Setup guide

Install repo-graph in any AI client

A 60-second setup that gives your AI coding assistant a structural map of any codebase. Exact command per client, plus how to confirm it loaded.

repo-graph is an MCP server that hands your AI assistant a structural graph of a codebase: entities, relationships, and feature flows. Instead of grepping and reading files until it finds the right one, the model navigates straight to it. Less context burned, fewer wrong guesses, faster answers.

It works across 20+ languages and frameworks, frontend to backend, including cross-stack links. The engine (repo-graph-py) is Rust plus tree-sitter.

Pick your client

Each line below installs the server pointed at the current directory (--repo .). uvx runs it with zero install.

Claude Code

claude mcp add repo-graph -- uvx mcp-repo-graph --repo .

OpenAI Codex

codex mcp add repo-graph -- uvx mcp-repo-graph --repo .

Gemini CLI

gemini mcp add repo-graph uvx mcp-repo-graph --repo .

Cursor / Windsurf / Antigravity / any MCP client — drop this in your mcpServers config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "repo-graph": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-repo-graph", "--repo", "."]
    }
  }
}

VS Code

code --install-extension james-chahwan.repo-graph

Claude Desktop — install the .mcpb desktop extension.

Prefer a pinned install over uvx? pip install mcp-repo-graph.

Confirm it loaded

Build the graph, then orient. Tell your assistant:

Generate the repo-graph, then call status.

generate scans the repo and builds the graph. It also takes a git URL if you want to point at a remote repo. status reports what it found. If you get a summary back, you're set.

How you actually use it

The pattern: before grepping or reading files, ask the model to call status to orient, then dense_text for full context, or activate / find / flow to scope in. Some prompts and the tool that answers them:

• "Where does the groups action hit the backend?" → trace (shortest path between two nodes)
• "Walk me through the checkout feature." → flow (entry → service → data)
• "What breaks if I change this handler?" → impact (downstream/upstream blast radius)
• "What's directly wired to this node?" → neighbours (one-hop connections)
• "Find the auth middleware." → find (match by name or qname)
• "Give me an ASCII overview." → graph_view

After you change code, reload rebuilds the graph.

What it changes

A run on quokka-stack, a Go + Angular monorepo (~566 nodes / 620 edges), fixing a reversed comparison operator. Same bug, same model, same prompt both times:

	Tokens	Time	Files touched
Without repo-graph	75,308	4m36s	~15 (grep, read, grep, read...)
With repo-graph	29,838	~30s	2 (a flow lookup + the handler)

The only difference is whether repo-graph is installed.

Try it

uvx mcp-repo-graph --repo .

More at repo-graph.com.