Codegraph

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

The fastest complete code graph · surgical context · built for how agents actually work · 100% local

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

Get StartedLanguage SupportWhy CodeGraph?Key FeaturesFramework-aware RoutesMixed iOS / React Native / Expo bridgingQuick StartHow It WorksCLI ReferenceMCP ToolsLibrary UsageConfigurationTelemetryVerified releasesSupported PlatformsSupported AgentsSupported LanguagesMeasured cross-file coverageTroubleshootingLicense

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

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

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colbymchenry/codegraph/main/install.ps1 | iex

Already have Node? Use npm instead (works on any version)

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.

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. It only wires up your agent — it does not index any code; building each project's graph is the separate

codegraph init

in step 3. (Shortcut: npx @colbymchenry/codegraph

downloads and runs this in one go.)

cd your-project
codegraph init

codegraph init

creates the local .codegraph/

directory and builds the full graph in the same step — one command, done.

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.

Changed your mind? One command removes CodeGraph from every agent it configured and the CLI itself — every install it finds (standalone bundle, npm global package, launcher link), shown to you before anything is deleted:

codegraph uninstall

Pass --keep-cli

to remove only the agent configurations and keep the CLI installed.

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.

Every language below gets the same treatment — full structural extraction and cross-file resolution into one graph, no per-language setup:

Per-language details — extensions, frameworks, and what exactly gets extracted — in Supported Languages.

When an AI agent needs to understand code — to answer a question or make a change — it discovers structure the slow way: grep, glob, and Read, one file at a time, rebuilding call paths and dependencies by hand. That's a pile of tool calls and round-trips before it even starts the real work.

CodeGraph hands the agent the exact code it needs in one call. It's a pre-built knowledge graph of every symbol, call edge, and dependency in your codebase — so instead of crawling files, the agent asks one question and gets back the relevant source, the call paths between those symbols (including dynamic-dispatch hops grep can't follow), and the blast radius of a change. Surgical context, not a file-by-file search — which means fewer tool calls and faster answers on every codebase, large or small.

A note on cost:CodeGraph's win oneverycodebase is precision — the agent stops crawling files and answers from the graph. On current models that precision is also a large direct saving: the 2026-07 re-validation measured60% lower cost and 69% fewer tokens on averageacross the seven benchmark repos, because a strong modelwithoutthe graph burns millions of tokens re-deriving structure. The savings scale with repo size and tangle — dramatic on VS-Code-class trees, modest on a 100-file project — and compound across a team's daily agent usage.

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, at the median of 4 runs per arm. Re-validated 2026-07-21 on Claude Opus 4.8 against the current build — the Rust kernel plus this cycle's resolution overhaul.

The universal win — every repo, every size: 89% fewer tool calls · 60% cheaper · 69% fewer tokens · file reads cut to zero on all seven repos.

With the index available, the agent answers from a couple of codegraph_explore

calls and stops. Without it, the agent burns its budget on discovery — up to 57 tool calls and 4.3M tokens re-deriving what the graph already knew. The Time column averages 20% faster but is the noisiest metric: on two small repos a strong model's raw grep loop finishes the wall-clock race sooner while still spending 5–10× the tokens and money — noted per-row below.

Codebase	Language	Tool calls	Time	File reads	Tokens	Cost
VS Code
TypeScript · ~11k files	2 vs 40
5× faster (41s vs 3m 24s)
0 vs 17
83% fewer	75% cheaper
Excalidraw
TypeScript · ~640	3 vs 55	36s vs 23s¹	0 vs 24
89% fewer	78% cheaper
Django
Python · ~3k	2 vs 29
38% faster	0 vs 16
78% fewer	69% cheaper
Tokio
Rust · ~790	3 vs 57	65% faster	0 vs 15
91% fewer	86% cheaper
OkHttp
Java · ~645	1 vs 5	10% faster	0 vs 1
33% fewer	~even²
Gin
Go · ~110	3 vs 10	57% faster	0 vs 4
18% fewer	41% cheaper
Alamofire
Swift · ~110	3 vs 53	49s vs 31s¹	0 vs 18
90% fewer	86% cheaper

¹ The small-repo floor effect: Opus 4.8 greps small trees fast enough to win wall-clock while spending ~5–10× the tokens and ~4–7× the cost — the with-arm still answers from zero file reads. ² OkHttp's without-arm got lucky in 5 calls; the with-arm answered in 1 call for ~$0.03 more. File reads = median files opened — the surgical-context win in one column: the agent never reads a file on any of the seven repos when CodeGraph is present.

Per-repo breakdown — WITH vs WITHOUT (median of 4)

Codebase	Metric	WITH cg	WITHOUT cg
VS Code
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	41s / 2 / 265k / $0.36	3m 24s / 40 / 1.5M / $1.41
Excalidraw
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	36s / 3 / 324k / $0.40	23s / 55 / 2.9M / $1.81
Django
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	42s / 2 / 254k / $0.35	1m 8s / 29 / 1.2M / $1.13
Tokio
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	46s / 3 / 386k / $0.44	2m 11s / 57 / 4.3M / $3.04
OkHttp
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	27s / 1 / 156k / $0.23	30s / 5 / 233k / $0.20
Gin
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	30s / 3 / 246k / $0.27	1m 10s / 10 / 300k / $0.46
Alamofire
Time / Tools / Tokens / Cost	49s / 3 / 316k / $0.35	31s / 53 / 3.1M / $2.51

Full benchmark details

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 2026-07-21 on the current build (native Rust kernel, adaptive parallel resolution, scoped sync).

Queries:

Codebase	Query
VS Code	"How does the extension host communicate with the main process?"
Excalidraw	"How does Excalidraw render and update canvas elements?"
Django	"How does Django's ORM build and execute a query from a QuerySet?"
Tokio	"How does tokio schedule and run async tasks on its runtime?"
OkHttp	"How does OkHttp process a request through its interceptor chain?"
Gin	"How does gin route requests through its middleware chain?"
Alamofire	"How does Alamofire build, send, and validate a request?"

Why CodeGraph wins: with the index available, the agent answers directly — usually one codegraph_explore

returns the relevant source — and stops, with zero file reads on every benchmark repo. 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.

CodeGraph's parsing engine is a native Rust kernel: 20 languages — TypeScript, JavaScript, Java, Python, Go, C, C++, Rust, C#, Ruby, PHP, Swift, Kotlin, Scala, Dart, R, Lua, Luau (Metal and CUDA ride the C++ path) — parse in compiled code with one boundary crossing per file. Every language shipped only after its graphs proved byte-for-byte identical to the reference engine on real repositories, from small libraries up to the Linux kernel; platforms without a prebuilt binary and files with syntax errors fall back per-file automatically, same graph either way.

And it scales itself to the machine it's on. Worker pools, parallel resolution, and analysis caches are sized from what the system actually has — real core counts (container/cgroup-aware, so a VPS that grants 2 cores gets sized for 2, not the host's 64), honestly-measured available RAM on macOS and Linux, and the measured cost of your project's resolution work:

On a workstation: the full parallel pipeline — native parse workers, a multi-worker resolver pool that engages the moment it pays for itself, memory-gated analysis caches. The Swift compiler repository (27k files of Swift and C++) fresh-indexes in about 100 seconds; a one-file edit re-syncs in ~4.On a 2-core / 6GB VPS: the same graph, from a pipeline tuned tofinish— the Linux kernel (70k files, 2M symbols, 6.4M relationships) indexes to completion in under 12 minutes where RAM-first designs run out of memory before reaching 1%.Every day after day one: saving a file updates the graph in well under a second — the watcher fires 300ms after a lone save and syncs exactly what changed (~0.3s of work on a 4,400-file project, ~0.4s on the 27,000-file Swift compiler repo), never re-scanning the tree. Measured against the fastest competing indexer's re-index-on-change: 2–7× faster on medium and larger repos across a 31-repo, 30-language benchmark — and the gap widens with repo size, because their cost grows with the repository and ours grows with the change.

Native Rust Kernel | Parsing and extraction run in a compiled Rust engine for 20 languages — with graphs verified byte-for-byte identical to the reference engine, and automatic per-file fallback so nothing ever breaks | Adapts to Your Machine | Sizes its worker pools and caches from what the system actually has — real core counts (container-aware), honest available RAM, measured per-project cost. A workstation gets the full parallel pipeline; a 2-core VPS gets one tuned to finish reliably | Surgical Context | One tool call returns entry points, related symbols, and code snippets — no slow file-by-file exploration | Full-Text Search | Find code by name instantly across your entire codebase, powered by FTS5 | Impact Analysis | Trace callers, callees, and the full impact radius of any symbol before making changes | Always Fresh | File watcher uses native OS events (FSEvents/inotify/ReadDirectoryChangesW) with debounced auto-sync — the graph stays current as you code, zero config | 20+ Languages | TypeScript, JavaScript, ArkTS, Python, Go, Rust, Java, C#, VB.NET, PHP, Ruby, C, C++, CUDA, Objective-C, Metal, Swift, Kotlin, Scala, Dart, Lua, Luau, R, Nix, Erlang, CFML, COBOL, Solidity, Terraform/OpenTofu, Svelte, Vue, Astro, Liquid, Pascal/Delphi | Framework-aware Routes | Recognizes web-framework routing files and links URL patterns to their handlers across 17 frameworks | Mixed iOS / React Native / Expo | Closes cross-language flows that static parsing misses: Swift ↔ ObjC bridging, React Native legacy bridge + TurboModules + Fabric view components, native → JS event emitters, Expo Modules | 100% Local | No data leaves your machine. No API keys. No external services. SQLite database only |

**How auto-syncing works — and why you don't need to run **codegraph sync

manually

codegraph sync

manuallyWhen 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:

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 (default2000ms

, tunable viaCODEGRAPH_WATCH_DEBOUNCE_MS

, clamped to[100ms, 60s]

). Bursts of edits collapse into a single sync. - 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 toRead

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. - 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 (agit 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

(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.

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.

Framework	Shapes recognized
Django
path() , re_path() , url() , include() in urls.py (CBV .as_view() , dotted paths)
Flask
@app.route('/path', methods=[...]) , blueprint routes
FastAPI
@app.get(...) , @router.post(...) , all standard methods
Express
app.get(...) , router.post(...) with middleware chains
NestJS
@Controller + @Get/@Post/... , GraphQL @Resolver + @Query/@Mutation , @MessagePattern /@EventPattern , @SubscribeMessage
Laravel
Route::get() , Route::resource() , Controller@action , tuple syntax
Drupal
*.routing.yml routes (_controller , _form , entity handlers); hook_* implementations in .module /.theme /.install /.inc
Rails
get '/x', to: 'users#index' , hash-rocket => syntax
Spring
@GetMapping , @PostMapping , @RequestMapping on methods
Play
GET /POST /… verb routes in conf/routes → Controller.method actions (Scala + Java)
Gin / chi / gorilla / mux
r.GET(...) , router.HandleFunc(...)
Axum / actix / Rocket
.route("/x", get(handler))
ASP.NET
[HttpGet("/x")] attributes on action methods
Vapor
app.get("x", use: handler)
React Router / SvelteKit
Route component nodes
Vue Router / Nuxt
pages/ file-based routes, server/api/ endpoints, route middleware
Astro
src/pages/ file-based routes (.astro pages + .ts endpoints, [param] /[...rest] syntax)

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 codegraph_explore

connects the flow end-to-end across the gap — call paths and blast radius cross the boundary instead of stopping at it.

Boundary	JS / Swift side	Native side	How
Swift → ObjC
Swift obj.foo(bar:)
ObjC selector -fooWithBar:
@objc auto-bridging rules (including init/property/protocol forms) + Cocoa preposition prefixes (With /For /By /In /On /At /…)
ObjC → Swift
ObjC [obj fooWithBar:]
Swift @objc func foo(bar:)
Reverse-bridge name candidates; verifies @objc exposure from source
React Native legacy bridge
JS NativeModules.X.fn(...)
ObjC RCT_EXPORT_METHOD / RCT_REMAP_METHOD · Java/Kotlin @ReactMethod
Parses macro/annotation declarations to build a JS-name → native-method map
React Native TurboModules
JS import M from './NativeM'; M.fn(...)
Native impl matching the Codegen spec	Treats the Native<X>.ts spec interface as ground truth
RN native → JS events
JS new NativeEventEmitter(...).addListener('e', cb)
ObjC [self sendEventWithName:@"e" body:...] · Swift sendEvent(withName: "e", ...) · Java/Kotlin .emit("e", ...)
Synthesized cross-language event channel keyed by literal event name
Expo Modules
JS requireNativeModule('X').fn(...)
Swift / Kotlin Module { Name("X"); AsyncFunction("fn") { ... } }
Parses the Expo DSL literals; synthetic method nodes resolve via existing name-match
Fabric view components
JSX <MyView prop={v}/>
TS Codegen spec + native impl class	Spec → component node; convention-based name+suffix lookup (View /ComponentView /Manager /ViewManager ) bridges to native
Legacy Paper view managers
JSX <MyView prop={v}/>
ObjC RCT_EXPORT_VIEW_PROPERTY · Java/Kotlin @ReactProp
Same as Fabric — Paper-era declarations also produce component + property nodes

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

Bridge	Small	Medium	Large
Swift ↔ ObjC

realm-swiftWikipedia-iOSAsyncStoragereact-native-svgreact-native-firebaseRNGeolocationreact-native-segmented-controlreact-native-screensreact-native-skiaEach 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.

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 thecodegraph explore

command, since the MCP server's own guidance only reaches the main agent. Removed cleanly bycodegraph uninstall

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

The installer wires up your agents only — it does not index your code. After it finishes, build each project's graph yourself with codegraph init

(step 3). One global codegraph install

covers every project; you run codegraph init

once per project.

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

Flag	Values	Default
--target
auto , all , none , or csv (claude,cursor,... )
prompt
--location
global , local
prompt
--yes
(boolean)	prompt every step
--no-permissions
(boolean) skip Claude auto-allow list	permissions on
--print-config <id>
dump snippet for one agent and exit	—

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

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.

Manual Setup (Alternative)

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__*"
    ]
  }
}

One wildcard auto-approves every CodeGraph tool — codegraph_explore is the only one listed by default, but if you re-enable others via CODEGRAPH_MCP_TOOLS they're already permitted, no prompt.

Agent Tool Guidance

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— itisthe pre-built index, so a grep/read loop just repeats work it already did. Treat the returned source as already read.Reach for— "how does X work", a flow/"how does X reach Y", or surveying an area. One call returns the relevant symbols' verbatim source grouped by file, the call paths between them (dynamic-dispatch hops included), and a blast-radius summary. Name a file or symbol in the query to read its current line-numbered source.codegraph_explore

for almost anythingTrust the results — don't re-verify with grep, and check the staleness banner after edits.- Works per project: query any project that has a.codegraph/

index by passingprojectPath

— so a monorepo where only some services are indexed, or a second repo, works in one session. A path with no index returns clean guidance to use built-in 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 short marker-fenced section into the agent's instructions file pointing at the codegraph explore

CLI equivalent.

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                            Claude Code                            │
│                                                                   │
│   "How does a request reach the database?"                        │
│       calls CodeGraph tools directly — no Explore sub-agent       │
│                                 │                                 │
└─────────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┘
                                  │
                                  ▼
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        CodeGraph MCP Server                       │
│                                                                   │
│ explore  ·  one call → verbatim source + call flow + blast radius │
│                                 │                                 │
│                                 ▼                                 │
│                       SQLite knowledge graph                      │
│          symbols · edges · files · FTS5 full-text search          │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Extraction— a native** Rust kernel**parses source withtree-sittergrammars compiled into it, extracting nodes (functions, classes, methods) and edges (calls, imports, extends, implements) for 20 languages; remaining languages and per-file fallbacks use the same extraction logic on the portable engine, producing identical graphs. - Storage— Everything goes into a local SQLite database (.codegraph/codegraph.db

) with FTS5 full-text search. - Resolution— After extraction, references are resolved: function calls → definitions, imports → source files, class inheritance, and framework-specific patterns. - 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.

codegraph                         # Run interactive installer
codegraph install                 # Run installer (explicit)
codegraph uninstall               # Remove CodeGraph from your agents AND the CLI (--keep-cli for configs only)
codegraph init [path]             # Initialize a project + build its graph (one step)
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

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

Option	Description	Default
--stdin
Read file list from stdin	false
-d, --depth <n>
Max dependency traversal depth	5
-f, --filter <glob>
Custom glob to identify test files	auto-detect
-j, --json
Output as JSON	false
-q, --quiet
Output file paths only	false

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

When running as an MCP server, CodeGraph exposes a single tool — codegraph_explore

. Measured agent behavior showed that one strong tool steers agents better than a menu of narrower ones — fewer mis-picks, and it saves context every session:

Tool	Purpose
codegraph_explore
Answer almost any question in one call — "how does X work", a flow ("how does X reach Y"), or surveying an area — returning the relevant symbols' verbatim source grouped by file, plus the call paths between them and a blast-radius summary. Surfaces dynamic-dispatch hops (callbacks, React re-render, interface→impl) grep can't follow. Name a file or symbol in the query to read its current line-numbered source, the same shape the Read tool gives you.

The other tools (codegraph_node

, codegraph_search

, codegraph_callers

, codegraph_callees

, codegraph_impact

, codegraph_files

, codegraph_status

) stay fully functional but unlisted by default — everything they return already arrives inline on codegraph_explore

(its blast-radius section, the relationship map, a symbol's body as its callee list). Re-enable any of them for the MCP surface with the CODEGRAPH_MCP_TOOLS

environment variable (e.g. CODEGRAPH_MCP_TOOLS=explore,node,search,callers

), or use their CLI equivalents (codegraph node

/ query

/ callers

/ callees

/ impact

/ files

/ status

).

Even when the server's own root has no .codegraph/

index, the tools stay available: pass projectPath

to query any indexed project — a sub-service in a monorepo, or a second repo — in the same session. A path that has no index returns clean guidance to use built-in tools instead, so nothing fails loudly, and indexing stays your decision.

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 needsNode 22.5+ for the built-innode: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 andskipLibCheck: true

(the common default).

Next to none — CodeGraph is zero-config by default, with nothing to write or keep in sync to get started. Language support is automatic from the file extension; there's nothing to wire up per language. The one optional file is for mapping custom file extensions.

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 everysupported stack— so the graph is your code, not third-party noise. This holds even with no.gitignore

.Anything in your— honored in git repos via git, and in non-git projects by reading.gitignore

.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.

.gitignore

can't drop a directory you've committed, though. For a vendored theme or SDK that's checked into the repo (e.g. a Metronic theme under static/

), list it under exclude

in codegraph.json

— gitignore-style patterns, matched against repo-root-relative paths, honored on index, sync, and watch:

{
  "exclude": ["static/", "**/vendor/**"]
}

Conversely, when real source is gitignored on purpose — a project under a second VCS (SVN, Perforce) that .gitignore

s its own source so it stays out of Git — force it back in with include

(the opposite of exclude

; includeIgnored

only revives embedded git repos, not plain source):

{
  "include": ["Tools/", "Local/typescript/"]
}

CodeGraph discovers those files off disk, overriding .gitignore

, on index, sync, and watch. An explicit exclude

still wins, and built-in skips (node_modules

, dist

, .git

) are never re-included.

If your project uses a non-standard extension for a supported language — say .dota_lua

for Lua, or .tpl

for PHP — those files are skipped by default, because the extension isn't one CodeGraph recognizes. Map them with an optional ** codegraph.json** at your project root:

{
  "extensions": {
    ".dota_lua": "lua",
    ".tpl": "php"
  }
}

Each value is a supported language id. The mappings merge on top of the built-in defaults and win on conflict, so you can also re-point a built-in (e.g. ".h": "cpp"

). Commit the file to share the mapping with your team. A typo'd language or a malformed file is warned about and skipped — it never breaks indexing — and a project with no codegraph.json

behaves exactly as before. Re-index (codegraph index

) after adding or changing mappings.

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.

Every artifact is built and published by the public Release workflow — never from a laptop — and carries cryptographic proof of it:

npm packages are published viatrusted publishing(OIDC — no long-lived npm tokens exist that could be stolen) withprovenance attestationslinking every version to the exact commit and workflow run that built it. Verify what's installed:

npm audit signatures

GitHub Release bundles(andSHA256SUMS

) carry signedbuild attestations(SLSA v1.0 Build Level 2). Verify any downloaded bundle:

gh attestation verify codegraph-darwin-arm64.tar.gz -R colbymchenry/codegraph

Releases published before July 2026 predate this pipeline and don't carry attestations.

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):

Platform	Architectures	Install
Windows	x64, arm64	PowerShell installer or npm
macOS	x64, arm64	shell installer or npm
Linux	x64, arm64	shell installer or npm

See Get Started for the one-line install commands.

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 CodeCursorCodex CLIopencodeHermes AgentGemini CLIAntigravity IDE****Kiro

Language	Extension	Status
TypeScript	.ts , .tsx
Full support
JavaScript	.js , .jsx , .mjs
Full support
ArkTS (HarmonyOS)	.ets
Full support (everything TypeScript has, plus @Component /@ComponentV2 structs with their ArkUI decorators (@State /@Prop /@Link /@Local /@Builder /…), build() view trees — parent→child component edges, chained-attribute links to @Extend /@Styles functions, .onClick(this.handler) event bindings — dynamic-dispatch bridges for state→build() re-renders, @ohos.events.emitter emit→subscriber pairs (static event keys only), and router.pushUrl literal urls → the target page struct; ohpm workspace modules resolve bare import { X } from "data" through oh-package.json5 file: dependencies, honoring each module's main entry)
Python	.py
Full support
Go	.go
Full support
Rust	.rs
Full support
Java	.java
Full support
C#	.cs
Full support
PHP	.php
Full support
Ruby	.rb
Full support
C	.c , .h
Full support
C++	.cpp , .hpp , .cc
Full support
Objective-C	.m , .mm , .h
Partial support (classes, protocols, methods, @property , #import , message sends; .mm ObjC++ may parse incompletely)
Metal	.metal
Full support (vertex/fragment/kernel functions, structs, type aliases, call edges — MSL parses as C++, with [[attribute]] annotations handled)
CUDA	.cu , .cuh
Full support (kernels and device/host functions, structs, classes, host→kernel call edges through <<<grid, block>>> launch syntax — templated launches, function-pointer launches (auto kernel = &fn<...> ), dim3{...} configs, and macro-defined kernels included; __global__ /__device__ /__launch_bounds__ specifiers handled; CUDA in plain .h /.hpp headers recognized by content)
Swift	.swift
Full support
Kotlin	.kt , .kts
Full support
Scala	.scala , .sc
Full support (classes, traits, methods, type aliases, Scala 3 enums)
Dart	.dart
Full support
Svelte	.svelte
Full support (script extraction, Svelte 5 runes, SvelteKit routes)
Vue	.vue
Full support (script + script-setup extraction, Nuxt page/API/middleware routes)
Astro	.astro
Full support (frontmatter + script extraction, template component/call references, src/pages/ routes)
Liquid	.liquid
Full support
Pascal / Delphi	.pas , .dpr , .dpk , .lpr
Full support (classes, records, interfaces, enums, DFM/FMX form files)
Lua	.lua
Full support (functions, methods with receivers, local variables, require imports, call edges)
R	.R .r
Full support (functions in every assignment form, S4/R5/R6 classes with methods, library /require imports, source() file references, call edges)
Luau	.luau
Full support (everything in Lua, plus type /export type aliases, typed signatures, and Roblox instance-path require )
CFML	.cfc , .cfm , .cfs
Full support (tag-based <cfcomponent> /<cffunction> and bare-script component { ... } styles, extends /implements , embedded <cfscript> delegation, call edges)
COBOL	.cbl , .cob , .cpy
Full support (programs, sections/paragraphs with PERFORM/GO TO call edges, CALL 'literal' cross-program calls, COPY copybook imports — including standalone .cpy files — DATA DIVISION records/fields/88-levels, EXEC CICS LINK/XCTL and EXEC SQL INCLUDE targets; fixed and free format)
Visual Basic .NET	.vb
Full support (classes, Modules, interfaces, structures, enums, properties, events, Declare P/Invoke, Handles /WithEvents , Inherits /Implements edges, call edges through VB's call/index paren ambiguity, As New instantiation, interpolated strings, LINQ, Unicode identifiers)
Erlang	.erl , .hrl , .escript , .app.src , .app
Full support (functions with multi-clause/multi-arity grouping, -spec signatures, records with fields, -type /-opaque aliases, -define macros, -include /-include_lib /-import edges, local and mod:fn remote call edges, fun name/arity references, spawn /apply /proc_lib /timer /rpc MFA-argument call edges, gen_server:call/cast(?MODULE) → own handle_call /handle_cast links, -behaviour links, -export -based visibility)
Solidity	.sol
Full support (contracts, libraries, interfaces, structs, enums, modifiers, events, errors, state variables, import /using directives, emit /revert calls)
Terraform / OpenTofu	.tf , .tfvars , .tofu
Full support (resources, data sources, modules, variables, outputs, providers incl. aliases, locals ; var. /local. /module. /resource references with Terraform's per-directory scoping enforced; module calls bridged across the boundary — inputs to the child module's variables, module.M.out to the child's output, source to the module's files; cloudposse/atmos remote-state cross-component wiring when the component is statically named; provider = aws.east selections resolved up the module tree; moved /import /removed /check block references; .tfvars assignments linked to the variables they set)
Nix	.nix
Full support (functions with simple/destructured/curried params, let /attrset bindings, inherit , import ./path file edges — ./dir resolving through default.nix — plus NixOS module imports = [ ./x.nix ] lists and callPackage ./pkg.nix file edges; call edges; module-system option wiring — a config write like launchd.user.agents.x = { ... } links to the module declaring options.launchd.user.agents , so option flows trace across modules)

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.

Language	Benchmark repo	Coverage
TypeScript / JavaScript	this repo	95.8%
Python	psf/requests	100%
Go	gin-gonic/gin	96.6%
Rust	BurntSushi/ripgrep	86.7%
Java	google/gson	93.3%
C#	jbogard/MediatR	85.2%
PHP	guzzle/guzzle	100%
Ruby	sidekiq/sidekiq	100%
C	redis/redis	92.2%
C++	google/leveldb	94.8%
Objective-C	SDWebImage	91.6%
Swift	Alamofire	95.3%
Kotlin	square/okhttp	96.2%
Scala	gatling/gatling	91.2%
Dart	flutter/packages	92.4%
Svelte / SvelteKit	sveltejs/realworld	100%
Vue / Nuxt	nuxt/movies	93.5%
Astro	xingwangzhe/stalux	93.0%
Lua	nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim	84.2%
Luau	dphfox/Fusion	92.2%
Liquid	Shopify/dawn	73.8%
Pascal / Delphi	PascalCoin	77.4%

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.

"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), ornpm i -g @colbymchenry/codegraph@latest

.— WAL couldn't be enabled on this filesystem (common on network shares and WSL2codegraph status

showsJournal:

other thanwal

/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.

MCP tool calls fail with Transport closed while codegraph status/sync are healthy — almost always WSL2 with the project on a Windows drive (a

/mnt/c

or /mnt/d

path), where the local socket CodeGraph uses to share one background server across sessions is unreliable. CodeGraph now falls back to serving the session in-process instead of dropping the connection, but if you still hit it, set CODEGRAPH_NO_DAEMON=1

in your MCP server's environment to skip the shared server entirely (each session runs in its own process). Moving the project onto the Linux-native filesystem (e.g. under ~/

instead of /mnt/

) restores the shared server.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 .gitignore

d 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.

MIT

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

source & further reading

github.com — original article