nexus-dev 6.0.0

MCP server for persistent AI coding assistant memory with local RAG

Nexus-Dev

Persistent Memory for AI Coding Agents

Nexus-Dev is an open-source MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides a local RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system for AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf. It learns from your codebase and mistakes, enabling cross-project knowledge sharing.

Features

• 🧠 Persistent Memory: Index your code and documentation for semantic search
• 📚 Lesson Learning: Record problems and solutions that the AI can recall later
• 🐙 GitHub Integration: Import Issues and Pull Requests into your knowledge base (see docs/github-import.md)
• 🌐 Multi-Language Support: Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java (extensible via tree-sitter)
• 📖 Documentation Indexing: Parse and index Markdown/RST documentation
• 🔄 Cross-Project Learning: Share knowledge across all your projects
• 🏠 Local-First: All data stays on your machine with LanceDB

📖 Full Documentation

For comprehensive documentation, visit mmornati.github.io/nexus-dev.

Installation

Isolated Global Installation (Recommended)

To avoid conflicts with project-specific virtual environments, install Nexus-Dev globally using pipx or uv tool.

# Using pipx
pipx install nexus-dev

# Using uv
uv tool install nexus-dev

Development Installation

If you are contributing to Nexus-Dev, you can install it in editable mode:

# Using pip
pip install -e .

# Using uv
uv pip install -e .

Quick Start

1. Initialize a Project

cd your-project
nexus-init --project-name "my-project" --embedding-provider openai

This creates:

• nexus_config.json - Project configuration
• .nexus/lessons/ - Directory for learned lessons

2. Set Your API Key (OpenAI only)

The CLI commands require the API key in your environment:

export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."

Tip: Add this to your shell profile (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc) so it's always available.

If using Ollama, no API key is needed—just ensure Ollama is running locally.

3. Index Your Code

# Index directories recursively (recommended)
nexus-index src/ -r

# Index multiple directories
nexus-index src/ docs/ -r

# Index specific files (no -r needed)
nexus-index main.py utils.py

Note: The -r flag is required to recursively index subdirectories. Without it, only files directly inside the given folder are indexed.

4. Configure Your AI Agent

Add to your MCP client configuration (e.g., Claude Desktop):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nexus-dev": {
      "command": "nexus-dev",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

5. Verify Your Setup

Check indexed content via CLI:

nexus-status

Test in your AI agent — copy and paste this prompt:

Search the Nexus-Dev knowledge base for functions related to "embeddings" 
and show me the project statistics.

If the AI uses the search_code or get_project_context tools and returns results, your setup is complete! 🎉

MCP Tools

Nexus-Dev exposes 7 tools to AI agents:

Search Tools

Tool	Description
search_knowledge	Search all content (code, docs, lessons) with optional content_type filter
search_code	Search specifically in indexed code (functions, classes, methods)
search_docs	Search specifically in documentation (Markdown, RST, text)
search_lessons	Search in recorded lessons (problems & solutions)

Indexing Tools

Tool	Description
index_file	Index a file into the knowledge base
record_lesson	Store a problem/solution pair for future reference
get_project_context	Get project statistics and recent lessons

MCP Gateway Mode

Nexus-Dev can act as a gateway to other MCP servers, reducing tool count for AI agents.

Setup

1. Initialize MCP configuration:

   nexus-mcp init --from-global
   

2. Index tools from configured servers:

   nexus-index-mcp --all
   

Usage

Instead of configuring 10 MCP servers (50+ tools), configure only Nexus-Dev:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nexus-dev": {
      "command": "nexus-dev"
    }
  }
}

AI uses these Nexus-Dev tools to access other servers:

Tool	Description
search_tools	Find the right tool for a task
invoke_tool	Execute a tool on any configured server
list_servers	Show available MCP servers

Workflow

1. AI searches: search_tools("create GitHub issue")
2. Nexus-Dev returns: github.create_issue with schema
3. AI invokes: invoke_tool("github", "create_issue", {...})
4. Nexus-Dev proxies to GitHub MCP

Server Configuration

You can configure downstream MCP servers in .nexus/mcp_config.json using either Stdio (local process) or SSE (HTTP remote) transports.

Local Server (Stdio):

{
  "servers": {
    "github-local": {
      "transport": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Remote Server (SSE):

{
  "servers": {
    "github-remote": {
      "transport": "sse",
      "url": "https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration

nexus_config.json example:

{
  "project_id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "project_name": "my-project",
  "embedding_provider": "openai",
  "embedding_model": "text-embedding-3-small",
  "docs_folders": ["docs/", "README.md"],
  "include_patterns": ["**/*.py", "**/*.js", "**/*.java"],
  "exclude_patterns": ["**/node_modules/**", "**/__pycache__/**"]
}

Project Context & Startup

Nexus-Dev needs to know which project to load on startup. It determines this in two ways:

1. Automatic Detection (Recommended): If the MCP server process is started with your project root as its current working directory (cwd), it automatically loads nexus_config.json and .nexus/mcp_config.json.
2. Environment Variable: Setting NEXUS_PROJECT_ROOT=/path/to/project explicitly tells the server where to look.

When to use refresh_agents: If the server starts in a generic location (like a global Docker container or default system path) without a project context, it starts "empty". You must then use the refresh_agents tool. This tool asks your IDE for the active workspace path and re-initializes the server with that context.

Pro Tip: Configure your MCP client (Cursor, Claude Desktop) to set cwd or NEXUS_PROJECT_ROOT to your project path. This matches the server's lifecycle to your open project and avoids the need for manual refreshing.

📖 See [docs/adding-mcp-servers.md](docs/adding-mcp-servers.md) for a guide on adding custom MCP servers.

### Supported Embedding Providers

Nexus-Dev supports multiple embedding providers (OpenAI, Ollama, Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock, Voyage AI, Cohere). 
For detailed information and configuration settings for each, see [Supported Embedding Providers](docs/embedding-providers.md).

## Optional: Pre-commit Hook

Install automatic indexing on commits:

```bash
nexus-init --project-name "my-project" --install-hook

Or manually add to .git/hooks/pre-commit:

#!/bin/bash
MODIFIED=$(git diff --cached --name-only --diff-filter=ACM | grep -E '\.(py|js|ts|java)$')
if [ -n "$MODIFIED" ]; then
    nexus-index $MODIFIED
fi

Multi-Repository Projects

Nexus-Dev supports multi-repository setups where a parent folder contains the nexus configuration and multiple sub-folders contain independent git repositories.

Quick Setup

# Initialize parent project
cd /path/to/parent-project
nexus-init --project-name "My Multi-Repo Project"

# Install hooks in all sub-repositories
nexus-init --discover-repos

Or install hooks manually in each repository:

cd sub-repo-1
nexus-init --link-hook

cd ../sub-repo-2
nexus-init --link-hook

All repositories:

• Share a single project ID and knowledge base
• Index to the parent project's database
• Store lessons centrally in parent .nexus/lessons/

📖 See Multi-Repository Projects for detailed guide.

Configuring AI Agents

To maximize Nexus-Dev's value, configure your AI coding assistant to use its tools automatically.

Add AGENTS.md to Your Project

Copy our template to your project:

cp path/to/nexus-dev/docs/AGENTS_TEMPLATE.md your-project/AGENTS.md

This instructs AI agents to:

• Search first before implementing features
• Record lessons after solving bugs
• Use get_project_context() at session start

Add Workflow Files (Optional)

cp -r path/to/nexus-dev/.agent/workflows your-project/.agent/

This adds slash commands: /start-session, /search-first, /record-lesson, /index-code

📖 See docs/configuring-agents.md for detailed setup instructions.

Architecture

For a detailed overview of the Nexus-Dev component architecture and data flow, please refer to the Architecture Documentation.

Development Setup

Since Nexus-Dev is not yet published to PyPI/Docker Hub, developers must build from source.

Detailed development setup instructions are available in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Quick Development Start

The easiest way to get started is by using our robust Makefile:

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/mmornati/nexus-dev.git
cd nexus-dev

# Setup full development environment (pyenv + venv + deps)
make setup

# Run tests
make test

For docker testing and multi-project development, please read the detailed setup guide in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Adding Language Support

See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions on adding new language chunkers.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.