx stats --json ~/src/myproject

Global database

By default locidx index creates a per-project database (.locidx.sqlite in the indexed folder). That keeps everything self-contained and shareable.

For a single machine-wide index across many projects, add --global:

locidx index ~/src/project-a --global
locidx index ~/src/project-b --global
locidx search "TODO" --global          # searches every indexed root
locidx roots                           # list all indexed roots
locidx clear                           # wipe the global index

CLI reference

Interactive TUI

locidx tui [PATH]

• / — enter a search query

• j / k — move through results

• o — open the selected file in $VISUAL/$EDITOR

• g / G — jump to top / bottom

• q — quit

The TUI is a thin wrapper over the same search core, so results in the terminal and the TUI are always identical.

MCP server

locidx speaks the Model Context Protocol over stdio, so any MCP client (Claude, code agents, custom tooling) can search your indexed code with structured results.

# Run the server directly
locidx mcp

Configure it in your MCP client, e.g. Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "locidx": {
      "command": "locidx",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

MCP tools

The server is a minimal JSON-RPC 2.0 implementation over stdio with zero dependencies — no mcp SDK required.

How it works

                    ┌─────────────────────────────┐
  .gitignore ──►    │                             │
                    │   locidx index PATH         │
  source tree ──►   │   ┌──────────────────┐      │
                    │   │  incremental walk │─────┼──►  .locidx.sqlite
                    │   └──────────────────┘      │        (SQLite)
                    └─────────────────────────────┘
                             │
               ┌─────────────┼──────────────┐
               ▼             ▼              ▼
           locidx find   locidx stats    locidx mcp
           (CLI)         (CLI/TUI)       (MCP server)

1. locidx index walks the tree, applies ignore rules, and stores each text file's path, size, mtime, a SHA-256 content hash, and the text itself in SQLite.

2. Unchanged files (same size + mtime) are skipped on subsequent runs.

3. Queries (find, stats, TUI, MCP) read only from SQLite — the filesystem is never touched again.

Ignore rules

locidx honors .gitignore and .locidxignore files at any depth, plus --ignore globs:

# .gitignore
*.log                # everywhere
build/               # directory only
/src/generated/      # anchored
!keep.log            # re-include
node_modules/        # handled out of the box

--no-ignore disables all ignore handling.

Project layout

locidx/
├── locidx/
│   ├── cli.py       # argparse CLI
│   ├── tui.py       # curses TUI
│   ├── indexer.py   # incremental walk + content hashing
│   ├── search.py    # literal substring search
│   ├── stats.py     # language detection + aggregation
│   ├── ignore.py    # gitignore-style matching
│   ├── db.py        # tiny SQLite wrapper (schema + helpers)
│   ├── mcp.py       # MCP entrypoint
│   ├── server.py    # JSON-RPC 2.0 stdio server
│   └── tools.py     # agent-friendly tool wrappers
└── tests/           # stdlib unittest suite (runs in CI without install)

Development

# Run the test suite (stdlib only)
python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

# Or with pytest, if you have it
python -m pytest -q

CI runs the same unittest command across Python 3.9–3.12.

License

MIT — do whatever you want with it, but please star it if it saves you time.