ai-codeindex 0.10.1

AI-native code indexing tool for large codebases

codeindex

AI-native code indexing tool for large codebases.

codeindex automatically generates intelligent documentation (README_AI.md) for your directories using tree-sitter parsing and external AI CLIs. Perfect for understanding large codebases, onboarding new developers, and maintaining living documentation.

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✨ Features

• 🚀 AI-Powered Documentation: Generate comprehensive README files using Claude, GPT, or any AI CLI
• 🌳 Tree-sitter Parsing: Accurate symbol extraction (classes, functions, methods, imports) for Python & PHP
• ⚡ Parallel Scanning: Scan multiple directories concurrently for fast indexing
• 🎯 Smart Filtering: Include/exclude patterns with glob support
• 🔧 Flexible Integration: Works with any AI CLI tool via configurable commands
• 📊 Coverage Tracking: Check which directories have been indexed
• 🎨 Fallback Mode: Generate basic documentation without AI
• 🎯 KISS Universal Description (v0.4.0+): Language-agnostic, zero-assumption module descriptions
• 🏗️ Modular Architecture (v0.3.1+): Clean, maintainable 6-module CLI design
• 🔄 Adaptive Symbols (v0.2.0+): Dynamic symbol extraction (5-150 per file based on size)
• 📈 Technical Debt Analysis (v0.3.0+): Detect code quality issues and complexity metrics
• 🔍 Symbol Indexing (v0.1.2+): Global symbol search and project-wide navigation
• 🛣️ Framework Route Extraction (v0.5.0+): Auto-detect and extract routes from web frameworks
  • ThinkPHP: Convention-based routing with line numbers and PHPDoc descriptions
  • Laravel: (Coming soon) Explicit route definitions
  • FastAPI: (Coming soon) Decorator-based routes
  • Django: (Coming soon) URL patterns
• 📝 AI Docstring Extraction (v0.4.0+, Epic 9): Multi-language documentation normalization
  • Hybrid mode: Selective AI processing (<$1 per 250 directories)
  • All-AI mode: Maximum quality for critical projects
  • Language support: PHP (PHPDoc + inline comments), Python (coming soon)
  • Mixed language: Normalize Chinese + English comments to clean English

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📦 Installation

Using pipx (Recommended)

pipx install ai-codeindex

Using pip

pip install ai-codeindex

From Source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/codeindex.git
cd codeindex
pip install -e .

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🚀 Quick Start

1. Initialize Configuration

cd /your/project
codeindex init

This creates .codeindex.yaml in your project.

2. Configure AI CLI

Edit .codeindex.yaml:

# AI CLI command to use for generating documentation
ai_command: 'claude -p "{prompt}" --allowedTools "Read"'

# List of patterns to include for scanning
include:
  - src/

# List of patterns to exclude from scanning
exclude:
  - "**/test/**"
  - "**/__pycache__/**"

# Supported languages
languages:
  - python
  - php

# Output filename
output_file: "README_AI.md"

Other AI CLI examples:

# OpenAI
ai_command: 'openai chat "{prompt}" --model gpt-4'

# Gemini
ai_command: 'gemini "{prompt}"'

# Custom script
ai_command: '/path/to/my-ai-wrapper.sh "{prompt}"'

3. Scan a Directory

# Scan single directory
codeindex scan ./src/auth

# Preview prompt without executing
codeindex scan ./src/auth --dry-run

# Generate without AI (fallback mode)
codeindex scan ./src/auth --fallback

💡 Pro Tip: When scanning web framework directories (like Application/Admin/Controller for ThinkPHP), codeindex automatically:

• ✅ Detects the framework
• ✅ Extracts routes with line numbers
• ✅ Includes method descriptions from PHPDoc/docstrings
• ✅ Generates route tables in README_AI.md

4. Batch Processing

# Scan all directories (generates SmartWriter READMEs)
codeindex scan-all

# Traditional batch processing (for AI-enhanced docs)
codeindex list-dirs | xargs -P 4 -I {} codeindex scan {}
codeindex list-dirs | parallel -j 4 codeindex scan {}

Example output:

📝 Generating READMEs (SmartWriter)...
✓ Application ( 50KB)
✓ Admin ( 20KB)
✓ api ( 15KB)
→ Completed: 3/3 directories

5. Generate Structured Data (JSON)

NEW in v0.5.0: For tool integration (e.g., LoomGraph, custom scripts, CI/CD pipelines), generate machine-readable JSON output.

# Single directory
codeindex scan ./src --output json

# Entire project
codeindex scan-all --output json > parse_results.json

# View formatted JSON
codeindex scan ./src --output json | jq .

JSON Output Structure:

{
  "success": true,
  "results": [
    {
      "file": "src/parser.py",
      "symbols": [
        {
          "name": "Parser",
          "kind": "class",
          "signature": "class Parser:",
          "line_start": 15,
          "line_end": 120
        }
      ],
      "imports": [
        {"module": "pathlib", "names": ["Path"], "is_from": true}
      ],
      "error": null
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "total_files": 1,
    "total_symbols": 1,
    "total_imports": 1,
    "errors": 0
  }
}

Error Handling:

When errors occur, the JSON response includes structured error information:

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "DIRECTORY_NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "Directory does not exist: /path/to/dir",
    "detail": null
  },
  "results": [],
  "summary": {
    "total_files": 0,
    "errors": 1
  }
}

Use Cases:

• 🔌 Tool Integration: Feed parse results to visualization tools like LoomGraph
• 🤖 CI/CD Pipelines: Validate code structure in automated workflows
• 📊 Analytics: Analyze codebase metrics across versions
• 🧪 Testing: Verify expected code structure in tests

6. Check Status

codeindex status

Output:

Indexing Status
───────────────────────────────────────
✅ src/auth/
✅ src/utils/
⚠️  src/api/ (no README_AI.md)
✅ src/db/

Indexed: 3/4 (75%)

7. Generate Symbol Indexes (v0.1.2+)

Global symbol index - Find any class/function across your codebase:

# Generate PROJECT_SYMBOLS.md (global symbol index)
codeindex symbols

# Generate PROJECT_INDEX.md (module overview)
codeindex index

# Analyze git changes and affected directories
codeindex affected --since HEAD~5 --until HEAD
codeindex affected --json  # For scripting/CI

What you get:

PROJECT_SYMBOLS.md provides:

• Quick class/function lookup across all files
• Cross-file references and imports
• Symbol locations with line numbers
• Grouped by directory

PROJECT_INDEX.md provides:

• Module overview with descriptions
• Directory structure
• Entry points and CLI commands
• Generated from README_AI.md files

Affected analysis helps with incremental updates:

• Shows which directories changed in git commits
• Suggests which README_AI.md files need regeneration
• JSON output for CI/CD integration

8. Analyze Technical Debt (v0.3.0+)

NEW in v0.3.0: Detect code quality issues and technical debt patterns.

# Analyze directory for technical debt
codeindex tech-debt ./src

# Output formats
codeindex tech-debt ./src --format console   # Human-readable (default)
codeindex tech-debt ./src --format markdown  # Documentation
codeindex tech-debt ./src --format json      # API/scripting

# Save to file
codeindex tech-debt ./src --output debt_report.md

# Recursive analysis
codeindex tech-debt ./src --recursive

# Quiet mode (minimal output)
codeindex tech-debt ./src --quiet

What it detects:

• 🔴 Super large files (>5000 lines) - CRITICAL
• 🟡 Large files (>2000 lines) - HIGH
• 🔴 God Classes (>50 methods) - CRITICAL
• 🟡 Symbol overload (>100 symbols) - CRITICAL
• 🟠 High noise ratio (>50% low-quality symbols) - HIGH

Example output:

══════════════════════════════════════
  Technical Debt Report
══════════════════════════════════════

Summary
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Files analyzed: 15
Issues found: 3
Quality Score: 78.3/100

Severity Breakdown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CRITICAL: 1
HIGH: 2
MEDIUM: 0
LOW: 0

File Details
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📄 src/models/user.py (Quality: 70.0)
  🔴 CRITICAL - super_large_file
     File has 6000 lines (threshold: 5000)
     → Split into 3-5 smaller files

9. Framework Route Extraction (v0.5.0+)

NEW in v0.5.0: Automatically detect and extract routes from web frameworks with line numbers and descriptions.

codeindex automatically identifies web frameworks and extracts route information when scanning Controller/View directories. Routes are displayed as beautiful markdown tables in your README_AI.md files.

Supported Frameworks

Framework	Language	Status	Features
ThinkPHP	PHP	✅ Stable	Line numbers, PHPDoc descriptions, module-based routing
Laravel	PHP	🔄 Coming v0.6.0	Named routes, route groups, middleware
FastAPI	Python	🔄 Coming v0.6.0	Path operations, dependencies, tags
Django	Python	🔄 Coming v0.6.0	URL patterns, namespaces, view classes

Example Output

ThinkPHP Controller (Application/Admin/Controller/UserController.php):

class UserController {
    /**
     * Get user list with pagination
     */
    public function index() {
        // ...
    }

    /**
     * 创建新用户
     */
    public function create() {
        // ...
    }
}

Generated Route Table in README_AI.md:

## Routes (ThinkPHP)

| URL | Controller | Action | Location | Description |
|-----|------------|--------|----------|-------------|
| `/admin/user/index` | UserController | index | `UserController.php:12` | Get user list with pagination |
| `/admin/user/create` | UserController | create | `UserController.php:20` | 创建新用户 |

How It Works

1. Auto-Detection: Scans directory structure to detect web frameworks
2. Symbol Extraction: Parses controllers/views using tree-sitter
3. Route Inference: Applies framework-specific routing conventions
4. Documentation Extraction: Extracts docstrings/PHPDoc comments
5. Table Generation: Formats as markdown table in README_AI.md

Features:

• ✅ Line Numbers: Clickable file:line locations
• ✅ Descriptions: From PHPDoc/docstrings (auto-truncated to 60 chars)
• ✅ Multi-language: Supports Chinese and English descriptions
• ✅ Smart Filtering: Only public methods, excludes magic methods
• ✅ Zero Configuration: Just scan, routes auto-appear

Usage

# Routes are automatically extracted when scanning
codeindex scan-all

# Or scan specific controller directory
codeindex scan ./Application/Admin/Controller

No configuration needed! Routes are detected and extracted automatically.

For Developers

Want to add support for your favorite framework? See CLAUDE.md for the complete developer guide on creating custom route extractors.

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🎯 What's New in v0.4.0

KISS Universal Description Generator

Story 4.4.5 introduces a completely new approach to module descriptions - zero assumptions, zero domain knowledge, completely universal.

Before (v0.3.x):

| Admin/Controller | 后台管理模块：系统管理和配置功能 |  ← Generic, unhelpful
| Agent/Controller | 用户管理相关的控制器目录 |        ← Can't differentiate
| Retail/Marketing | Module directory |               ← No information

After (v0.4.0):

| Admin/Controller | Admin/Controller: 36 modules (AdminJurUsers, Permission, SystemConfig, ...) |
| Agent/Controller | Agent/Controller: 13 modules (Agent, Commission, Withdrawal, ...) |
| Retail/Marketing | Retail/Marketing: 3 modules (BigWheel, Coupon, Lottery, ...) |

Benefits:

• ✅ Universal: Works for all languages (Python, PHP, Java, Go, TypeScript, Rust...)
• ✅ Specific: Lists actual module/class names instead of generic descriptions
• ✅ Differentiated: Each directory description is unique
• ✅ Traceable: Original symbol names preserved, easy to search
• ✅ Zero maintenance: No hardcoded business domain keywords to maintain

Validation Results:

• PHP Project (ThinkPHP 5.0): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Python Project (codeindex itself): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Code reduction: -78 lines (-17%)
• Test coverage: 299 passed, 1 skipped

Example: PROJECT_INDEX.md

| Path | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| `src/codeindex/` | src/codeindex: 28 modules (adaptive_config, ai_helper, parser, scanner, ...) |
| `tests/` | codeindex/tests: 24 modules (test_adaptive_config, test_parser, ...) |

See docs/evaluation/story-4.4.5-kiss-validation.md for detailed validation report.

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🏗️ Architecture Improvements (v0.3.1)

codeindex v0.3.1 features a completely refactored CLI architecture with specialized modules following the Single Responsibility Principle:

Modular CLI Design

src/codeindex/
├── cli.py              (36 lines, -97%)  # Main entry point
├── cli_common.py       (10 lines)        # Shared utilities
├── cli_scan.py         (587 lines)       # Scanning operations
├── cli_config.py       (97 lines)        # Configuration management
├── cli_symbols.py      (226 lines)       # Symbol indexing
└── cli_tech_debt.py    (238 lines)       # Technical debt analysis

Benefits

• ✅ Easier to maintain: Each module has a single, clear responsibility
• ✅ Better code organization: 1062 lines → 36 lines in main CLI entry point
• ✅ 100% backward compatible: All commands and options preserved
• ✅ Zero breaking changes: All 263 tests passing
• ✅ Extensible: Easy to add new commands without bloating main file

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📖 Documentation

User Guides

• Getting Started - Detailed installation and setup
• Configuration Guide - All config options explained
• Configuration Changelog - Version-by-version config changes
• Advanced Usage - Parallel scanning, custom prompts
• Git Hooks Integration - Automated code quality checks

Developer Guides

• Contributing - Development setup and guidelines
• Requirements Workflow - Planning, issues, and development process
• CLAUDE.md - Quick reference for AI Code and developers
• Architecture - Design decisions and ADRs

Planning

• Strategic Roadmap - Long-term vision and priorities
• Changelog - Version history and breaking changes

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⚙️ Configuration Reference

Complete .codeindex.yaml

codeindex: 1

# AI CLI command (required)
ai_command: 'claude -p "{prompt}" --allowedTools "Read"'

# Directory patterns
include:
  - src/                # Include all subdirectories recursively
  - modules/

exclude:
  - "**/test/**"
  - "**/__pycache__/**"
  - "**/node_modules/**"

# Language support
languages:
  - python
  - php

# Output settings
output_file: "README_AI.md"
parallel_workers: 8
batch_size: 50

# Smart indexing (generates tiered documentation)
indexing:
  max_readme_size: 51200
  root_level: "overview"
  module_level: "navigation"
  leaf_level: "detailed"

# Adaptive symbol extraction (v0.2.0+)
symbols:
  adaptive_symbols:
    enabled: true           # Enable dynamic symbol limits based on file size
    min_symbols: 5          # Minimum symbols for tiny files
    max_symbols: 150        # Maximum symbols for huge files
    thresholds:             # File size thresholds (lines)
      tiny: 100             # <100 lines → 5 symbols
      small: 500            # 100-500 lines → 15 symbols
      medium: 1500          # 500-1500 lines → 30 symbols
      large: 3000           # 1500-3000 lines → 50 symbols
      xlarge: 5000          # 3000-5000 lines → 80 symbols
      huge: 8000            # 5000-8000 lines → 120 symbols
      mega: null            # >8000 lines → 150 symbols
    limits:                 # Symbol limits per category
      tiny: 5
      small: 15
      medium: 30
      large: 50
      xlarge: 80
      huge: 120
      mega: 150

# Incremental updates
incremental:
  enabled: true
  thresholds:
    skip_lines: 5
    current_only: 50
    suggest_full: 200

# Git Hooks configuration (v0.7.0+, Story 6)
hooks:
  post_commit:
    mode: auto            # auto | disabled | async | sync | prompt
    max_dirs_sync: 2      # Auto mode: ≤2 dirs = sync, >2 = async
    enabled: true         # Master switch
    log_file: ~/.codeindex/hooks/post-commit.log

Hooks Modes:

• auto (default): Smart detection based on project size
• disabled: Completely disabled
• async: Always non-blocking (background updates)
• sync: Always blocking (immediate updates)
• prompt: Reminder only, no auto-execution

See Git Hooks Integration Guide for detailed configuration.

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🤖 Claude Code Integration

codeindex generates README_AI.md files that are perfect for Claude Code to understand your project architecture. By adding a CLAUDE.md file to your project, you can guide Claude Code to use these indexes effectively.

Why Use CLAUDE.md?

Without guidance, Claude Code might:

• ❌ Blindly search through all source files (slow and inefficient)
• ❌ Miss important architectural context
• ❌ Use Glob/Grep instead of semantic understanding

With CLAUDE.md, Claude Code will:

• ✅ Read README_AI.md files first (fast and structured)
• ✅ Understand your project architecture before diving into code
• ✅ Use Serena MCP tools for precise symbol navigation

Quick Setup

1. Copy the template to your project:

# After running codeindex scan-all
cp examples/CLAUDE.md.template CLAUDE.md

2. Customize the project-specific sections:

Edit the "Project Specific Configuration" section in your CLAUDE.md to document your project structure, key components, and development guidelines.

3. Commit and push:

git add CLAUDE.md README_AI.md **/README_AI.md
git commit -m "docs: add Claude Code integration"

What's Included in the Template

The template includes guidance for Claude Code to:

1. Prioritize README_AI.md files when understanding architecture
2. Use Serena MCP tools (find_symbol, find_referencing_symbols) for precise navigation
3. Follow a structured workflow: README → find_symbol → read source → analyze dependencies
4. Avoid inefficient patterns like Glob/Grep searches

Example Workflow

After setup, when you ask Claude Code about your project:

❌ Without CLAUDE.md:
You: "Where is the authentication module?"
Claude: [Uses Glob to search for "auth*"]
        [Scans 50 files, wastes time]

✅ With CLAUDE.md:
You: "Where is the authentication module?"
Claude: [Reads /src/README_AI.md]
        [Reads /src/auth/README_AI.md]
        "The authentication module is in src/auth/authenticator.py:15
         with UserAuthenticator class..."

Advanced Integration: MCP Skills

codeindex also includes MCP skills for Claude Code:

Skill	Description
/mo:arch	Query code architecture using README_AI.md indexes
/mo:index	Generate repository index with codeindex

Install skills:

# Navigate to codeindex directory
cd /path/to/codeindex

# Run install script
./skills/install.sh

For Git Hooks Users (v0.5.0+)

If you're using codeindex Git Hooks, help your AI Code CLI understand how hooks work:

Method 1: Let AI Code read the guide ⭐️ (Recommended)

# In your project directory, run:
codeindex docs show-ai-guide

Then tell your AI:

User: "Read the output above and update my CLAUDE.md with Git Hooks documentation"
AI Code: [Reads the guide]
         [Understands Git Hooks]
         [Updates your CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md]
         ✅ Done!

Method 2: Direct AI integration

User: "Help my AI CLI understand codeindex Git Hooks"
AI Code: [User runs: codeindex docs show-ai-guide]
         [AI reads output]
         [Updates CLAUDE.md with Git Hooks section]
         ✅ Done! Future AI sessions will know about hooks.

What the guide contains:

• Complete Git Hooks functionality explanation
• Pre-commit and post-commit behaviors
• Ready-to-use section template for your CLAUDE.md
• Troubleshooting and common scenarios
• Expected behaviors (auto-commits are normal!)

Why this matters: Your AI CLI needs to know that post-commit will create auto-commits (normal behavior) and that lint failures will block commits (by design).

Full Documentation

• User Guide: docs/guides/claude-code-integration.md
• Git Hooks Guide: docs/guides/git-hooks-integration.md
• AI Integration: examples/ai-integration-guide.md
• Template File: examples/CLAUDE.md.template
• Skills Documentation: skills/README.md

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🎯 Use Cases

📚 Code Understanding

Generate comprehensive documentation for legacy codebases to help new developers onboard faster.

🔍 Codebase Navigation

Create structured overviews of large projects (10,000+ files) for efficient exploration.

🤖 AI Agent Integration

Use generated indexes with tools like Claude Code or Cursor for better code context.

📝 Living Documentation

Keep documentation up-to-date by regenerating README_AI.md files as code changes.

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🛠️ How It Works

Directory → Scanner → Parser (tree-sitter) → Smart Writer → README_AI.md (≤50KB)

1. Scanner: Walks directories, filters by config patterns
2. Parser: Extracts symbols (classes, functions, imports) using tree-sitter
3. Smart Writer: Generates tiered documentation with size limits
4. Output: Optimized README_AI.md for AI consumption

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📐 Smart Indexing Architecture

codeindex generates tiered documentation optimized for AI agents:

Project Root/
├── PROJECT_INDEX.md (~10KB)     # Overview level
│   └── Module list + descriptions
│
├── Module/
│   └── README_AI.md (~30KB)     # Navigation level
│       ├── Grouped files by type
│       └── Key classes summary
│
└── LeafDir/
    └── README_AI.md (≤50KB)     # Detailed level
        ├── Full symbol info
        └── Dependencies

Configuration

indexing:
  max_readme_size: 51200    # 50KB limit
  symbols:
    max_per_file: 15
    include_visibility: [public, protected]
    exclude_patterns: ["get*", "set*"]
  grouping:
    by: suffix
    patterns:
      Controller: "HTTP handlers"
      Service: "Business logic"
      Model: "Data models"

---

🤖 AI Coder Integration

For Claude Code Users

Add this to your project's CLAUDE.md:

## Code Index

This project uses codeindex for AI-friendly documentation.

### How to Read Code Index

1. **Start with overview**: Read `PROJECT_INDEX.md` or root `README_AI.md` to understand project structure
2. **Locate module**: Find the relevant module from the module list
3. **Deep dive**: Read module's `README_AI.md` for file/symbol details
4. **Read source**: Open specific files when you need implementation details

### Index Files

- `README_AI.md` - Directory-level documentation (≤50KB each)
- Each directory with source code has its own README_AI.md

### Example Workflow

Task: "Fix user authentication bug"
1. Read root README_AI.md → Find Auth/User module
2. Read Auth/README_AI.md → Find AuthService.php
3. Read AuthService.php → Understand implementation

Usage Tips

• Token efficient: Each README is ≤50KB, suitable for LLM context
• Progressive loading: Start from overview, drill down as needed
• Keep indexes updated: Run codeindex scan-all --fallback after major changes

CLAUDE.md Template

Copy the template to your project:

cp /path/to/codeindex/examples/CLAUDE.md.template your-project/CLAUDE.md

Or see examples/CLAUDE.md.template for the full template.

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🌍 Language Support

Language	Status	Parser	Features
Python	✅ Supported	tree-sitter	Classes, functions, methods, imports, docstrings
PHP	✅ Supported	tree-sitter	Classes (extends/implements), methods (visibility, static, return types), properties, functions
TypeScript/JS	🚧 Coming Soon	tree-sitter	-
Java	🚧 Planned	tree-sitter	-
Go	🚧 Planned	tree-sitter	-
Rust	🚧 Planned	tree-sitter	-

---

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for:

• Development setup
• TDD workflow
• Code style guidelines
• How to add new languages
• Release process

Quick Start for Contributors

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/codeindex.git
cd codeindex
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Lint and format
ruff check src/
ruff format src/

---

📊 Roadmap

See 2025 Q1 Roadmap for detailed plans.

Upcoming:

• Multi-language support (TypeScript, Java, Go)
• MCP service integration for Claude Code
• Incremental indexing (only scan changed files)
• Performance optimizations
• Plugin system for custom AI providers

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📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

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🙏 Acknowledgments

• tree-sitter - Fast, incremental parsing
• Claude CLI - AI integration inspiration
• All contributors and users

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📞 Support

• Questions: GitHub Discussions
• Bugs: GitHub Issues
• Feature Requests: GitHub Issues

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⭐ Star History

If you find codeindex useful, please star the repository to show your support!

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Made with ❤️ by the codeindex team