Kivgraph

Kivgraph is a local cross-repository code intelligence MCP server for AI
coding agents. It builds a canonical semantic code graph across multiple
registered repositories and answers questions about symbols, repository
relationships, callers, dependencies and change impact.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/b8410905-323d-4caf-9d7b-57c50ffca48c

kivgraph ui — read-only 3D view of the published graph.

It indexes a corpus once and serves an immutable graph: the edges are resolved
by go/types, the TypeScript checker and rust-analyzer, not by matching
names. That is the difference from a search tool, and it is what makes an empty
answer worth something — an empty reference list means nobody calls it, not
that nothing was found, and grep cannot tell those apart.

Kivgraph is focused on semantic code relationships, not automatic discovery of
every HTTP, gRPC, Kafka or database runtime flow between services.

Documentation

Read the Kivgraph user documentation for installation,
MCP clients, code intelligence, repository relationships and workspace code
graphs. The same pages are the source of landing/src/content/docs in this
checkout, which is what a reader on a fork or without a network still has.

What each tool answers

Ten read-only tools, plus one consent-gated mutation (index_project) that a
client has to authorize before it can register a repository or publish a
generation.

Every row that names a symbol carries its repository, path, qualified name and
line range, so it can be opened without a second call, and every tool accepts
that triple in place of an opaque key.

Where it loses. A rare name in one small repository is cheaper with grep,
and indexing a small file costs more than reading it. It wins on common names,
on transitive impact, on consumers in another repository, and on proving an
absence. Measured over 29 questions against a 37-repository corpus
(benchmarks/graph-tools-comparison/results-all.json, commit 954b9eb,
tokenizer o200k_base): 35,961 tokens for Kivgraph against 267,980 for
grep plus reading, both exact on 28 of the 29, median 5.95x per question in
Kivgraph's favour. grep is cheaper on 5 of those 29, all of them at full
recall on both sides: T1_go_trivial asks for a name the corpus declares
twice, and there grep costs 0.53x what Kivgraph does.

A second harness, benchmarks/mcp-token-cost, compares against the host's own
tool output captured verbatim, but it runs on Kivgraph's own single repository
of 13,222 symbols: 7.64x on the answers themselves and 1.60x over a whole
session, against a 2.41x floor set by the source bodies both arms pay for.

Status

Released and in use. kivgraph version reports the published release; the
backlog and the acceptance gate of every phase are in TASKS.md.

• Languages: Go, TypeScript, Rust, Python and Dart. Python uses the
  bundled AST worker in fallback mode; those inferred references are
  CANDIDATE, never EXACT. Exact Python mode uses the bundled Pyright LSP
  adapter with an installed Pyright/BasedPyright server. Dart uses the Dart
  Analysis Server supplied by the Dart or Flutter SDK.
• Semantic dependencies: Python and Dart imports can publish a package
  dependency when exactly one registered provider owns the requested package;
  symbol-level cross-repository edges require an explicit provider identity.
• Surface: ten read-only tools over STDIO, plus one consent-gated
  mutation (index_project). The contract is
  docs/protocol/mcp-surface-v3.md.
• Storage: LadybugDB is canonical; queries are served from an immutable
  HotSnapshot published atomically, never from the database.
• Platforms: linux/amd64, darwin/arm64 and windows/amd64.
• Viewer: kivgraph ui serves a read-only 3D view of the published graph.

Installation

Install the MCP with one script

The installer detects the platform, downloads the latest published MCP release
for it, verifies both the release archive and the bundle checksums, and
installs it without requiring Go or pnpm. The release contains the Go server,
the pinned LadybugDB library, the TypeScript worker, the bundled Python AST
worker, the pinned rust-analyzer, the grammar manifest and the web viewer,
whose assets are 2.3 MB of the bundle. scripts/build-bundle.sh --mcp-only
produces a bundle without the viewer for anyone who wants one. --slim goes
further for anyone packaging an .mcpb: it leaves out the pinned
rust-analyzer and every symbol a debugger would read, which is 46.3 MB
packaged against 24.9 MB. It downloads nothing later, so that bundle reads
Rust only where the machine already has an analyzer on its PATH.

Published bundles: Linux amd64, macOS arm64 and Windows amd64.

Runtime requirements: Bash on Linux and macOS or PowerShell 5.1 or later on
Windows, Node.js 22 or later, Python 3.10 or later when indexing Python, and
on the POSIX platforms curl, tar, and sha256sum or shasum. The bundle
carries its own rust-analyzer; indexing Rust repositories additionally needs
cargo on the PATH, and indexing Dart needs the Dart or Flutter SDK. On
Windows the installer also installs the Visual C++ redistributable, without
which kivgraph.exe does not start.

On macOS the binaries are not notarized. A release downloaded with curl is
not quarantined and runs; a copy downloaded with a browser needs xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine. See
docs/development/macos.md.

Install the latest release in one command. On Linux and macOS the same line
covers both, because the installer reads uname and picks its own archive:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/Luqueee/kivgraph/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

On Windows, where install.sh cannot run because there is no POSIX shell:

irm https://github.com/Luqueee/kivgraph/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

install.ps1 is a second implementation of the same pre-extraction checks, and
internal/release/install_parity_test.go fails when either script grows a check
the other lacks. Piping it into Invoke-Expression turns its
#Requires -Version 5.1 into a comment; download it to a file and run it as one
to keep that guard.

From a checkout, either installer can be run directly:

./scripts/install.sh

To install a specific release instead of the latest one:

KIVGRAPH_VERSION=v0.9.2 ./scripts/install.sh

The script installs the bundle in ~/.local/opt/kivgraph and puts launchers
in ~/.local/bin; on Windows it is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\kivgraph and
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\kivgraph-bin. It never modifies a registered
repository, creates an index, or replaces configuration files. To use a
different location, set KIVGRAPH_INSTALL_ROOT and KIVGRAPH_BIN_DIR.

Add the launcher directory to the current shell and verify both runtimes:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
kivgraph version
kivgraph-ts-worker <<'EOF'
hello
EOF

Check for a newer release or update the installed bundle:

kivgraph update --check
kivgraph update

The update is atomic, preserves the configuration and graph state, verifies
the release and bundle checksums, and replaces only the installed bundle.
Restart the MCP client after updating so it launches the new binary.

When kivgraph is invoked without a command from an interactive terminal, it
checks for a newer release with an 800 ms timeout and a 24-hour cache in the
platform cache directory ($XDG_CACHE_HOME on Linux and
$HOME/Library/Caches on macOS), under kivgraph/update-check.json.
The optional check never blocks the command when the network is unavailable.

Interactive command output uses semantic ANSI colors when the destination is a
terminal. Set NO_COLOR or redirect output to keep it plain.

Configure an MCP client and install the skill

The release installer does not edit client configuration automatically. After
installing Kivgraph, run the integration commands without --target to detect
the coding agents present on this machine and select one or more of them:

kivgraph mcp install --scope user
kivgraph skill install --scope user

Kivgraph checks each client's known local configuration or installation roots
and marks detected agents. Use ↑/↓ (or j/k) to move, space to toggle
an agent, a to select all, n to select none, Enter to confirm, and q or
Esc to cancel. If none is detected, the selector starts with no agents
selected. Use --target only for scripted, non-interactive installation.

Supported MCP targets are claude-code, claude-desktop, codex, opencode,
and oh-my-pi. Supported skill targets are claude-code, codex, opencode,
and oh-my-pi; Claude Desktop has no local skill target. The default scope is
user; use --scope project for project-local configuration. Use --dry-run
to inspect a plan without writing. Existing incompatible entries stop with an
error; --force is required to replace or remove one. Existing files are
written atomically with mode 0600 and receive a
*.kivgraph.bak backup before replacement or removal.

Inspect or remove a registration explicitly:

kivgraph mcp status --target claude-code --scope user
kivgraph mcp remove --target claude-code --scope user
kivgraph skill status --target claude-code --scope user
kivgraph skill remove --target claude-code --scope user

Initialize and publish a graph before starting the MCP server:

kivgraph init \
  --repository project=/absolute/path/to/project \
  --languages go,typescript,rust
kivgraph doctor
kivgraph index --full

init writes a self-contained configuration: with --config pointing
elsewhere, its state, cache and registry hang off that directory, so a throwaway
index never touches the real one. index --full republishes atomically — a
failure at any stage leaves the previous generation serving. A server already
running follows the new generation on its own.

Day to day:

kivgraph graph status      # what is published, and whether a tree has moved
kivgraph doctor            # toolchains, storage, and the type-checking ceiling
kivgraph ui                # read-only 3D viewer, default 0.0.0.0:7777
kivgraph logs --follow     # what it indexed, served and answered, as it happens
kivgraph tool-stats        # per-tool cost, calls, and failures
kivgraph stop              # terminate this user's serve and ui, never an index
kivgraph clean --keep-active

kivgraph ui binds a non-loopback address by default, because the graph is
indexed where the repositories are and looked at from elsewhere; there is no
authentication, so it logs exactly what it exposes and --addr restricts it.

logs and tool-stats read an append-only record in the state directory
rather than asking a server, which is why they can answer at all: the per-tool
counters a serve keeps are minted when it starts and gone when it stops.
Reading the file also makes the answer span every server that ever ran.

Configure any MCP client to start the server over STDIO:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kivgraph": {
      "command": "/home/user/.local/bin/kivgraph",
      "args": [
        "serve",
        "--config",
        "/home/user/.config/kivgraph/config.yaml"
      ]
    }
  }
}

kivgraph serve starts before a graph exists: with no published generation it
completes the handshake, publishes no query tool and puts the rebuild command in
instructions. A client launches the process itself, so exiting would read as a
crash. It writes MCP framing exclusively to stdout and logs to stderr.

Requirements

• Go 1.26 or later to build from source. The indexer type-checks with the
  go/types linked into the binary, so it can only read repositories and
  dependencies written for its own language version or older; kivgraph doctor
  reports that ceiling.
• Indexing Rust needs cargo and rust-analyzer. The release bundle carries
  the analyzer; it does not carry a Rust toolchain.
• Indexing TypeScript needs Node.js 22 or later for the worker.
• Indexing Python needs Python 3.10 or later for the bundled worker. It is a
  syntax-aware fallback and reports dynamic or unresolved names explicitly;
  exact mode additionally requires a Pyright-compatible language server.
• Indexing Dart needs the dart executable; a Flutter installation supplies
  it. The loader uses the Analysis Server protocol and does not modify the
  Flutter project.

What the graph carries, and what it refuses to

An edge is EXACT only with sufficient evidence and the right provenance. It is
never created from a name, a path, an alias or a single candidate, and a
reference that cannot be resolved is published as UNRESOLVED with its reason,
repository and language rather than dropped. graph_status reports both, broken
down.

That is why some answers are absences rather than edges. With the Rust standard
library indexed, impl Add for u32 is generated by a macro and exists in no
source range, so every use of it is declared PROVIDER_DEFINITION_NOT_INDEXED
once per symbol instead of becoming an edge nobody could open.

The providers Kivgraph derives from the machine — today the Rust standard
library, named rust:1.96.1 after the toolchain — are withheld from read
results by default: one toolchain is around twenty thousand symbols, and a
search for Clone would answer with core. include_derived asks for them, and
graph_status breaks out what they contribute so the totals stay readable.

Development

make build
make test
make semantic-coverage
make test-ladybug

make test-ladybug is the only supported way to run the tag that links the
pinned native library. Contributing conventions are in
AGENTS.md, which CLAUDE.md links to.

make semantic-coverage is the release gate for Go, TypeScript, Python and
Dart. It validates the machine-readable matrix in
testdata/semantic-coverage/manifest.json, runs the exact TypeScript, Go and
Dart suites, and requires a Pyright-compatible language server for the exact
Python suite. A language is not considered complete when a capability has a
fixture but no executable regression test.

Storage and graph benchmarks

The LadybugDB qualification, the synthetic corpus generator, the load and query
benchmarks, and the doctor, rebuild, rollback and snapshot commands are
documented in
docs/development/storage-benchmarks.md.
It concludes with ACCEPT_LADYBUGDB_WITH_LIMITS.

The public site

landing/ carries the landing page and the user documentation. It ships in no
release bundle, is verified with make landing-check and make landing-build,
and is served on port 6767. What it publishes, how the MCP reference was
captured, and what is still open are recorded in
docs/development/landing-site.md.

Structure

cmd/kivgraph/   Main executable.
internal/        Kivgraph internal packages.
ts-worker/        TypeScript worker.
web/              Graph viewer served by `kivgraph ui`.
landing/          Landing page and documentation site (not part of any release).
testdata/         Test fixtures and corpora.
benchmarks/       Benchmark results.
docs/             Documentation and ADRs.
scripts/          Auxiliary automation.

License

Kivgraph is distributed under the Apache License 2.0.

Third-party licenses

Notices and licenses for dependencies distributed with Kivgraph are recorded in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. The list is updated whenever a dependency is added to the distributable product.