roam-code 13.1

The local structural intelligence layer for coding agents

roam-code

Local codebase intelligence for developers and AI agents — maps, gates, and evidence in one CLI.

Roam is the local codebase intelligence layer for software work: it parses your repo into a SQLite-backed graph, then turns that graph into maps, retrieval, algorithmic judgment, change-safety gates, and tamper-evident evidence. Agents and developers use the same local facts before a change, during review, and after the patch lands.

_{238 commands · 224 MCP tools (57 in the default core preset) · 28 language families · Apache 2.0 · runs entirely on your machine}

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Killer use case: post-rename doc hygiene

git mv docs/old-guide.md docs/new-guide.md
roam stale-refs --fix preview     # see what auto-rewrites are safe
roam stale-refs --fix apply       # rewrite README + CHANGELOG + everywhere

stale-refs finds every dangling markdown link, HTML href, backtick path, and broken #anchor across the repo, with confidence-tagged rename hints from git history + basename match + LLM enrichment. Composable with --gate (CI), --diff (branch-only), --baseline-from (acknowledged debt), --watch (live), --check-external (HTTP validation), --sarif (Code Scanning), and a companion roam lsp server for editor squiggles. See stale-refs in the command table.

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What is Roam?

Roam is a local codebase intelligence engine. It turns a repository into a queryable model of symbols, calls, imports, dependencies, architecture, git history, tests, risks, smells, security flows, and algorithmic patterns. Developers use it to understand the deeper shape of a codebase; AI agents use it as the structural context they do not have by default.

The assurance layer is one product built on top of that engine. Roam can gate an AI-assisted change before it happens and compile tamper-evident evidence after it lands, but the foundation is broader: a local map of what the codebase is, how it behaves, and what a change would touch.

Mechanically: Roam parses your repo once, stores structural facts in a local SQLite graph (symbols, dependencies, call graphs, architecture layers, git history, runtime traces), and exposes the graph through 238 commands and 224 MCP tools across 28 languages.

The senses your agent and team do not get from text alone

Sense	The question agents miss	Roam commands
Codebase sight	"What does this repo do? What should I read?"	understand · map · tour · describe · minimap
Context retrieval	"Pull the exact spans I need for this task."	retrieve · context · search-semantic · agent-context
Change safety	"What breaks if I edit this? Which tests run?"	preflight · impact · affected-tests · diff · guard
PR review	"Did the AI miss a clone, a caller, a test?"	critique · pr-analyze · pr-risk · pr-comment-render
Algorithmic judgment	"Is this code correct but slow?"	math / algo · n1 · missing-index · hotspots
Architecture governance	"Is the architecture drifting?"	layers · cycles · clusters · health · budget · fitness · dark-matter
Refactor safety	"Can I simulate this refactor first?"	simulate · mutate · safe-delete · closure · plan-refactor
Multi-agent coordination	"Can multiple agents work in parallel?"	fleet · partition · orchestrate · agent-plan
Evidence + compliance	"Can we prove what was checked?"	attest · cga · audit-trail-export · audit-trail-verify · --sarif

Roam doesn't replace your linter, SAST, or AI semantic reviewer — it complements them by answering graph-aware questions they don't.

Algorithmic Risk Review (the differentiator)

roam math (alias roam algo) detects code that is correct but computationally wrong — exactly the class of patterns AI agents ship that pass tests and fail at scale:

• nested-loop lookups that quietly become O(n²)
• N+1 database query patterns
• regex compilation inside hot loops
• repeated JSON parsing of the same payload
• quadratic string concatenation
• branching recursion without memoisation
• expensive work inside request / render loops

This is the reason agent-generated code goes red after deploy without ever failing CI. Roam catches it before merge.

For teams running AI coding agents: the OSS engine ships paid layers on top — Roam Review (PR bot, early access), Roam Cloud (metrics dashboard, early access), Roam Self-Hosted (regulated stacks, early access), and PR Replay (one-shot audit, available today via email). All are licensed separately; the CLI stays Apache 2.0 forever.

Codebase ──> [Index] ──> Semantic Graph ──> 200+ Commands ──> AI Agent
              │              │                  │
           tree-sitter    symbols            comprehend
           28 languages   + edges            govern
           git history    + metrics          refactor
           runtime traces + architecture     orchestrate

Start here — the 5 verbs that cover ~80% of agent workflows

pip install roam-code

cd your-repo/
roam understand                       # 1. landing pad — what is this codebase?
roam retrieve "where is auth?"        # 2. graph-aware retrieval for free-form tasks
roam context AuthService              # 3. exact files+lines to read before changing
roam preflight AuthService            # 4. blast radius + tests + complexity check
git diff | roam critique              # 5. patch verifier — clones-not-edited, hot-path

That's the full mental model. The other CLI surface — taint, fleet, cga, simulate, mutate, partition, attest, eval-retrieve, oracle, py-types, py-modern, dark-matter, clones, propagation, fingerprint, etc. — is advanced surface for specialised workflows; you'll never need most of them.

The problem

Coding agents explore codebases inefficiently: dozens of grep/read cycles, high token cost, no structural understanding. Roam replaces this with one graph query:

$ roam context Flask
Callers: 47  Callees: 3
Affected tests: 31

Files to read:
  src/flask/app.py:76-963              # definition
  src/flask/__init__.py:1-15           # re-export
  src/flask/testing.py:22-45           # caller: FlaskClient.__init__
  tests/test_basic.py:12-30            # caller: test_app_factory
  ...12 more files

Terminal demo

Core commands

$ roam understand              # full codebase briefing
$ roam context <name>          # files-to-read with exact line ranges
$ roam retrieve "<task>"       # graph-aware spans for free-form natural-language tasks
$ roam preflight <name>        # blast radius + tests + complexity + architecture rules
$ roam critique                # verify a patch (`git diff | roam critique`)
$ roam health                  # composite score (0-100)
$ roam diff                    # blast radius of uncommitted changes

What's New in v13

v13.1 (released 2026-05-15) -- Pattern-2 propagation + shared YAML helper + 3 flagship silent-fallback seals

• 3 flagship Pattern-2 silent-fallback bugs sealed (W826/W834/W836). cmd_taint, cmd_health, and cmd_doctor now emit explicit state="empty_corpus" + partial_success=True on unanalyzed repos instead of false Healthy 100/100 / No taint findings / all checks passed verdicts. Security-critical for cmd_taint, CI-gate-critical for cmd_health --gate.
• Shared YAML config-loader helper. New src/roam/commands/_yaml_loader.py::load_yaml_with_warnings() absorbs the boilerplate Pattern-2 plumbing (PyYAML + tiny-parser + structured warnings + root-type check). 5 of 7 surveyed YAML loaders migrated. Net ~125 LOC removed across the package.
• 5 new smell detectors. type-switch, speculative-generality, empty-catch, rename-invariant-clone, cross-layer-clone, parallel-hierarchy (smells roster 19 → 24 in-file + 3 sibling-file detectors).
• @detector registry consolidation (W941, Gate-1 closure). ALL_DETECTORS and _SMELL_KIND_TO_CONFIDENCE are derived views from the @detector-decorated registry. Parallel-maintenance debt class eliminated for smell detectors.
• Cargo-cult or "" cleanup (W1029/W1013/W1014/W1034). 14 defensive wrappers removed across cmd_complexity, cmd_fan, cmd_risk, cmd_fn_coupling, laws/miner, world_model/causal_graph, search/tfidf, search/index_embeddings. 3 helpers None-guarded at source.
• SQL LIKE ESCAPE discipline (W990–W993). 26 wildcard-unsafe LIKE patterns hardened across 4 files; drift-guard test enforces forever.
• Catalog/_shared.py hoisting. 6 helpers consolidated to a canonical home with __all__; 6 catalog/* modules adopted the __all__ discipline; cross-layer _is_test_path / _camel_split / _enclosing_symbol / _parse_iso / make_finding_id / make_smell_finding all single-sourced.
• 30+ behavioral Pattern-2 fixes across cmd_alerts / cmd_smells / cmd_pr_risk / cmd_taint / cmd_health / cmd_doctor / finding_suppress / smells_suppress / suppression / sarif.
• Empty-corpus smoke sweep (W805 + W639 + W661). 25+ detectors smoke-tested; 12 already clean, 7 auto-fixed by W817 helper-level auto-inject, 3 dedicated flagship fixes. Forbidden-fragment blacklist ("safe" / "healthy" / "100/100" / "no concerns") prevents regressions.
• No persisted-data breaks. Hash-stability mandate held: 31/31 test_evidence_schema_migration.py byte-identical; make_finding_id hashes confirmed byte-identical before/after consolidation.

v13.0 (released 2026-05-13) -- Agent-OS substrate + Laravel idioms + Vue SFC

• Agent-OS control plane. New repo-local substrates under .roam/: constitution (single source for laws / rules / memory / gates), HMAC-chained run ledger (roam runs start|verify|end), multi-agent leases (roam lease claim|release|list), portable agent memory (.roam/memory.jsonl), and 4 cumulative modes (read_only → safe_edit → migration → autonomous_pr). Mode enforcement is opt-in behind ROAM_MODE_ENFORCEMENT=1 for v13.0 (PR-C ready; staged rollout). See CLAUDE.md "Agent OS substrate" for the canonical loop.
• World-model classifiers (R28). 4 new detectors with first-class CLI surface: roam side-effects (io_read / io_write / mutation / process / none), roam idempotency (idempotent / non_idempotent / unknown), roam causal-graph (param → sink dependency edges), and roam tx-boundaries (begin / commit / rollback regions + unsafe_mutation outside-tx findings).
• Laravel dynamic-dispatch idioms. New src/roam/index/laravel_post.py post-resolver catches 7 of 8 implicit-edge idioms that auth-gaps, n1, and algo were silently missing: Route closures, Eloquent scopes, Policy resolution, Observer registration, Job dispatch, Queue worker dispatch, and Artisan commands.
• Vue SFC import graph. Single-File Component support (.vue) — template, script, and style blocks parsed into the symbol graph; imports + component registrations resolved across the SFC boundary so roam impact, roam context, and roam preflight work on Vue projects.
• Plugin substrate (R25) validated end-to-end. The roam-plugin-* entry-point surface (see CLAUDE.md "Writing a roam plugin") shipped clean cut on Rails Path A — framework-specific knowledge can ship as a plugin instead of landing in core.
• ~20 new CLI commands. roam brief, roam next, roam mode, roam constitution, roam laws, roam memory, roam lease, roam runs, roam replay, roam agent-score, roam agents-md, roam architecture-drift, roam graph-diff, roam side-effects, roam idempotency, roam causal-graph, roam tx-boundaries, roam batch-search, roam complete, roam mcp.
• Real-world feedback fixes. stale-refs heading-slugger now matches GitHub's algorithm exactly; stale-refs --fix URL-half + bare-backtick corruption guards; algo nested-lookup dataflow predicate + PHP ===/!== detection; auth-gaps helper indirection (2-level same-class + ancestor descent); over-fetch 3-state classification (BARE / GUARDED_RELATION / UNGUARDED_RELATION); pr-bundle --strict-resolved + --ci global mode integration.
• Schema bump (USER_VERSION 12 → 13). Migration #51 adds the loop_eq_with_dependent_write column that backs the new algo nested-lookup dataflow predicate.

Full release notes in CHANGELOG.md.

What's New in v12

v12.1+ -- Boolean oracles, IDOR classifier, index portability + Django bridge

• roam oracle <name>: 5 boolean oracles for agents — 1-token yes/no answers (symbol-exists, route-exists, is-test-only, is-reachable-from-entry, is-clone-of). Direct counter to CKB v9.2's symbolExists pattern. MCP tools: roam_oracle_*.
• roam_taint_classify (MCP only): LLM-augmented taint classification — runs roam taint then asks the agent's own model (via MCP sampling) to label each reachable finding as IDOR/AUTHZ/SQLI/XSS/etc. with confidence + reasoning. Counter to Semgrep Multimodal — same LLM-reasoning narrative without a hosted API key. Sequential for v12.1; concurrency-bounded gather lands in v12.2.
• roam index-export / roam index-import: portable, integrity-checked tarball format with manifest sha256 round-trip + optional cosign signing. Counter to Cursor's "92% similar codebase = reuse teammate's index" without a vendor cloud. Tamper-evident (manifest verifies index.db sha256 on import).
• roam eval-retrieve --emit-format coderag|beir: bench-portable JSONL emit for public leaderboard submission. CodeRAG-Bench-compatible ctxs array + BEIR-style trec_eval run files.
• Django bridge: full implicit-relationship resolution (admin→model, serializer→model, FK transitive, signal handlers, URL configs, Celery tasks, DRF routers). Ported from @LukasBerka/roam-code — credit Lukas Berka. New schema columns: framework_type, field_type, field_metadata. Post-resolver runs after graph metrics.
• worktree_git_env() (git_utils.py): GIT_INDEX_FILE override fixes .git/index.lock contention when parallel agents run roam in sibling worktrees. Wired into discovery.py, git_stats.py, changed_files.py. Ported from @river-mounts/roam-code-sf — credit Sam Hannan.

v12.0 (released 2026-05-01) -- Retrieval substrate + patch verifier

• roam retrieve "<task>": graph-aware context server. Hybrid first stage (FTS5) + structural reranker (personalised PageRank + clone-canonical signal + lexical baseline) + token-budget cap. Returns ranked spans with justification tags (pagerank=..., clone_cluster=..., fts=...) so callers can see why each span ranked. MCP tool: roam_retrieve(task, budget, k, rerank, seed_files).
• roam critique: graph-grounded patch verifier. Pipe git diff | roam critique to get findings ranked by severity. The killer signal is clones-not-edited: for every changed symbol with persisted clone siblings outside the diff, we flag the sibling as a likely missed change. Plus a blast-radius caller-count finding. Exits 5 on high severity (CI-gateable). MCP tool: roam_critique(diff_text).
• roam clones --persist: populate the clone_pairs and clone_clusters tables so downstream consumers (critique, retrieve) can query clones in O(1) instead of re-running detection.
• personalized_pagerank() in graph/pagerank.py: NetworkX personalization= wrapper with empty-seed fallback to global PR; biases ranking toward query-relevant nodes for the retrieve reranker.
• .roam/config.toml (new): zero-dep TOML loader (stdlib tomllib → tomli → in-tree subset parser). Tunable retrieve weights (alpha/beta/gamma/delta/epsilon), tokens_per_line, lexical_baseline, first_stage_token_cap, default_budget, default_k, default_rerank.
• DX corrections from dogfood pass: roam --detail <cmd> is the canonical group-level flag; misleading "use --detail" hints in 7 commands rewritten to point users at roam --detail <cmd>. --top N aliased on complexity/algo/rules (--top 0 means unlimited on rules). roam fingerprint no longer refuses graphs ≥5,000 symbols (new soft-warn threshold 20k, hard cap 100k).
• 211 CLI commands, 145 MCP tools (fleet, ask, workflow, cga, eval-retrieve remain CLI-only; v12 exposes roam_retrieve, roam_critique, roam_fleet_plan, plus 5 v12.1 boolean oracles (roam_oracle_*), roam_taint_classify, roam_pytest_fixtures, and roam_hover as MCP tools). 57-tool core preset is the default for token-budget-conscious clients.

What's New in v11

v11.2 -- AST Clone Detection + Debug Artifact Rules

• roam clones: New AST structural clone detection via subtree hashing. Finds Type-2 clones (identical control flow, different identifiers/literals) with Jaccard similarity scoring, Union-Find clustering, and automated refactoring suggestions. More precise than the metric-based duplicates command.
• 9 debug artifact rules (COR-560 through COR-568): Detect leftover print(), breakpoint(), pdb.set_trace(), console.log(), debugger, and System.out.println() in Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Java code. All use ast_match type with test file exemptions.
• 140 commands, 102 MCP tools (at v11.2.0 release).

v11.1.2 -- SQL + Scala Tier 1, 27 Languages

• SQL DDL promoted to Tier 1 with dedicated SqlExtractor -- tables, columns, views, functions, triggers, schemas, types (enums), sequences, ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN. Foreign keys produce graph edges; views and triggers reference source tables. Database-schema projects now work with roam health, roam layers, roam impact, roam coupling and all graph commands.
• Scala promoted to Tier 1 with dedicated ScalaExtractor -- classes, traits, objects, case classes, sealed hierarchies, val/var properties, type aliases, imports, and inheritance. Full extends + with trait mixin resolution.
• 28 languages with 17 dedicated Tier 1 extractors.
• server.json for official MCP Registry submission.

v11.1.1 -- Command Quality Audit

• Full command audit: all 152 commands reviewed for usefulness, duplicates, and test coverage. ~20 bugs fixed, 21 new test files (700+ tests), every command docstring updated with cross-references to related commands.
• Kotlin promoted to Tier 1 via new YAML-based declarative extractor architecture. Classes, interfaces, enums, objects, functions, methods, properties, and inheritance fully extracted.
• 7 new commands: roam congestion, roam adrs, roam flag-dead, roam test-scaffold, roam sbom, roam triage, roam ci-setup.
• CI templates: roam ci-setup generates pipelines for GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure Pipelines, Jenkins, and Bitbucket.
• Bug fixes: --undocumented mode in intent (wrong DB table), --changed flag in verify (was permanently dead), lazy-load violation in visualize (~500ms penalty), exit code inconsistency in rules, VERDICT-first convention enforced across all commands.
• Code quality: 15 unused variables removed, dead code swept (4 orphaned cmd files, 2 dead helper functions), algo detector false-positive rate reduced (regex-in-loop: 7 to 1, list-prepend deque suppression), 6 regex patterns pre-compiled for loop performance.

v11.0 -- MCP v2 for Agent-First Workflows

• In-process MCP execution removes per-call subprocess overhead.
• 4 compound operations (roam_explore, roam_prepare_change, roam_review_change, roam_diagnose_issue) reduce multi-step agent workflows to single calls.
• Preset-based tool surfacing (core, review, refactor, debug, architecture, full) keeps default tool choice tight for agents while retaining full depth on demand.
• MCP tools now expose structured schemas and richer annotations for safer planner behavior.
• MCP token overhead for default core context dropped from ~36K to <3K tokens (about 92% reduction).

Performance and Retrieval

• Symbol search moved to SQLite FTS5/BM25: typical search moved from seconds to tens of milliseconds on the indexed cohort (mileage varies by repo size and query selectivity — see bench/retrieve/ for the methodology).
• Incremental indexing shifted from O(N) full-edge rebuild behavior to O(changed) updates.
• DB/runtime optimizations (mmap_size, safer large-graph guards, batched writes) reduce first-run and reindex friction on larger repos.

CI, Governance, and Delivery

• GitHub Action supports quality gates, SARIF upload, sticky PR comments, and cache-aware execution.
• CI hardening includes changed-only analysis mode, trend-aware gates, and SARIF pre-upload guardrails (size/result caps + truncation signaling).
• Agent governance expanded with verification and AI-quality tooling (roam verify, roam vibe-check, roam ai-readiness, roam ai-ratio) for teams managing agent-written code.

Best for

• Agent-assisted coding -- structured answers that reduce token usage vs raw file exploration
• Large codebases (100+ files) -- graph queries beat linear search at scale
• Architecture governance -- health scores, CI quality gates, budget enforcement, fitness functions
• Safe refactoring -- blast radius, affected tests, pre-change safety checks, graph-level editing
• Multi-agent orchestration -- partition codebases for parallel agent work with zero-conflict guarantees
• Security analysis -- vulnerability reachability mapping, auth gaps, CVE path tracing
• Algorithm optimization -- detect O(n^2) loops, N+1 queries, and 21 other anti-patterns with suggested fixes
• Backend quality -- auth gaps, missing indexes, over-fetching models, non-idempotent migrations, orphan routes, API drift
• Runtime analysis -- overlay production trace data onto the static graph for hotspot detection
• Multi-repo projects -- cross-repo API edge detection between frontend and backend

When NOT to use Roam

• Real-time type checking -- use an LSP (pyright, gopls, tsserver). Roam is static and offline.
• Small scripts (<10 files) -- just read the files directly.
• Pure text search -- ripgrep is faster for raw string matching.

Why use Roam

Speed. One command replaces 5-10 tool calls (in typical workflows). Under 0.5s for any query.

Dependency-aware. Computes structure, not string matches. Knows Flask has 47 dependents and 31 affected tests. grep knows it appears 847 times.

LLM-optimized output. Plain ASCII, compact abbreviations (fn, cls, meth), --json envelopes. Designed for agent consumption, not human decoration.

Evidence that never leaves your machine. Local SQLite, no telemetry, no network calls. Evidence packets hash-verify offline — works in air-gapped environments.

Algorithm-aware. Built-in catalog of 23 anti-patterns. Detects suboptimal algorithms (quadratic loops, N+1 queries, unbounded recursion) and suggests fixes with Big-O improvements and confidence scores. Receiver-aware loop-invariant analysis minimizes false positives.

CI-ready. --json output, --gate quality gates, GitHub Action, SARIF 2.1.0.

	Without Roam	With Roam
Tool calls	8	1
Wall time	~11s	<0.5s
Tokens consumed	~15,000	~3,000

Measured on a typical agent workflow in a 200-file Python project (Flask). See benchmarks for more.

Table of Contents

Getting Started: What is Roam? · What's New in v11 · Best for · Why use Roam · Install · Quick Start

Using Roam: Commands · Walkthrough · AI Coding Tools · MCP Server

Operations: CI/CD Integration · SARIF Output · For Teams

Reference: Language Support · Performance · How It Works · How Roam Compares · FAQ

More: Limitations · Troubleshooting · Update / Uninstall · Development · Contributing

Install

pip install roam-code

# Recommended: isolated environment
pipx install roam-code
# or
uv tool install roam-code

# From source
pip install git+https://github.com/Cranot/roam-code.git

Requires Python 3.10+. Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Windows: If roam is not found after installing with uv, run uv tool update-shell and restart your terminal.

Docker (alpine-based)

docker build -t roam-code .
docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/workspace" roam-code index
docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/workspace" roam-code health

Quick Start

cd your-project
roam init                  # indexes codebase, creates config + CI workflow
roam understand            # full codebase briefing

First index takes ~5s for 200 files, ~15s for 1,000 files. Subsequent runs are incremental and near-instant.

Next steps:

• Set up your AI agent: roam describe --write (auto-detects CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .cursor/rules, etc. — see integration instructions)
• Explore: roam health → roam weather → roam map
• Run the v2 stack on every PR: git diff | roam pr-analyze --explain (gates AI-generated risk; pair with roam pr-comment-render for sticky GitHub comments — see Roam Review)
• First-touch demo: roam dogfood (audit + pr-analyze + audit-trail + governance checks in one envelope)
• Add to CI: roam init already generated a GitHub Action
• Customer-facing artifacts: see starter rule packs at templates/rules/, the audit-report template + redacted sample at templates/audit-report/, and the security/procurement packet at templates/legal/security-procurement-packet.md.

Try it on Roam itself

git clone https://github.com/Cranot/roam-code.git
cd roam-code
pip install -e .
roam init
roam understand
roam health

Works With

Claude Code • Cursor • Windsurf • GitHub Copilot • Aider • Cline • Gemini CLI • OpenAI Codex CLI • MCP • GitHub Actions • GitLab CI • Azure DevOps

Commands

Lead with the 5 verbs. The 5 core commands cover ~80% of agent workflows: understand, context, retrieve, preflight, critique. The remaining ~233 commands are detail surface for specialised workflows (taint, fleet, cga, oracle, eval, …) — they're called by agents on demand, not memorised. This is intentional design; under the hood the canonical surface is 238 commands (231 canonical + 7 aliases) organised into 7 categories (aliases for muscle memory: algo → math, weather → churn, digest / snapshot / trend → trends, onboard → understand, refs → uses), but you don't need to know that to start.

Full command reference — canonical command list (all 231)

Getting Started

Command	Description
roam index [--force] [--verbose]	Build or rebuild the codebase index
roam index-export <bundle.tar.gz> [--sign] [--key K] [--keyless]	Export the indexed .roam/index.db as a signed, integrity-checked tarball. Counter to Cursor's "reuse teammate's index" without a vendor cloud.
roam index-import <bundle.tar.gz> [--force] [--cosign-bundle B] [--cosign-key K]	Import a portable index bundle. Verifies manifest sha256 + optional cosign signature; refuses to overwrite without --force.
roam watch [--interval N] [--debounce N] [--webhook-port P] [--guardian]	Long-running index daemon: poll/webhook-triggered refreshes plus optional continuous architecture-guardian snapshots and JSONL compliance artifacts
roam init	Guided onboarding: creates .roam/fitness.yaml, CI workflow, runs index, shows health
roam hooks [--install] [--uninstall]	Manage git hooks for automated roam index updates and health gates
roam doctor	Diagnose installation and environment: verify tree-sitter grammars, SQLite, git, and config health
roam reset [--hard]	Reset the roam index and cached data. --hard removes all .roam/ artifacts
roam clean [--all]	Remove stale or orphaned index entries without a full rebuild
roam understand	Full codebase briefing: tech stack, architecture, key abstractions, health, conventions, complexity overview, entry points
roam onboard	Alias for understand
roam tour [--write PATH]	Auto-generated onboarding guide: top symbols, reading order, entry points, language breakdown. --write saves to Markdown
roam describe [--write] [--force] [-o PATH] [--agent-prompt]	Auto-generate project description for AI agents. --write auto-detects your agent's config file. --agent-prompt returns a compact (<500 token) system prompt
roam agent-export [--format F] [--write]	Generate agent-context bundle from project analysis (AGENTS.md + provider-specific overlays)
roam minimap [--update] [-o FILE] [--init-notes]	Compact annotated codebase snapshot for agent config injection: stack, annotated directory tree, key symbols by PageRank, high fan-in symbols to avoid touching, hotspots, conventions. Sentinel-based in-place updates
roam config [--set-db-dir PATH] [--use-local-cache] [--semantic-status] [--semantic-backend MODE]	Manage .roam/config.json (DB path, local cache storage, excludes, optional ONNX semantic settings, and activation diagnostics)
roam map [-n N] [--full] [--budget N]	Project skeleton: files, languages, entry points, top symbols by PageRank. --budget caps output to N tokens
roam schema [--diff] [--version V]	JSON envelope schema versioning: view, diff, and validate output schemas
roam mcp [--list-tools] [--transport T]	Start MCP server (stdio/SSE/streamable-http), inspect available tools, and expose roam to coding agents
roam mcp-setup <platform>	Generate MCP config snippets for AI platforms: claude-code, cursor, windsurf, vscode, gemini-cli, codex-cli
roam ci-setup [--platform P] [--write] [--with-slsa-l3] [--with-oscal]	Generate CI/CD pipeline config (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure Pipelines, Jenkins, Bitbucket) with SARIF + quality gates. --with-slsa-l3 adds the SRC-L3 auto-trigger workflow (W471). --with-oscal materialises persistent OSCAL v1.2 artifacts under .roam/oscal/ (control-mapping.json + stub-assessment-plan.json) so future roam evidence-oscal --kind assessment-results calls can pass --import-ap-ref instead of inlining the stub (W535)
roam adrs [--status S] [--limit N]	Discover Architecture Decision Records, link to affected code modules, show status and coverage
roam plugins	List discovered plugins (commands, detectors, language extractors) registered via ROAM_PLUGIN_MODULES or entry points
roam index-stats	Report .roam index size, row counts, and SQLite fragmentation; hints when VACUUM or roam reset is overdue
roam test-pyramid	Count tests by kind (unit/integration/e2e/smoke) using path + filename heuristics; flags inverted pyramids
roam telemetry	Surface the opt-in local telemetry ring buffer (slowest + recent calls); enable via ROAM_TELEMETRY_LOCAL=1
roam orphan-imports	List Python imports that don't resolve to any indexed module or installed package
roam changelog [--suggest]	List commits since the last tag, optionally as a Conventional-Commits-bucketed markdown CHANGELOG draft
roam graph-export [--format graphml|dot|jsonl]	Export the symbol or file dependency graph for external tooling (Gephi, Cytoscape, custom analyses)
roam help-search <query>	Fuzzy match across every command's name + help text (replaces grepping --help-all output)
roam stats	Aggregate metrics over the index: count by language, file role, kind, plus recent commit activity
roam timeline <symbol>	Chronological commits that touched the file owning the symbol — author, date, lines added/removed
roam pr-prep [<range>]	One-shot pre-PR fitness check that bundles diff + critique + pr-risk into one envelope
roam pr-analyze [<range>] [--input F] [--rules F] [--gate]	Agent-aware PR risk verdict: aggregates pr-prep with AI-likelihood scoring, .roam/rules.yml enforcement, and INTENTIONAL/SAFE/REVIEW/BLOCK mapping; CI gate via --gate (exit 5 on BLOCK); governance audit trail via --audit-trail
roam pr-comment-render --input F	Render a markdown PR comment from a pr-analyze JSON envelope; styles: github, gitlab, plain
roam pr-replay [<sha>] [--audit-trail]	Replay a PR's analysis at a specific commit (or HEAD); useful for reproducing audit decisions and validating cache stability
roam metrics-push [--token T] [--anonymize] [--dry-run]	Push metrics-only summary (no source-code bodies) from roam audit to a Roam Cloud endpoint; --dry-run prints the payload locally
roam audit-trail-verify [--input F] [--gate]	Walk the EU AI Act audit-trail JSONL and verify SHA-256 chain integrity; exit 5 on broken chain
roam audit-trail-export [--format md|json|csv] [--since T] [--verdict V] [--aggregate]	Export the audit trail for procurement / compliance review; --aggregate rolls up per actor / repo / verdict / month
roam audit-trail-conformance-check [--retention-days N] [--gate]	Score the audit trail against governance-evidence checks (chain integrity, timestamps, actors, reproducibility, retention)
roam article-12-check [--output F] [--pdf F]	Article 12 scope/readiness assessment for actual Annex III high-risk AI-system buyers; produces a 1-page Markdown / PDF report.
roam capabilities [--emit yaml|json|text] [--category X] [--ai-safe-only]	Emit the decorator-driven capability registry — every command's machine-readable shape (inputs, outputs, ai_safe flag, since-version). For Roam Review GitHub App + MCP filtering.
roam skill-generate [--target claude|cursor|continue|aider] [--output F]	Generate an agent-runtime skill manifest from the capability registry. SKILL.md / .mdc / config snippets — derived from decorators, never hand-edited.
roam compare <baseline.db> <target.db> [--top N] [--threshold N]	Structural delta between two indices: symbols added/removed/moved + per-file complexity deltas + IMPROVED/SIDEWAYS/REGRESSED verdict. The "did this refactor actually work?" tool.
roam migration-plan [--target spec.yml] [--move SYMBOL=path] [--max-risk low|medium|high]	Generate an ordered migration plan from current state to a target architecture. Each step annotated with blast-radius (caller count) + risk score (low/medium/high) + cross-layer detection.
roam permit [--staged] [--input F] [--symbol N]	Structural-permission verdict facade for AI agents: ALLOW/REVIEW/BLOCK over critique + preflight + blast-radius. Exit codes 0/5/6 for Cursor rules / Claude Code hooks / pre-commit / CI gates.
roam postmortem <commit-range> [--limit N] [--show N]	Replay current detectors against past commits; reports findings that would have surfaced pre-merge. The "would Roam have caught my Q1 incident?" demo.
roam rules-validate [PATH] [--against DIFF] [--strict] [--gate] [--explain]	Lint a .roam/rules.yml for typos, schema mistakes, unknown patterns, duplicate IDs; optional dry-run against a sample diff
roam dogfood [--no-audit] [--no-pr-analyze] [--no-audit-trail]	One-shot v2 stack runner: audit + pr-analyze + audit-trail + governance checks — first-touch demo for any repo
roam suppress <finding-id> --reason "…"	Suppress a math / over-fetch / missing-index / auth-gaps false positive with audit-trail-friendly record (.roam/suppressions.json); --list / --remove complete the workflow
roam why-fail <test>	Find recently-changed symbols transitively reachable from a failing test
roam why-slow <symbol>	Surface runtime hotspots and slow callers for a specific symbol (uses runtime traces if present)
roam recommend <symbol>	Surface related symbols using call-graph + co-change + clone signals
roam graph-stats	Graph-level invariants: density, weak components, non-trivial cycles, top inbound symbols
roam api [--scope <dir>]	List the public API surface (exported public symbols + signatures)
roam exit-codes	List every roam exit code with its meaning
roam version [--check]	Show installed version; with --check also queries PyPI for newer releases
roam audit [--brief]	One-shot AI-governance audit envelope — chains health + debt + dead + risk + test-pyramid + api into a single envelope
roam disambiguate <name>	List every symbol matching the name with file/line/kind/signature/docstring snippet to pick the right one
roam pre-commit [--install|--print]	Install or preview a roam-critique git pre-commit hook
roam mcp-status	MCP server health: preset, registered tools, backpressure limits, cache entries, watcher state
roam test-impact [<range>]	Tests transitively reachable from changed symbols (sharper scope than affected-tests)
roam recipes	List every roam ask recipe with intent + example queries (sugar over ask --list)
roam surface [--filter F] [--category C]	Print the canonical capability surface (commands, aliases, MCP tools, maturity) for inventory and JSON consumption
roam explain-command <name>	Show what a command does, what it depends on, and how stale-index sensitive it is
roam db-check	Integrity sweep over the local index. Reports orphans, broken edges, missing FTS, and other structural issues

Daily Workflow

Command	Description
roam file <path> [--full] [--changed] [--deps-of PATH]	File skeleton: all definitions with signatures, cognitive load index, health score
roam symbol <name> [--full]	Symbol definition + callers + callees + metrics. Supports file:symbol disambiguation
roam context <symbol> [--task MODE] [--for-file PATH]	AI-optimized context: definition + callers + callees + files-to-read with line ranges
roam hover <symbol>	One-line architectural summary: kind, location, blast-radius bucket, top caller, top callee. Bounded at ~200 tokens for IDE hover panels
roam retrieve <task> [--budget N] [--k N] [--seed-files PATH]	Graph-aware context for free-form tasks: FTS5 + structural rerank (PageRank + clones) + token budget
roam critique [--input DIFF] [--intent TEXT] [--high-callers N]	Verify a patch against the graph: clones-not-edited + blast radius + intent-vs-semantic-diff. Pipe git diff in. Exit 5 on high severity.
roam fleet plan <goal> [--n-agents N] [--adapter raw|composio|copilot]	Graph-aware planner: Louvain partition + co-change + PageRank anchors → .roam-fleet.json for Composio/Copilot CLI/raw.
roam ask <query> [--list] [--explain] [--recipe NAME]	One-phrase intent classifier over a 25-recipe registry with phase, review-lens, gate, and follow-up metadata — composes preflight/retrieve/critique/fleet/understand/diagnose/trace/trends/hotspots/debt/taint/dead/coupling/stale-refs to cover the most common workflows.
roam workflow [RECIPE] [--list] [--query TEXT]	Inspect a recipe DAG, review lenses, gates, rendered command arguments, and follow-up commands without running the workflow.
roam taint [--rules-dir PATH] [--rule NAME] [--rules-pack PACK] [--ci]	Graph-reach taint analysis with OpenVEX-correct VEX justifications. YAML rule packs (10 starter packs: sqli, xss, ssrf, path-traversal, command-injection, deserialization, open-redirect, urllib, socketio, fileupload).
roam cga emit [--include-taint] [--sign --key]	Code Graph Attestation — in-toto v1 statement with roam-code.dev/CodeGraph/v1 predicate, Merkle root + edge bundle digest. --include-taint embeds OpenVEX-shaped reachability claims from roam taint. --sign signs with cosign (graceful skip if absent); roam cga verify round-trips both predicate digest and cosign signature.
roam eval-retrieve [--tasks FILE] [--sweep] [--min-recall-at-20 N] [--emit-format coderag|beir]	Recall@K eval harness for roam retrieve — measures against a JSONL ground-truth file. CI-gateable. --emit-format coderag writes CodeRAG-Bench-compatible run files for public leaderboard submission.
roam oracle <name> <subject>	Boolean oracles for agents — 1-token yes/no answers. Subcommands: symbol-exists, route-exists, is-test-only, is-reachable-from-entry, is-clone-of.
roam search <pattern> [--kind KIND]	Find symbols by name pattern, PageRank-ranked
roam grep <pattern> [-g glob] [-n N]	Text search annotated with enclosing symbol context
roam refs-text <string>...	String audit with verdict (SAFE-TO-REMOVE / REVIEW / LOAD-BEARING). Groups refs by surface (code/test/docs/config/dead) and annotates reachability.
roam delete-check [--source working|staged|pr|head] [--ci]	Gate a diff on surviving references — exits 5 on BREAK-RISK with --ci. The companion to safe-delete for unstructured deletion review.
roam history-grep <pattern> [--polarity]	Git pickaxe (-S / -G) with author / date and introduced-vs-removed annotation — for "when did this string appear?" investigations.
roam deps <path> [--full]	What a file imports and what imports it
roam trace <source> <target> [-k N]	Dependency paths with coupling strength and hub detection
roam impact <symbol>	Blast radius: what breaks if a symbol changes (Personalized PageRank weighted)
roam diff [--staged] [--full] [REV_RANGE]	Blast radius of uncommitted changes or a commit range
roam pr-risk [REV_RANGE]	PR risk score (0-100, multiplicative model) + structural spread + suggested reviewers
roam pr-diff [--staged] [--range R] [--format markdown]	Structural PR diff: metric deltas, edge analysis, symbol changes, footprint. Not text diff — graph delta
roam evidence-diff <old> <new>	Diff two ChangeEvidence packets: hash drift, schema drift, added/removed refs, missing/new findings, 8-question completeness regressions vs improvements
roam evidence-doctor [PACKET]	Read-only health diagnostic for a ChangeEvidence packet: schema validity, content-hash integrity, W259 completeness banner (STRONG / PARTIAL / INSUFFICIENT), suggested producer to lift the lowest-scoring question
roam evidence-oscal	Emit OSCAL v1.2 Control Mapping (or Assessment Results with --kind assessment-results).
roam api-changes [REV_RANGE]	API change classifier: breaking/non-breaking changes, severity, and affected contracts
roam semantic-diff [REV_RANGE]	Structural change summary: symbols added/removed/modified and changed call edges
roam test-gaps [REV_RANGE]	Changed-symbol test gap detection: what changed and what still lacks test coverage
roam affected [REV_RANGE]	Monorepo/package impact analysis: what components are affected by a change
roam attest [REV_RANGE] [--format markdown] [--sign]	Proof-carrying PR attestation: bundles blast radius, risk, breaking changes, fitness, budget, tests, effects into one verifiable artifact
roam pr-bundle init|set|add|emit|validate	Build a proof-carrying PR bundle (intent + context + affected symbols + risks + tests + non-goals). --auto-collect folds in envelopes from prior roam runs. CI-gateable via validate
roam annotate <symbol> <note>	Attach persistent notes to symbols (agentic memory across sessions)
roam annotations [--file F] [--symbol S]	View stored annotations
roam diagnose <symbol> [--depth N]	Root cause analysis: ranks suspects by z-score normalized risk
roam preflight <symbol|file>	Compound pre-change check: blast radius + tests + complexity + coupling + fitness
roam guard <symbol>	Compact sub-agent preflight bundle: definition, 1-hop callers/callees, test files, breaking-risk score, and layer signals
roam agent-plan --agents N	Decompose partitions into dependency-ordered agent tasks with merge sequencing and handoffs
roam agent-context --agent-id N [--agents M]	Generate per-agent execution context: write scope, read-only dependencies, and interface contracts
roam agent-score [--agent A] [--since N]	Composite per-agent score (0-100) over the .roam/runs/ ledger: completion rate + clean-signal rate + breadth, with low-confidence flag for <2 runs
roam syntax-check [--changed] [PATHS...]	Tree-sitter syntax integrity check for changed files and multi-agent judge workflows
roam verify [--threshold N]	Pre-commit AI-code consistency check across naming, imports, error handling, and duplication signals
roam verify-imports [--file F]	Import hallucination firewall: validate all imports against indexed symbol table, suggest corrections via FTS5 fuzzy matching
roam triage list|add|stats|check	Security finding suppression workflow: manage .roam-suppressions.yml (SAFE/ACKNOWLEDGED/WONT-FIX status lifecycle)
roam safe-delete <symbol>	Safe deletion check: SAFE/REVIEW/UNSAFE verdict
roam test-map <name>	Map a symbol or file to its test coverage
roam adversarial [--staged] [--range R]	Adversarial architecture review: generates targeted challenges based on changes
roam plan [--staged] [--range R] [--agents N]	Agent work planner: decompose changes into sequenced, dependency-aware steps
roam closure <symbol> [--rename] [--delete]	Minimal-change synthesis: all files to touch for a safe rename/delete
roam mutate move|rename|add-call|extract	Graph-level code editing: move symbols, rename across codebase, add calls, extract functions. Dry-run by default
roam dogfood-aggregate [--all] [--status S] [--severity H|M|L] [--type T]	Aggregate the dogfood eval corpus into a backlog/triage view — surface open findings, filter by status/severity/type
roam memory add|list|relevant	Repo-local agent memory at .roam/memory.jsonl — portable across agent vendors, travels with checkouts. add records, list filters by recency, relevant ranks against a query
roam runs start|log|end|list|show|verify	Per-agent-run event ledger at .roam/runs/<run_id>/ — start opens a run, log appends events, end closes it, list/show inspect, verify checks HMAC chain integrity. Substrate for replay / agent-score / audit-trail
roam replay <run_id> [--execute --dry-run|--no-dry-run]	Re-narrate a past agent run from the ledger: numbered timeline + per-step verdicts. --execute re-runs the logged commands (refuses bare --execute to prevent accidental state mutation)
roam constitution init|check|show|apply|where	Manage the repo-local agent constitution at .roam/constitution.yml — the single declarative file an agent reads first. Points at laws/rules/memory/runs and enforces per-gate policy thresholds
roam laws mine|check|list|explain	Self-installing constitution: mine repo invariants from index + tests + git history into roam-laws.yml, then check enforces them against a diff (exit 5 on violation)
roam agents-md	Generate AGENTS.md from indexed conventions, danger zones, constitution, and capability registry
roam brief	One-page agent briefing covering mode / next / highlights / pr-bundle / runs
roam intent-check <command>	Check if an intended command is allowed by the active mode
roam lease claim|release|list|show|gc	Multi-agent lease system: coordinate parallel agents on the same repo by reserving file/symbol scopes. claim opens, release drops, gc expires stale leases
roam mode [MODE] [--check CMD] [--list]	Show or switch active mode (read_only / safe_edit / migration / autonomous_pr)
roam next	Suggest the next roam command based on current repo state (index presence, staleness, working-tree dirtiness, recent envelope/memory). Bounded under 200ms

Codebase Health

Command	Description
roam health [--no-framework] [--gate]	Composite health score (0-100): weighted geometric mean of tangle ratio, god components, bottlenecks, layer violations. --gate runs quality gate checks from .roam-gates.yml (exit 5 on failure)
roam smells [--file F] [--min-severity S]	Code smell detection: 15 deterministic detectors (brain methods, god classes, feature envy, shotgun surgery, data clumps, etc.) with per-file health scores
roam dashboard	Unified single-screen project status: health, hotspots, risks, ownership, and AI-rot indicators
roam vibe-check [--threshold N]	AI-rot auditor: 8-pattern taxonomy with composite risk score and prioritized findings
roam llm-smells [--min-severity S] [--persist]	LLM-API integration anti-patterns: 10 patterns (no-model-version-pinning, missing-max-tokens, prompt-injection surface, missing timeout/retries, no system message, LLM call in loop, etc.). Scans files that import openai/anthropic/langchain/litellm/google.generativeai/cohere/mistralai/together/groq/fireworks/llama_index/replicate. Distinct audience from vibe-check
roam ai-readiness	0-100 score for how well this codebase supports AI coding agents
roam ai-ratio [--since N]	Statistical estimate of AI-generated code ratio using commit-behavior signals
roam trends [--record] [--days N] [--metric M]	Historical metrics snapshots with sparklines and trend deltas
roam complexity [--bumpy-road] [--include-tooling]	Per-function cognitive complexity (SonarSource-compatible, triangular nesting penalty) + Halstead metrics (volume, difficulty, effort, bugs) + cyclomatic density
roam py-types [--detail] [--include-tests] [--ci --min-coverage N]	Python type-annotation health: % of public functions with full annotations, Any usage, legacy typing.Optional/Dict/List (PEP 585/604 modernisation candidates), per-file worst offenders. CI-gateable via --ci --min-coverage N (exit 5 below threshold). Default-excludes test files
roam py-modern [--detail]	Modern-Python adoption signal: counts walrus operator (PEP 572), match statements (PEP 634), PEP 604 X | None, PEP 585 dict[…], PEP 695 type aliases, f-strings vs .format(). Reports type-modernisation % and f-string adoption % to gauge migration progress
roam pytest-fixtures [SYMBOL] [--max-depth N]	Inventory pytest fixture chains. With no SYMBOL, prints the project-wide fixture count and the top fixtures by dependent count. With a fixture or test name, walks the implicit fixture-parameter dependency graph to show what each test transitively requires. Resolves through conftest.py chains
roam algo [--task T] [--confidence C] [--profile P]	Algorithm anti-pattern detection: 23-pattern catalog detects suboptimal algorithms (O(n^2) loops, N+1 queries, quadratic string building, branching recursion, loop-invariant calls) and suggests better approaches with Big-O improvements. Confidence calibration via caller-count + runtime traces, evidence paths, impact scoring, framework-aware N+1 packs, and language-aware fix templates. Alias: roam math
roam n1 [--confidence C] [--verbose]	Implicit N+1 I/O detection: finds ORM model computed properties ($appends/accessors) that trigger lazy-loaded DB queries in collection contexts. Cross-references with eager loading config. Supports Laravel, Django, Rails, SQLAlchemy, JPA
roam over-fetch [--threshold N] [--confidence C]	Detect models serializing too many fields: large $fillable without $hidden/$visible, direct controller returns bypassing API Resources, poor exposed-to-hidden ratio
roam missing-index [--table T] [--confidence C]	Find queries on non-indexed columns: cross-references WHERE/ORDER BY clauses, foreign keys, and paginated queries against migration-defined indexes
roam weather [-n N]	Hotspots ranked by geometric mean of churn x complexity (percentile-normalized)
roam debt [--roi]	Hotspot-weighted tech debt prioritization with SQALE remediation costs and optional refactoring ROI estimates
roam fitness [--explain] [--baseline PATH] [--write-baseline]	Architectural fitness functions from .roam/fitness.yaml, with baseline/delta mode for existing debt
roam alerts	Health degradation trend detection (Mann-Kendall + Sen's slope)
roam forecast [--symbol S] [--horizon N] [--alert-only]	Predict when metrics will exceed thresholds: Theil-Sen regression on snapshot history + churn-weighted per-symbol risk
roam budget [--init] [--staged] [--range R]	Architectural budget enforcement: per-PR delta limits on health, cycles, complexity. CI gate (exit 5 on violation)
roam bisect [--metric M] [--range R]	Architectural git bisect: find the commit that degraded a specific metric
roam ingest-trace <file> [--otel|--jaeger|--zipkin|--generic]	Ingest runtime trace data (OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin) for hotspot overlay
roam hotspots [--runtime] [--discrepancy]	Runtime hotspot analysis: find symbols missed by static analysis but critical at runtime

roam algo — algorithm anti-pattern catalog (23 patterns)

roam algo scans every indexed function against a 23-pattern catalog, ranks findings by runtime-aware impact score, and shows the exact Big-O improvement available. Findings include semantic evidence paths, precision metadata, and language-aware tips/fixes (Python, JS, Go, Rust, Java, etc.):

$ roam algo
VERDICT: 8 algorithmic improvements found (3 high, 4 medium, 1 low)
Ordering: highest impact first
Profile: balanced (filtered 0 low-signal findings)

Nested loop lookup (2):
  fn   resolve_permissions          src/auth/rbac.py:112     [high, impact=86.4]
        Current: Nested iteration -- O(n*m)
        Better:  Hash-map join -- O(n+m)
        Tip: Build a dict/set from one collection, iterate the other

  fn   find_matching_rule           src/rules/engine.py:67   [high, impact=78.1]
        Current: Nested iteration -- O(n*m)
        Better:  Hash-map join -- O(n+m)
        Tip: Build a dict/set from one collection, iterate the other

String building (1):
  meth build_query                  src/db/query.py:88       [high, impact=74.0]
        Current: Loop concatenation -- O(n^2)
        Better:  Join / StringBuilder -- O(n)
        Tip: Collect parts in a list, join once at the end

Branching recursion without memoization (1):
  fn   compute_cost                 src/pricing/calc.py:34   [medium, impact=49.5]
        Current: Naive branching recursion -- O(2^n)
        Better:  Memoized / iterative DP -- O(n)
        Tip: Add @cache / @lru_cache, or convert to iterative with a table

Full catalog — 23 patterns:

Pattern	Anti-pattern detected	Better approach	Improvement
Nested loop lookup	for x in a: for y in b: if x==y	Hash-map join	O(n·m) → O(n+m)
Membership test	if x in list in a loop	Set lookup	O(n) → O(1) per check
Sorting	Bubble / selection sort	Built-in sort	O(n²) → O(n log n)
Search in sorted data	Linear scan on sorted sequence	Binary search	O(n) → O(log n)
String building	s += chunk in loop	join() / StringBuilder	O(n²) → O(n)
Deduplication	Nested loop dedup	set() / dict.fromkeys	O(n²) → O(n)
Max / min	Manual tracking loop	max() / min()	idiom
Accumulation	Manual accumulator	sum() / reduce()	idiom
Group by key	Manual key-existence check	defaultdict / groupingBy	idiom
Fibonacci	Naive recursion	Iterative / @lru_cache	O(2ⁿ) → O(n)
Exponentiation	Loop multiplication	pow(b, e, mod)	O(n) → O(log n)
GCD	Manual loop	math.gcd()	O(n) → O(log n)
Matrix multiply	Naive triple loop	NumPy / BLAS	same asymptotic, ~1000× faster via SIMD
Busy wait	while True: sleep() poll	Event / condition variable	O(k) → O(1) wake-up
Regex in loop	re.match() compiled per iteration	Pre-compiled pattern	O(n·(p+m)) → O(p + n·m)
N+1 query	Per-item DB / API call in loop	Batch WHERE IN (...)	n round-trips → 1
List front operations	list.insert(0, x) in loop	collections.deque	O(n) → O(1) per op
Sort to select	sorted(x)[0] or sorted(x)[:k]	min() / heapq.nsmallest	O(n log n) → O(n) or O(n log k)
Repeated lookup	.index() / .contains() inside loop	Pre-built set / dict	O(m) → O(1) per lookup
Branching recursion	Naive f(n-1) + f(n-2) without cache	@cache / iterative DP	O(2ⁿ) → O(n)
Quadratic string building	result += chunk across multiple scopes	parts.append + join at end	O(n²) → O(n)
Loop-invariant call	get_config() / compile_schema() inside loop body	Hoist before loop	per-iter cost → O(1)
String reversal	Manual char-by-char loop	s[::-1] / .reverse()	idiom

Filtering:

roam algo --task nested-lookup       # one pattern type only
roam algo --confidence high          # high-confidence findings only
roam algo --profile strict           # precision-first filtering
roam algo --task io-in-loop -n 5    # top 5 N+1 query sites
roam --json algo                     # machine-readable output
roam --sarif algo > roam-algo.sarif  # SARIF with fingerprints + fixes

Confidence calibration: high = strong structural signal (unbounded loop + high caller/runtime impact + pattern confirmed); medium = pattern matched but uncertainty remains; low = heuristic signal only.

Profiles: balanced (default), strict (precision-first), aggressive (surface more candidates).

roam minimap — annotated codebase snapshot for agent configs

roam minimap generates a compact block (stack, annotated directory tree, key symbols, hotspots, conventions) wrapped in sentinel comments for in-place agent config updates:

$ roam minimap
<!-- roam:minimap generated=2026-02-25 -->
**Stack:** Python · JavaScript · YAML

.github/ (CI + Action) benchmarks/ (agent-eval + oss-eval) src/ roam/ bridges/ base.py # LanguageBridge registry.py # register_bridge, detect_bridges commands/ (137 cmd files) # is_test_file, get_changed_files db/ connection.py # find_project_root, batched_in schema.py graph/ builder.py # build_symbol_graph, build_file_graph pagerank.py # compute_pagerank, compute_centrality languages/ (21 files) # ApexExtractor output/ formatter.py # to_json, json_envelope cli.py # cli, LazyGroup mcp_server.py tests/ (267 files) `

Key symbols (PageRank): open_db · ensure_index · json_envelope · to_json · LanguageExtractor

Touch carefully (fan-in >= 15): to_json (116 callers) · json_envelope (116 callers) · open_db (105 callers) · ensure_index (100 callers)

Hotspots (churn x complexity): cmd_context.py · csharp_lang.py · cmd_dead.py

Conventions: snake_case fns, PascalCase classes

**Workflow:**

```bash
roam minimap                    # print to stdout
roam minimap --update           # replace sentinel block in CLAUDE.md in-place
roam minimap -o docs/AGENTS.md  # target a different file
roam minimap --init-notes       # scaffold .roam/minimap-notes.md for project gotchas

The sentinel pair <!-- roam:minimap --> / <!-- /roam:minimap --> is replaced on each run — surrounding content is left intact. Add project-specific gotchas to .roam/minimap-notes.md and they appear in every subsequent output.

Tree annotations come from the top exported symbols by fan-in per file. Non-source root directories (.github/, benchmarks/, docs/) are collapsed immediately. Large subdirectories (e.g. commands/, languages/) are collapsed at depth 2+ with a file count.

Architecture

Command	Description
roam clusters [--min-size N]	Community detection vs directory structure. Modularity Q-score (Newman 2004) + per-cluster conductance
roam spectral [--depth N] [--compare] [--gap-only] [--k K]	Spectral bisection: Fiedler vector partition tree with algebraic connectivity gap verdict
roam layers	Topological dependency layers + upward violations + Gini balance
roam dead [--all] [--summary] [--clusters]	Unreferenced exported symbols with safety verdicts + confidence scoring (60-95%)
roam flag-dead [--config FILE] [--include-tests]	Feature flag dead code detection: stale LaunchDarkly/Unleash/Split/custom flags with staleness analysis
roam fan [symbol|file] [-n N] [--no-framework]	Fan-in/fan-out: most connected symbols or files
roam risk [-n N] [--domain KW] [--explain]	Domain-weighted risk ranking
roam why <name> [name2 ...]	Role classification (Hub/Bridge/Core/Leaf), reach, criticality
roam split <file>	Internal symbol groups with isolation % and extraction suggestions
roam entry-points	Entry point catalog with protocol classification
roam patterns	Architectural pattern recognition: Strategy, Factory, Observer, etc.
roam visualize [--format mermaid|dot] [--focus NAME] [--limit N]	Generate Mermaid or DOT architecture diagrams. Smart filtering via PageRank, cluster grouping, cycle highlighting
roam effects [TARGET] [--file F] [--type T]	Side-effect classification: DB writes, network I/O, filesystem, global mutation. Direct + transitive effects through call graph
roam side-effects [SYMBOL] [--kind K] [--top N]	Classify symbol side-effects (io_read / io_write / mutation / process / none) — coarse, agent-friendly verdict that composes with roam idempotency
roam idempotency [SYMBOL] [--kind K] [--top N]	Classify symbol idempotency (idempotent / non_idempotent / unknown) — is this symbol safe to call twice? Builds on roam side-effects
roam tx-boundaries [SYMBOL] [--classification C] [--top N]	Classify functions by transactional safety (transactional / partial_transactional / unsafe_mutation / unmatched_begin / unmatched_commit / non_transactional / unknown). Composes with roam idempotency for retry-safety reasoning
roam causal-graph [SYMBOL] [--kind K] [--top N]	Build per-symbol causal graphs: trace input-to-sink data dependencies (param/global/env flowing into side-effect / return / raise / mutation). Heuristic — false negatives expected
roam dark-matter [--min-cochanges N]	Detect hidden co-change couplings not explained by import/call edges
roam simulate move|extract|merge|delete	Counterfactual architecture simulator: test refactoring ideas in-memory, see metric deltas before writing code
roam orchestrate --agents N [--files P]	Multi-agent swarm partitioning: split codebase for parallel agents with zero-conflict guarantees
roam partition [--agents N]	Multi-agent partition manifest: conflict risk, complexity, and suggested ownership splits
roam fingerprint [--compact] [--compare F]	Topology fingerprint: extract/compare architectural signatures across repos
roam graph-diff [--base L] [--head L] [--save-snapshot N]	Structural diff between two graph snapshots: added/removed symbols, edge churn, new cycles, layer migrations, likely-move rename heuristics. Persists snapshots under .roam/snapshots/
roam architecture-drift [--window 30d]	Time-series structural-drift detection over .roam/snapshots/: classifies trend as improving / degrading / stable based on cycle counts, edge churn, and cohesion proxy
roam cut <target> [--depth N]	Minimum graph cuts: find critical edges whose removal disconnects components
roam safe-zones	Graph-based containment boundaries
roam coverage-gaps	Unprotected entry points with no path to gate symbols
roam duplicates [--threshold T] [--min-lines N]	Semantic duplicate detector: functionally equivalent code clusters with divergent edge-case handling
roam clones [--threshold T] [--min-lines N] [--scope P]	AST structural clone detection: Type-2 clones via subtree hashing (more precise than duplicates)

Exploration

Command	Description
roam module <path>	Directory contents: exports, signatures, dependencies, cohesion
roam sketch <dir> [--full]	Compact structural skeleton of a directory
roam uses <name>	All consumers: callers, importers, inheritors. Use this instead of grep "->X|\.X\\b|'X'|\"X\"" to find references — graph-precise, no string-literal / comment false positives, structured by edge type. Available as roam refs <name> for grep-familiar muscle memory.
roam owner <path>	Code ownership: who owns a file or directory
roam coupling [-n N] [--set]	Temporal coupling: file pairs that change together (NPMI + lift)
roam fn-coupling	Function-level temporal coupling across files
roam bus-factor [--brain-methods]	Knowledge loss risk per module
roam doc-staleness	Detect stale docstrings
roam docs-coverage	Public-symbol doc coverage + stale docs + PageRank-ranked missing-doc hotlist
roam stale-refs [--gate] [--diff REF] [--fix preview|apply]	Find dangling file references AND markdown anchor mismatches — confidence-tagged rename hints from git history / basename / symbol graph; HIGH-confidence auto-fix; branch-diff filter for CI; SARIF export. Index-free.
roam lsp	Minimal LSP server (JSON-RPC over stdio). Wire into VS Code / Neovim / JetBrains as a custom server to get squiggly underlines on dangling links and missing anchors as you type.
roam suggest-refactoring [--limit N] [--min-score N]	Proactive refactoring recommendations ranked by complexity, coupling, churn, smells, coverage gaps, and debt
roam plan-refactor <symbol> [--operation auto|extract|move]	Ordered refactor plan with blast radius, test gaps, layer risk, and simulation-based strategy preview
roam test-scaffold <name|file> [--write] [--framework F]	Generate test file/function/import skeletons from symbol data (pytest, jest, Go, JUnit, RSpec)
roam conventions	Auto-detect naming styles, import preferences. Flags outliers
roam breaking [REV_RANGE]	Breaking change detection: removed exports, signature changes
roam affected-tests <symbol|file>	Trace reverse call graph to test files
roam relate <sym1> <sym2>	Show relationship between two symbols: shared callers, shortest path, common ancestors
roam endpoints [--routes] [--api]	Enumerate all HTTP/API endpoint definitions and surface them for review or cross-repo matching
roam metrics <file|symbol>	Unified vital signs: complexity, fan-in/out, PageRank, churn, test coverage, dead code risk -- all in one call
roam findings list|show|count [--detector D]	Query the central findings registry (the cross-detector denormalised view). 16+ detectors emit here (clones, dead, complexity, smells, n1, missing-index, over-fetch, bus-factor, auth-gaps, vulns, invariants, hotspots, taint, vibe-check, orphan-imports, conventions, pr-risk, duplicates, audit-trail-conformance, audit-trail-verify). Substrate for suppression and SARIF projection
roam search-semantic <query>	Hybrid semantic search: BM25 + TF-IDF + optional local ONNX vectors (select via --backend) with framework/library packs
roam intent [--staged] [--range R]	Doc-to-code linking: match documentation to symbols, detect drift
roam x-lang [--bridges] [--edges]	Cross-language edge browser: inspect bridge-resolved connections
roam batch-search <pattern1> <pattern2> ... [--limit-per-query N] [--include-paths]	Run up to 10 symbol-name pattern searches in one DB connection. Replaces 10 sequential roam search calls; results grouped by query
roam complete <prefix> [--kind symbol|path|command|all] [--limit N]	Left-anchored prefix completions (FTS5-backed). Use roam search for substring matches and roam search-semantic for natural-language queries

Reports & CI

Command	Description
roam report [--list] [--config FILE] [PRESET]	Compound presets: first-contact, security, pre-pr, refactor, guardian
roam describe --write	Generate agent config (auto-detects: CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .cursor/rules, etc.)
roam auth-gaps [--routes-only] [--controllers-only] [--min-confidence C]	Find endpoints missing authentication or authorization: routes outside auth middleware groups, CRUD methods without $this->authorize() / Gate::allows() checks. String-aware PHP brace parsing
roam orphan-routes [-n N] [--confidence C]	Detect backend routes with no frontend consumer: parses route definitions, searches frontend for API call references, reports controller methods with no route mapping
roam migration-safety [-n N] [--include-archive]	Detect non-idempotent migrations: missing hasTable/hasColumn guards, raw SQL without IF NOT EXISTS, index operations without existence checks
roam api-drift [--model M] [--confidence C]	Detect mismatches between PHP model $fillable/$appends fields and TypeScript interface properties. Auto-converts snake_case/camelCase for comparison. Single-repo; cross-repo planned for roam ws api-drift
roam codeowners [--unowned] [--owner NAME]	CODEOWNERS coverage analysis: owned/unowned files, top owners, and ownership risk
roam drift [--threshold N]	Ownership drift detection: declared ownership vs observed maintenance activity
roam suggest-reviewers [REV_RANGE]	Reviewer recommendation via ownership, recency, breadth, and impact signals
roam simulate-departure <developer>	Knowledge-loss simulation: what breaks if a key contributor leaves
roam dev-profile [--developer NAME] [--since N]	Developer productivity profile: commit patterns, specialization, impact, and knowledge concentration per contributor
roam secrets [--fail-on-found] [--include-tests]	Secret scanning with masking, entropy detection, env-var suppression, remediation suggestions, and optional CI gate failure
roam vulns [--import-file F] [--reachable-only]	Vulnerability scanning: ingest npm/pip/trivy/osv reports, auto-detect format, reachability filtering, SARIF output
roam path-coverage [--from P] [--to P] [--max-depth N]	Find critical call paths (entry -> sink) with zero test protection. Suggests optimal test insertion points
roam capsule [--redact-paths] [--no-signatures] [--output F]	Export sanitized structural graph (no code bodies) for external architectural review
roam rules [--init] [--ci] [--rules-dir D]	Plugin DSL for governance: user-defined path/symbol/AST rules via .roam/rules/ YAML ($METAVAR captures supported)
roam check-rules [--severity S] [--fix]	Evaluate built-in and user-defined governance rules (10 built-in: no-circular-imports, max-fan-out, etc.)
roam vuln-map --generic|--npm-audit|--trivy F	Ingest vulnerability reports and match to codebase symbols
roam vuln-reach [--cve C] [--from E]	Vulnerability reachability: exact paths from entry points to vulnerable calls
roam supply-chain [--top N]	Dependency risk dashboard: pin coverage, risk scoring, supply-chain health
roam sbom [--format cyclonedx|spdx] [--no-reachability] [-o FILE]	SBOM generation (CycloneDX 1.5 / SPDX 2.3) enriched with call-graph reachability per dependency
roam congestion [--window N] [--min-authors N]	Developer congestion detection: concurrent authors per file, coordination risk scoring
roam invariants [--staged] [--range R]	Discover architectural contracts (invariants) from the codebase structure

Multi-Repo Workspace

Command	Description
roam ws init <repo1> <repo2> [--name NAME]	Initialize a workspace from sibling repos. Auto-detects frontend/backend roles
roam ws status	Show workspace repos, index ages, cross-repo edge count
roam ws resolve	Scan for REST API endpoints and match frontend calls to backend routes
roam ws understand	Unified workspace overview: per-repo stats + cross-repo connections
roam ws health	Workspace-wide health report with cross-repo coupling assessment
roam ws context <symbol>	Cross-repo augmented context: find a symbol across repos + show API callers
roam ws trace <source> <target>	Trace cross-repo paths via API edges

Global Options

Option	Description
roam --json <command>	Structured JSON output with consistent envelope
roam --compact <command>	Token-efficient output: TSV tables, minimal JSON envelope
roam --sarif <command>	SARIF 2.1.0 output for dead, health, complexity, rules, secrets, algo, py-types, py-modern (GitHub/CI integration)
roam health --gate	CI quality gate. Reads .roam-gates.yml thresholds. Exit code 5 on failure

Walkthrough: Investigating a Codebase

10-step walkthrough using Flask as an example (click to expand)

Here's how you'd use Roam to understand a project you've never seen before. Using Flask as an example:

Step 1: Onboard and get the full picture

$ roam init
Created .roam/fitness.yaml (6 starter rules)
Created .github/workflows/roam.yml
Done. 226 files, 1132 symbols, 233 edges.
Health: 78/100

$ roam understand
Tech stack: Python (flask, jinja2, werkzeug)
Architecture: Monolithic — 3 layers, 5 clusters
Key abstractions: Flask, Blueprint, Request, Response
Health: 78/100 — 1 god component (Flask)
Entry points: src/flask/__init__.py, src/flask/cli.py
Conventions: snake_case functions, PascalCase classes, relative imports
Complexity: avg 4.2, 3 high (>15), 0 critical (>25)

Step 2: Drill into a key file

$ roam file src/flask/app.py
src/flask/app.py  (python, 963 lines)

  cls  Flask(App)                                   :76-963
    meth  __init__(self, import_name, ...)           :152
    meth  route(self, rule, **options)               :411
    meth  register_blueprint(self, blueprint, ...)   :580
    meth  make_response(self, rv)                    :742
    ...12 more methods

Step 3: Who depends on this?

$ roam deps src/flask/app.py
Imported by:
file                        symbols
--------------------------  -------
src/flask/__init__.py       3
src/flask/testing.py        2
tests/test_basic.py         1
...18 files total

Step 4: Find the hotspots

$ roam weather
=== Hotspots (churn x complexity) ===
Score  Churn  Complexity  Path                    Lang
-----  -----  ----------  ----------------------  ------
18420  460    40.0        src/flask/app.py        python
12180  348    35.0        src/flask/blueprints.py python

Step 5: Check architecture health

$ roam health
Health: 78/100
  Tangle: 0.0% (0/1132 symbols in cycles)
  1 god component (Flask, degree 47, actionable)
  0 bottlenecks, 0 layer violations

=== God Components (degree > 20) ===
Sev      Name   Kind  Degree  Cat  File
-------  -----  ----  ------  ---  ------------------
WARNING  Flask  cls   47      act  src/flask/app.py

Step 6: Get AI-ready context for a symbol

$ roam context Flask
Files to read:
  src/flask/app.py:76-963              # definition
  src/flask/__init__.py:1-15           # re-export
  src/flask/testing.py:22-45           # caller: FlaskClient.__init__
  tests/test_basic.py:12-30            # caller: test_app_factory
  ...12 more files

Callers: 47  Callees: 3

Step 7: Pre-change safety check

$ roam preflight Flask
=== Preflight: Flask ===
Blast radius: 47 callers, 89 transitive
Affected tests: 31 (DIRECT: 12, TRANSITIVE: 19)
Complexity: cc=40 (critical), nesting=6
Coupling: 3 hidden co-change partners
Fitness: 1 violation (max-complexity exceeded)
Verdict: HIGH RISK — consider splitting before modifying

Step 8: Decompose a large file

$ roam split src/flask/app.py
=== Split analysis: src/flask/app.py ===
  87 symbols, 42 internal edges, 95 external edges
  Cross-group coupling: 18%

  Group 1 (routing) — 12 symbols, isolation: 83% [extractable]
    meth  route              L411  PR=0.0088
    meth  add_url_rule       L450  PR=0.0045
    ...

=== Extraction Suggestions ===
  Extract 'routing' group: route, add_url_rule, endpoint (+9 more)
    83% isolated, only 3 edges to other groups

Step 9: Understand why a symbol matters

$ roam why Flask url_for Blueprint
Symbol     Role          Fan         Reach     Risk      Verdict
---------  ------------  ----------  --------  --------  --------------------------------------------------
Flask      Hub           fan-in:47   reach:89  CRITICAL  God symbol (47 in, 12 out). Consider splitting.
url_for    Core utility  fan-in:31   reach:45  HIGH      Widely used utility (31 callers). Stable interface.
Blueprint  Bridge        fan-in:18   reach:34  moderate  Coupling point between clusters.

Step 10: Generate docs and set up CI

$ roam describe --write
Wrote CLAUDE.md (98 lines)  # auto-detects: CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .cursor/rules, etc.

$ roam health --gate
Health: 78/100 — PASS

Ten commands. Complete picture: structure, dependencies, hotspots, health, context, safety checks, decomposition, and CI gates.

Integration with AI Coding Tools

Roam is designed to be called by coding agents via shell commands. Instead of repeatedly grepping and reading files, the agent runs one roam command and gets structured output.

Decision order for agents:

Situation	Command
First time in a repo	roam understand then roam tour
Need to modify a symbol	roam preflight <name> (blast radius + tests + fitness)
Debugging a failure	roam diagnose <name> (root cause ranking)
Need files to read	roam context <name> (files + line ranges)
Need to find a symbol	roam search <pattern>
Need file structure	roam file <path>
Pre-PR check	roam pr-risk HEAD~3..HEAD
What breaks if I change X?	roam impact <symbol>
Check for N+1 queries	roam n1 (implicit lazy-load detection)
Check auth coverage	roam auth-gaps (routes + controllers)
Check migration safety	roam migration-safety (idempotency guards)

Fastest setup:

roam describe --write               # auto-detects your agent's config file
roam describe --write -o AGENTS.md  # or specify an explicit path
roam describe --agent-prompt        # compact ~500-token prompt (append to any config)
roam minimap --update               # inject/refresh annotated codebase minimap in CLAUDE.md

Agent not using Roam correctly? If your agent is ignoring Roam and falling back to grep/read exploration, it likely doesn't have the instructions. Run:

roam describe --write          # writes instructions to your agent's config (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, etc.)

If you already have a config file and don't want to overwrite it:

roam describe --agent-prompt   # prints a compact prompt — copy-paste into your existing config
roam minimap --update          # injects an annotated codebase snapshot into CLAUDE.md (won't touch other content)

This teaches the agent which Roam command to use for each situation (e.g., roam preflight before changes, roam context for files to read, roam diagnose for debugging).

Copy-paste agent instructions

## Codebase navigation

This project uses `roam` for codebase comprehension. Always prefer roam over Glob/Grep/Read exploration.

Before modifying any code:
1. First time in the repo: `roam understand` then `roam tour`
2. Find a symbol: `roam search <pattern>`
3. Before changing a symbol: `roam preflight <name>` (blast radius + tests + fitness)
4. Need files to read: `roam context <name>` (files + line ranges, prioritized)
5. Debugging a failure: `roam diagnose <name>` (root cause ranking)
6. After making changes: `roam diff` (blast radius of uncommitted changes)

Additional: `roam health` (0-100 score), `roam impact <name>` (what breaks),
`roam pr-risk` (PR risk), `roam file <path>` (file skeleton).

Run `roam --help` for all commands. Use `roam --json <cmd>` for structured output.

Where to put this for each tool

Tool	Config file
Claude Code	CLAUDE.md in your project root
OpenAI Codex CLI	AGENTS.md in your project root
Gemini CLI	GEMINI.md in your project root
Cursor	.cursor/rules/roam.mdc (add alwaysApply: true frontmatter)
Windsurf	.windsurf/rules/roam.md (add trigger: always_on frontmatter)
GitHub Copilot	.github/copilot-instructions.md
Aider	CONVENTIONS.md
Continue.dev	config.yaml rules
Cline	.clinerules/ directory

Roam vs native tools

Task	Use Roam	Use native tools
"What calls this function?"	roam symbol <name>	LSP / Grep
"What files do I need to read?"	roam context <name>	Manual tracing (5+ calls)
"Is it safe to change X?"	roam preflight <name>	Multiple manual checks
"Show me this file's structure"	roam file <path>	Read the file directly
"Understand project architecture"	roam understand	Manual exploration
"What breaks if I change X?"	roam impact <symbol>	No direct equivalent
"What tests to run?"	roam affected-tests <name>	Grep for imports (misses indirect)
"What's causing this bug?"	roam diagnose <name>	Manual call-chain tracing
"Codebase health score for CI"	roam health --gate	No equivalent

MCP Server

Roam includes a Model Context Protocol server for direct integration with tools that support MCP.

pip install "roam-code[mcp]"
roam mcp

169 tools, 10 resources, and 6 prompts are available in the full preset. Most tools are read-only index queries; side-effect tools are explicitly annotated.

See Using Roam via MCP for the first-run flow, the cold-start envelope your agent will see on a fresh repo, and the canonical 7-step agent sequence.

MCP v2 highlights (v11):

• In-process MCP execution (no subprocess shell-out per call)
• Preset-based tool surfacing (core, review, refactor, debug, architecture, full)
• Compound tools that collapse multi-step exploration/review flows into one call
• Structured output schemas + tool annotations for safer planner behavior

MCP-native enhancements (v12):

• Sampling-driven compression -- pass summarize=True to roam_explore, roam_understand, roam_health, or roam_repo_map. The server asks the client's own LLM (no API keys) to compress the full envelope into a short briefing, dropping output from ~50 KB JSON to ~1-2 KB prose. Falls back gracefully when the client doesn't support sampling.
• Server-side session memory -- roam_context, roam_explore, and roam_retrieve now remember symbols you've touched in the current session and auto-bias ranking without you threading recent_symbols through every call. Explicit args still win.
• Phase-aware progress -- roam_init, roam_reindex, and roam_orchestrate stream real discover -> parse -> extract -> resolve -> graph -> metrics progress to the client, replacing the old 5/100 placeholders.
• Symbol & path completions -- new roam_complete(prefix, kind, limit) tool returns just names from the FTS5 index (cheaper than roam_search_symbol). A protocol-level handler is also installed for clients that support completion/complete.
• Reactive resource invalidation (opt-in) -- set ROAM_MCP_WATCH=1 and the server watches the working tree, runs incremental reindex on file changes, and emits notifications/resources/updated for roam://health, roam://summary, etc., so subscribed clients see fresh data without polling.

Default preset: core (58 tools: 57 core + roam_expand_toolset meta-tool).

# Default
roam mcp

# Full toolset
ROAM_MCP_PRESET=full roam mcp

# Legacy compatibility (same as full preset)
ROAM_MCP_LITE=0 roam mcp

Core preset tools: roam_affected_tests, roam_alerts, roam_ask, roam_audit_trail_conformance_check, roam_audit_trail_export, roam_audit_trail_verify, roam_batch_get, roam_batch_search, roam_catalog, roam_complete, roam_complexity_report, roam_context, roam_critique, roam_dead_code, roam_deps, roam_diagnose, roam_diagnose_issue, roam_diff, roam_disambiguate, roam_dogfood, roam_explore, roam_fetch_handle, roam_file_info, roam_fleet_plan, roam_for_bug_fix, roam_for_new_feature, roam_for_refactor, roam_for_security_review, roam_health, roam_impact, roam_metrics_push, roam_oracle_is_clone_of, roam_oracle_is_reachable_from_entry, roam_oracle_is_test_only, roam_oracle_route_exists, roam_oracle_symbol_exists, roam_pr_analyze, roam_pr_comment_render, roam_pr_risk, roam_preflight, roam_prepare_change, roam_py_modern, roam_py_types, roam_retrieve, roam_review_change, roam_rules_validate, roam_search_symbol, roam_session_metrics, roam_syntax_check, roam_taint_classify, roam_test_impact, roam_timeline, roam_trace, roam_understand, roam_uses, roam_validate_plan, roam_why_fail.

MCP tool list (all 224)

New in v12.26: roam_pr_analyze, roam_pr_comment_render, roam_metrics_push, roam_audit_trail_verify, roam_audit_trail_export, roam_audit_trail_conformance_check, roam_rules_validate, roam_dogfood — Roam Review + Cloud engines + governance audit-trail toolkit + production-grade rules linting + one-shot v2 stack runner.

Tool	Description
roam_adrs	Discover Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and link them to code modules. Scans well-known ADR directories (docs/adr/ / architecture/decisions/ / ...) for markdown files matching ADR naming patterns, parses each ADR's title / status / date / file refs, then cross-references mentioned files against the symbol index. Different from roam_doc_staleness (inline docstring drift) -- this is the prose-decision-document discoverer.
roam_adversarial	Frame architectural issues in changed files as challenges the developer must defend: CRITICAL (new cyclic dependencies), HIGH (layer violations, high-confidence anti-patterns), WARNING (cross-cluster coupling, high fan-out), INFO (orphaned symbols). Composes cycles + clusters + layers + catalog + dead + complexity. Different from roam_diff (blast-radius facts) -- this is the architecture-review framing for code-review agents.
roam_adversarial_review	Adversarial architecture review: challenges about cycles, anti-patterns, coupling.
roam_affected	Monorepo impact analysis: find all affected packages/modules from changes.
roam_affected_tests	Test files that exercise changed code, with hop distance.
roam_agent_context	Extract a single agent's partition from the full agent plan: write scope, read-only dependencies, interface contracts, coordination instructions, and key symbols. Different from roam_agent_plan (full multi-agent view) and roam_orchestrate (operational dispatch with merge order) -- this is the focused per-worker packet for one agent.
roam_agent_export	Generate AI agent context file (CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md/.cursorrules) from index.
roam_agent_plan	Decompose partitions into dependency-ordered multi-agent tasks: per-task write scope, read-only dependencies, interface contracts, phase schedule, and merge sequencing. Supports plain / json / claude-teams output formats. Different from roam_partition (raw analytical manifest) and roam_orchestrate (operational dispatch) -- this is the dependency-ordered phase schedule.
roam_agent_score	Aggregate runs from the local ledger and score each agent on a 0..100 composite (run completion, gate adherence, preflight compliance, blast accuracy, replay survival). Empty state (no runs / no matching runs) returns a clean envelope with state: "no_data" -- never empty stdout, never a crash. Different from roam_runs_verify (HMAC tamper-detection) -- this is the per-agent quality score across runs.
roam_ai_ratio	Estimate AI-generated code percentage from git commit heuristics.
roam_ai_readiness	AI readiness score (0-100): how effectively AI agents can work on this codebase.
roam_alerts	Active health alerts: thresholds breached on tangle, complexity, churn, or coverage.
roam_algo	Detect suboptimal algorithms with better alternatives and complexity analysis.
roam_annotate_symbol	Add persistent annotation to a symbol/file for future agent sessions.
roam_api	List the public API surface — exported public symbols with signatures and docs.
roam_api_changes	Detect breaking and non-breaking API changes vs a git ref.
roam_api_drift	Mismatches between backend models and frontend interfaces.
roam_architecture_drift	Compute per-week growth rates for symbols / edges / cycles across a sliding window of persisted .roam/snapshots/ and classify overall direction as improving / degrading / stable. Different from roam_graph_diff (point-in-time delta between two commits) and roam_trends (metric-level time series) -- this is the snapshot-based architectural-trajectory report.
roam_article_12_check	Run a 6-item EU AI Act Article 12 readiness checklist over the indexed repo: audit-trail directory, audit-trail records, retention policy doc, technical docs, attestation surface, high-risk classification heuristic. Emits a structured envelope mapping each item to its Article (12, 18, 19) or Annex (III). Different from roam_audit_trail_conformance_check (per-record chain integrity) -- this is the repo-level governance-readiness assessment. Per the agentic-assurance guardrails: 'maps to' / 'supports evidence for', never 'certifies' / 'makes compliant'.
roam_ask	Free-form intent dispatcher: maps a natural-language question ("is it safe to delete X", "where does login validate", "what just broke") to one of 24 pre-built recipes that compose preflight / retrieve / critique / fleet / diagnose / trace / trends / hotspots / debt / taint commands. Call this BEFORE falling back to Grep+Read — the recipe registry covers most common workflows in one tool call.
roam_attest	Proof-carrying PR attestation: evidence bundle + merge verdict.
roam_audit	Run a one-shot codebase architecture audit: bundles health, debt, dead-code, risk, test-pyramid, coverage, and API-surface signals into a single envelope. Designed as the structured artifact a written audit report attaches. Different from roam_health (single 0-100 score) and roam_report (preset-driven Markdown report) -- this is the verdict-first audit packet for governance and onboarding.
roam_audit_trail_conformance_check	Score the audit trail against an EU AI Act Article 12 checklist.
roam_audit_trail_export	Export the audit trail as markdown / json / csv for procurement review.
roam_audit_trail_verify	Verify SHA-256 chain integrity of a roam audit trail.
roam_auth_gaps	Endpoints missing authentication or authorization checks.
roam_batch_get	Get details for up to 50 symbols in one call. Replaces 50 sequential roam_symbol calls.
roam_batch_search	Search up to 10 patterns in one call. Replaces 10 sequential roam_search_symbol calls.
roam_bisect_blame	Find snapshots that caused architectural degradation, ranked by impact.
roam_breaking_changes	Detect breaking API changes between git refs: removed exports, changed signatures.
roam_brief	Compose a one-page agent briefing covering five sections: next (what roam next would recommend), highlights (stack / top danger zones / top mined laws from roam agents-md), pr_bundle (current PR-bundle status on the active branch), mode (active agent mode and its allow-list size), and runs (the N most-recent runs from the ledger). Designed as the FIRST command an agent runs when joining a roam-indexed repo. Different from roam_next (single-command router) -- this is the verdict-first session kickoff packet.
roam_budget_check	Check changes against architectural budgets (cycles, health floor, complexity).
roam_bus_factor	Score knowledge-concentration risk per directory: Shannon entropy over unique authors, primary-author share, last activity, and a staleness factor. Flags CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW per module. Different from roam_owner (per-file blame) and roam_congestion (too-many-authors merge-conflict risk) -- this measures knowledge-loss risk.
roam_capsule_export	Sanitized structural graph export without code bodies (privacy-safe).
roam_catalog	Return the full machine-readable list of every roam MCP tool currently registered, including title, description, and capability flags (core / read_only / destructive). Use this once at session start to discover what's available without enumerating tools.
roam_causal_graph	Build per-symbol causal graphs: edges from inputs (parameters / globals / env reads) to sinks (side-effecting calls / return / raise / mutation). Six causal kinds: param_to_effect, param_to_return, global_to_effect, global_to_mutation, env_to_effect, param_to_raise. Heuristic line-level text scan -- false negatives expected. Different from roam_taint (cross-symbol taint propagation) -- this is intra-symbol dataflow only.
roam_cga_emit	Emit a Code Graph Attestation — in-toto v1 statement with predicate type roam-code.dev/CodeGraph/v1 (or CodeGraph-AIBOM/v1 with --aibom). Merkle root over symbol fingerprints + edge-bundle digest. Optional cosign keyless or offline signing.
roam_cga_verify	Verify a Code Graph Attestation — re-derives the Merkle root + edge-bundle digest from the live DB and compares to the bundled predicate, AND verifies the cosign signature on the sibling .bundle. Fails closed (exit 5) when no bundle is present unless no_cosign=True is passed to acknowledge predicate-only verification.
roam_changelog	List commits since last tag, optionally formatted as a markdown CHANGELOG draft.
roam_check_rules	Run 10 built-in structural rules: cycles, fan-out, complexity, tests, god classes, layer violations.
roam_clean	Remove orphaned index entries (files deleted from disk) without full rebuild.
roam_clones	Detect near-duplicate code via AST structural hashing (Type-2 clones).
roam_closure	Minimal set of changes needed for rename/delete/modify (exact files + lines).
roam_clusters	Show Louvain code clusters and directory mismatches. Returns per-cluster size, cohesion, conductance, modularity Q, mega-cluster sub-group breakdowns, and inter-cluster coupling. Different from roam_layers (dependency-layer violations) -- this groups by community detection, not by topological depth.
roam_codeowners	CODEOWNERS coverage, ownership distribution, unowned files, drift detection.
roam_compare	Diff two roam indices structurally: reports symbols added/removed/moved, per-file complexity deltas above a threshold, language counts, and a one-line health verdict (improved / regressed / sideways). Different from roam_graph_diff (commit-range graph delta from one index) -- this is the cross-index structural delta for release-vs-release comparisons.
roam_complete	Prefix completion for symbols / file paths / commands. Faster than search; returns just names.
roam_complexity_report	Functions ranked by cognitive complexity above threshold.
roam_congestion	Detect developer congestion: files with too many concurrent authors within a sliding time window. Combines author count, churn intensity, and complexity into a congestion score that predicts merge conflicts and coordination failures. Different from roam_bus_factor (knowledge-loss risk) and roam_owner (per-file blame breakdown) -- this measures too-many-cooks contention.
roam_context	Minimal files + line ranges needed to work with a symbol.
roam_conventions	Auto-detect codebase naming, file, import, and export conventions with outliers.
roam_coupling	Show temporal coupling: file pairs that change together. Reads git history to find files with high co-change frequency. Different from roam_fan (structural connectivity) and roam_dark_matter (hidden co-change) -- this measures file-level temporal coupling.
roam_coverage_gaps	Find unprotected entry points: top-level exported functions / methods that have no call-graph path to a required gate symbol (auth / permission / validation). Supports exact gate names, regex patterns, framework presets (python / javascript / go / java-maven / rust), and a .roam-gates.yml sidecar config. Different from roam_auth_gaps (PHP/Laravel source analysis) and roam_test_gaps (untested symbols in changed files) -- this walks the call graph to verify every entry reaches a required gate.
roam_critique	Verify a patch against the indexed graph (clones-not-edited + blast radius). Pipe a diff in diff_text.
roam_cut	Find fragile domain boundaries via minimum-cut analysis. Computes the thinnest edge cuts between architectural clusters and the highest-impact 'leak edges' whose removal would best improve domain isolation. Different from roam_split (decomposes a single file) -- this finds boundaries between clusters.
roam_cut_analysis	Minimum cut analysis: fragile domain boundaries, highest-impact leak edges.
roam_dark_matter	File pairs that co-change without structural links (hidden coupling).
roam_dashboard	Unified single-screen codebase status: health, hotspots, bus factor, dead code, AI rot.
roam_dead_code	Unreferenced exported symbols (dead code candidates).
roam_debt	Prioritized tech debt with SQALE remediation cost estimates.
roam_delete_check	Gate the diff (working / staged / PR / HEAD) on surviving references to deleted symbols and files. Per-deletion verdict: SAFE (no surviving references), LIKELY-SAFE (survivors only in tests / docs / unreachable code), or BREAK-RISK (survivors in reachable code). Different from roam_critique (PR-wide diff review) -- this targets the deletion surface specifically with CI-gate semantics (overall BREAK-RISK trips the gate).
roam_deps	File-level imports and importers (what depends on this file).
roam_describe	Auto-generate a project description for AI coding agents: multi-section Markdown report covering overview, directories, entry points, key abstractions, architecture, and testing. Different from roam_understand (compact codebase overview) -- this is the comprehensive prose description for CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / .cursor/rules. The wrapper emits to stdout; on-disk writes are deferred to the CLI (roam describe --write) so the MCP surface stays read-only.
roam_dev_profile	Developer behavioral profiling: commit time patterns, change scatter (Gini), burst detection.
roam_diagnose	Root cause analysis: upstream/downstream suspects ranked by composite risk.
roam_diagnose_issue	Debug bundle: root cause suspects + side effects in one call.
roam_diff	Blast radius of uncommitted/committed changes: affected symbols, files, tests.
roam_disambiguate	List every symbol matching a name with file/line/kind/signature/PageRank — pick the right overload.
roam_doc_intent	Link documentation to code: find drift, dead refs, undocumented symbols.
roam_doc_staleness	Detect stale docstrings: docs whose body has drifted since the comment was written. Uses git blame to compare docstring timestamps against code body timestamps. Different from roam_docs_coverage (missing docs ranked by PageRank) and roam_stale_refs (dangling doc links) -- this audits what existing docs SAY.
roam_docs_coverage	Doc coverage + stale-doc drift with PageRank-ranked missing docs.
roam_doctor	Setup diagnostics: Python version, tree-sitter, git, index existence, freshness, SQLite.
roam_dogfood	One-shot full-stack run: audit + pr-analyze + audit-trail + conformance.
roam_dogfood_aggregate	Triage view over the dogfood eval corpus: totals, per-command findings count, by-status / by-severity / by-type breakdowns. Reads internal/dogfood/evals/ (or an override path). Useful for agents auditing roam-code itself; mostly a no-op on consumer repos that have no dogfood corpus.
roam_drift	Ownership drift detection: declared CODEOWNERS vs actual time-decayed contributors.
roam_duplicates	Detect semantically duplicate functions via structural similarity.
roam_effects	Side effects of functions: DB writes, network, filesystem (direct + transitive).
roam_endpoints	List all REST/GraphQL/gRPC endpoints with handlers, methods, and locations.
roam_entry_points	Catalog every entry point into the codebase: HTTP routes, CLI commands, scheduled jobs, event handlers, message consumers, main functions, and exports. Reports per-entry reachability coverage -- what fraction of symbols each entry transitively reaches through the call graph.
roam_eval_retrieve	Run the retrieval eval harness over a labeled task set. Reports recall@K, mean reciprocal rank, and per-task diagnostics. Supports a weight sweep and CodeRAG-Bench / BEIR emit formats for public leaderboard submission.
roam_evidence_diff	Diff two ChangeEvidence packets: shows hash drift, schema drift, added/removed refs, missing evidence, and changed verdicts. Useful for reviewing PR re-runs, comparing replay windows, or auditing whether a fresh evidence packet has improved or regressed against a stored baseline. Different from roam_compare (two-index structural delta) -- this is the two-packet evidence delta.
roam_evidence_doctor	Diagnose a ChangeEvidence packet's health: schema validity, closed-enum conformance, content_hash integrity, completeness banner tier (STRONG / PARTIAL / INSUFFICIENT), declared redactions, and actionable next steps for partial / missing evidence questions. Read-only.
roam_evidence_oscal	Emit an OSCAL v1.2 document. Default kind='control-mapping' compiles the roam control map (maps roam evidence to EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001, NIST AI RMF, NIST AI 600-1, NIST SP 800-218A, SOC 2, internal AI-change policy). kind='assessment-results' compiles a per-run AR document from a ChangeEvidence packet (requires evidence_path); AR mandates an Assessment Plan reference — pass import_ap_ref for an external AP or omit it to inline a synthesized stub AP. Supports evidence for the listed frameworks — does not certify compliance. Two roam-specific concepts (authority_refs, redactions) surface as OSCAL prop extensions under the urn:roam:oscal:v1 namespace.
roam_expand_toolset	List available tool presets or show contents of a preset. Presets: core (16), review (27), refactor (26), debug (27), architecture (29), full (all).
roam_explore	Codebase exploration bundle: understand overview + optional symbol deep-dive in one call.
roam_fan	Show fan-in / fan-out: the most-connected symbols or files. Flags hub / spreader / HIGH-RISK structural hotspots based on cross-file import / call edges. Different from coupling (co-change frequency) -- this measures structural connectivity.
roam_fetch_handle	Fetch all or part of a large payload by handle — supports byte slice, section pick, jq projection.
roam_file_info	File skeleton: all symbols with signatures, kinds, line ranges.
roam_findings_count	Show per-detector finding counts. Useful for spotting which detectors have migrated to the central registry vs which are still only emitting to their detector-specific tables.
roam_findings_list	List rows from the central findings registry, optionally filtered by detector or subject. Cross-detector view -- every migrated detector (clones, dead, complexity, smells, n1, missing-index, ...) emits here behind one schema.
roam_findings_show	Show full detail for a single finding by its stable finding_id_str. Returns the detector version, subject, confidence tier, claim, evidence JSON, and any suppressions.
roam_fingerprint	Topology fingerprint for cross-repo comparison or structural drift tracking.
roam_fitness	Run architectural fitness functions from .roam/fitness.yaml: dependency constraints, layer enforcement, metric thresholds, naming conventions, and trend regression guards. Different from roam_preflight (compound 6-signal pre-edit gate) -- this is the dedicated fitness surface with per-rule output, baseline / delta mode, and trend regression guards.
roam_flag_dead	Detect potentially stale feature-flag code: flags referenced only once, flags always checked with the same boolean default, and flags clustered in a single file. Recognises LaunchDarkly, Unleash, Split, generic feature_flag(...) calls, and FEATURE_* env-var patterns. Different from roam_dead_code (graph-unreachable symbols) -- this targets code that is alive in the graph but gated behind flags that may never fire.
roam_fleet_plan	Plan a multi-agent fleet for a goal — graph-aware partition (Louvain + co-change) emits .roam-fleet.json for Composio / Copilot CLI / raw.
roam_fn_coupling	Show function-level temporal coupling: symbol pairs that change together across commits. Different from roam_coupling (file-level pairs) -- this drills into co-changing symbols inside and across files, with optional structural-edge filtering.
roam_for_bug_fix	Compound: diagnose + affected_tests + diff + context for a symbol you're about to debug.
roam_for_new_feature	Compound: understand + search + context + complexity for an area you're about to add code to.
roam_for_refactor	Compound: preflight + impact + complexity_report + clones for a symbol you're about to refactor.
roam_for_security_review	Compound: taint + vuln + critique + adversarial for a security review pass.
roam_forecast	Predict when metrics will exceed thresholds (Theil-Sen regression).
roam_generate_plan	Structured execution plan for code modification: read order, invariants, tests.
roam_get_annotations	Read annotations for symbols, files, or project. Filter by tag/date.
roam_get_invariants	Implicit contracts for symbols: signature stability, usage spread, breaking risk.
roam_graph_diff	Show the structural graph delta between two snapshots. Surfaces new / removed symbols, edge churn, degree shifts, new cycles, layer migrations, and likely renames. Reads persisted snapshots from .roam/snapshots/ -- capture one with --save-snapshot.
roam_graph_stats	Report graph-level invariants: density, connected components, average in/out degree, top in-degree symbols, and approximate diameter. One overview number for 'how dense, connected, and cyclic is this codebase'.
roam_grep	Run index-aware grep across the codebase. Returns matches with their enclosing symbol, reachability badge, PageRank, clone-class, and bridge annotations. Supports multi-pattern, source-only / test-only filters, reachable-from / unreachable filters, co-occurrence across patterns, and rank-by importance.
roam_guard	Check breaking-change risk for a symbol before editing: 0..100 risk score with component breakdown (blast radius, complexity, centrality, test gap, layer analysis) plus caller / callee lists and covering tests -- all within a ~2K-token budget. Different from roam_preflight (file / staged / coupling / convention / fitness composite) -- this is the per-symbol quantified risk score for sub-agent dispatch.
roam_health	Codebase health score (0-100) with issue breakdown, cycles, bottlenecks.
roam_history_grep	Run git pickaxe (-S / -G) through commit history. Returns commits that introduced or removed the literal string, with author, date, short SHA, and summary per commit.
roam_hotspots	Show runtime hotspots: symbols ranked by static analysis vs real production traces (requires roam ingest-trace to have populated runtime_stats). Each row is tagged UPGRADE (runtime-critical but statically safe), CONFIRMED (both agree), or DOWNGRADE (statically risky but low traffic). Different from roam_why_slow (top-N by latency alone) -- this classifies static vs runtime mismatch.
roam_hover	One-line architectural summary for a symbol — kind, location, blast-radius bucket, top caller, top callee.
roam_idempotency	Classify symbols by retry safety: idempotent (pure, read-only I/O, write-with-check patterns like mkdir(exist_ok=True) / INSERT OR IGNORE / UPSERT / if not exists: create), non_idempotent (naive writes, mutations, appends), or unknown (process spawn / unreadable body). Composes on top of roam_side_effects. Different from roam_tx_boundaries (transaction correctness) -- this answers is it safe to retry?.
roam_impact	Blast radius for 'is it safe to change?' — symbols + files affected, in 5 lines. Compact decision-support output. Round 4 / S: the right default tool for safety-checks; preflight is heavier.
roam_ingest_trace	Ingest runtime traces (OTel/Jaeger/Zipkin), match spans to symbols.
roam_init	Initialize roam and build the first index. Task-mode for non-blocking setup.
roam_intent	Link documentation to code: find which docs mention which symbols, and detect doc-to-code drift (references to non-existent symbols). Different from roam_docs_coverage (PageRank-ranked missing-docstring hotlist) and roam_doc_staleness (stale docstring content) -- this is the prose-doc-to-symbol linker plus drift detector.
roam_invariants	Discover implicit contracts for a symbol or the public API surface: signature shape, parameter count and ordering, usage spread across files, dependency set. Different from roam_check_rules (explicit governance rules) -- this is the AUTO-discovered implicit-contract surface so agents know what must stay stable when modifying a symbol.
roam_layers	Show topological dependency layers and violations. Returns each layer's symbol count, directory breakdown, and any back-edges that violate the topological order. Different from roam_clusters (community detection) -- this measures dependency depth.
roam_llm_smells	Run LLM-API integration linter over indexed files: detects unpinned model versions, missing max_tokens, prompt injection via user-input concatenation, unvalidated json.loads on LLM output, and missing temperature. Different from roam_vibe_check (AI-generated code shape) and roam_smells (structural anti-patterns) -- this is the production gate for human-authored LLM-using code.
roam_map	Show project skeleton: directory tree, entry points, top symbols by PageRank, language counts. Different from roam_describe (prose description) and roam_minimap (sentinel-block one-pager for CLAUDE.md) -- this is the structured skeleton with directories, entry points, and ranked symbols for agent onboarding.
roam_metrics	Show unified per-file or per-symbol metrics: cognitive complexity, fan-in / fan-out, SNA centrality vector (PageRank / betweenness / closeness / eigenvector / clustering coefficient), composite debt score, churn, test coverage, and comprehension difficulty in a single view.
roam_metrics_push	Push metrics-only summary to Roam Cloud Lite.
roam_migration_plan	Generate an ordered migration plan with risk + blast-radius per step from a target-architecture YAML spec or inline --move SYMBOL=path/to/new/file directives. Each step is annotated with caller count and a derived risk score so agents can decide where to stop or insert tests. Stops at the first step exceeding max_risk. Different from roam_simulate (counterfactual single-move analysis) -- this is the ordered multi-step plan with a risk gate.
roam_migration_safety	Non-idempotent database migrations (unsafe for re-run).
roam_minimap	Generate a compact ~20-line codebase minimap for CLAUDE.md injection: tech stack, annotated directory tree, key symbols by PageRank, high-fan-in symbols to avoid, hotspots, detected conventions. Different from roam_describe (long-form prose) and roam_map (structured skeleton) -- this is the sentinel-block one-pager. The wrapper emits to stdout; on-disk updates are deferred to the CLI (roam minimap --update / --init-notes) so the MCP surface stays read-only.
roam_missing_index	Queries on non-indexed columns (slow query risk).
roam_module	Show directory contents: exported symbols, signatures, external imports / importers, internal cohesion percentage, and API surface ratio. Different from roam_describe (project-wide) -- this analyses a single directory.
roam_mutate	Agentic editing: move/rename/add-call/extract symbols with auto-import rewrite.
roam_n1	Detect N+1 I/O patterns in ORM code (Laravel/Django/Rails/SQLAlchemy/JPA).
roam_next	Suggest the next roam command based on cheap repo-state signals: index presence, staleness, working-tree dirtiness, recent envelope, and recent memory. Emits one imperative recommendation in <200ms. Different from roam_brief (multi-section session kickoff) and roam_workflow (curated multi-step recipes) -- this is the single-command router.
roam_onboard	Generate a new-developer onboarding guide for the codebase.
roam_oracle_batch	Run multiple oracle queries in one call. Items: [{name, oracle, max_hops?}, ...] where oracle is one of symbol-exists, route-exists, is-test-only, is-reachable-from-entry, is-clone-of.
roam_oracle_is_clone_of	Answer the boolean oracle question: does this symbol have persisted clone siblings in the clone_pairs table? Returns a yes/no verdict envelope with the matched clone class size. Different from roam_clones (full clone-pair enumeration) -- this is the cheap boolean lookup for one symbol's clone status.
roam_oracle_is_reachable_from_entry	Answer the boolean oracle question: is the symbol reachable from any entry point via the call graph (BFS up to max_hops depth)? Useful for sniffing orphans and production-vs-tooling code. Different from roam_dead_code (broad dead-symbol detection) and roam_entry_points (entry-point enumeration) -- this is the cheap boolean lookup for one symbol's reachability.
roam_oracle_is_test_only	Answer the boolean oracle question: are ALL callers of this symbol in test files? Useful for sniffing test fixtures and dead-but-test-only helpers. Different from roam_dead_code (broad dead-symbol detection) -- this is the cheap boolean lookup for one symbol's test-only status.
roam_oracle_route_exists	Answer the boolean oracle question: does a route handler match this URL path? Returns a yes/no verdict envelope with the matched handler's file + kind when found. Different from roam_endpoints (full endpoint enumeration) -- this is the cheap boolean lookup for one route precondition check.
roam_oracle_symbol_exists	Answer the boolean oracle question: does a symbol with this name exist in the index? Returns a yes/no verdict envelope with the matched symbol's file + kind when found. Different from roam_search_symbol (top-N ranked hits) -- this is the cheap boolean lookup for agent precondition checks.
roam_oracle_test_only	Alias of roam_oracle_is_test_only — preserves the shorter name agents sometimes guess.
roam_orchestrate	Partition codebase for parallel multi-agent work with exclusive write zones.
roam_orphan_imports	List imports that don't resolve to any indexed module or installed package -- catches typo'd local imports, missing packages, and dangling relative imports. Covers Python (default), JavaScript / TypeScript, and Go. Different from roam_dead_code (unused symbols) -- this targets import-statement orphans.
roam_orphan_routes	Backend routes with no frontend consumer (dead endpoints).
roam_over_fetch	Models serializing too many fields (data over-exposure risk).
roam_owner	Show code ownership computed from git blame: per-author line counts, percentages, last-active dates, and a fragmentation index. Works on a file or a directory prefix. Different from roam_codeowners (which reads the CODEOWNERS file) -- this measures actual ownership.
roam_partition	Multi-agent work partitioning: split codebase into independent work zones.
roam_path_coverage	Critical call paths with zero test protection, ranked by risk.
roam_patterns	Detect positive architectural patterns: Singleton, Factory, Observer, Repository, Middleware, Strategy, and Decorator. Different from roam_smells (negative anti-patterns) -- this discovers intentional design patterns.
roam_plan	Generate a structured execution plan for modifying code: read-order (call-graph BFS), invariants (mined contracts), blast-radius preview, and per-task heuristics. Five task types: refactor / debug / extend / review / understand. Different from roam_plan_refactor (refactoring-specific simulation) and roam_preflight (blast-radius gate) -- this is the general-purpose work plan for any task type.
roam_plan_refactor	Build an ordered refactor plan for one symbol using risk/test/simulation context.
roam_postmortem	Replay current detectors against past commits: walks a git commit range, runs roam critique against each commit's diff, and reports which findings would have surfaced pre-merge. Useful for retrospective replay -- 'would today's detector set have caught the incidents already in history?' Different from roam_pr_replay (one PR replay) -- this is the range-replay over historical commits.
roam_pr_analyze	Agent-aware PR risk verdict — INTENTIONAL / SAFE / REVIEW / BLOCK.
roam_pr_comment_render	Render a markdown PR comment from a pr-analyze JSON envelope.
roam_pr_diff	Structural graph delta of code changes: metric deltas, layer violations.
roam_pr_prep	One-shot pre-PR fitness check: bundles diff blast radius + critique + pr-risk into a single envelope with a ready_to_open verdict. Different from roam_pr_risk (composite risk score alone) and roam_critique (clones-not-edited + blast-radius alone) -- this is the three-section pre-PR rollup with the go/no-go verdict.
roam_pr_risk	Risk score (0-100) for pending changes with per-file breakdown.
roam_preflight	Pre-change safety check: blast radius, tests, complexity, fitness. Call BEFORE modifying code.
roam_prepare_change	Pre-change bundle: preflight + context + effects in one call. Call BEFORE modifying code.
roam_py_modern	Python modernisation signal: walrus, match, PEP 604/585, f-strings vs legacy.
roam_py_types	Python type-annotation health: % public fns fully typed, Any usage, legacy typing.
roam_pytest_fixtures	pytest fixture chain: top fixtures by dependent count, or per-symbol dependency walk.
roam_recommend	Surface symbols related to a given symbol via three signal sources combined: call-graph neighbours (1-hop in + out), git co-change (other symbols whose files changed in the same commits), and persisted clone siblings (when roam clones --persist was run). Each candidate gets a score that's the normalised sum of the three contributions. Different from roam_impact (transitive blast radius) and roam_neighbours (graph-only 1-hop neighbours) -- this fuses co-change + clones into the ranking.
roam_refs_text	Audit literal strings across the project and emit a per-string verdict: SAFE-TO-REMOVE / REVIEW / LOAD-BEARING. Groups every reference by surface (code, test, docs, config, generated, vendored) and annotates reachability for code hits.
roam_reindex	Incremental or force reindex. Task-mode + elicited confirmation for force runs.
roam_relate	How symbols connect: shared deps, call chains, conflicts, cohesion score.
roam_repo_map	Compact project skeleton with key symbols per file, by PageRank.
roam_report	Run a compound report preset (built-ins: first-contact, security, pre-pr, refactor, guardian) that orchestrates multiple analysis commands into one rendered report. Different from roam_audit (single fixed bundle) -- this is the preset-driven multi-command roll-up with optional Markdown output and strict exit-code gating.
roam_reset	Delete index DB and rebuild from scratch. Requires force=True. Recovery for corrupted indexes.
roam_retrieve	Graph-aware context for free-form tasks: FTS5 + structural rerank (PageRank + clones) + token budget.
roam_review_change	Change review bundle: pr-risk + breaking changes + structural diff in one call.
roam_risk	Rank symbols by domain-weighted risk: combines static risk (fan-in + fan-out + betweenness) with domain criticality weights so financial / auth / data-integrity symbols rank higher than UI symbols. Different from roam_fan (raw fan-in/out degree) and roam_hotspots (runtime hotspot classification) -- this is the semantic-domain-weighted risk heatmap.
roam_rules_check	Evaluate custom governance rules from .roam/rules/ YAML files.
roam_rules_validate	Lint a `.
roam_runtime_hotspots	Runtime hotspots where static and runtime rankings disagree (UPGRADE/DOWNGRADE).
roam_safe_delete	Fuse dead-code, blast-radius, and test-coverage signals into a single deletion verdict: SAFE / REVIEW / UNSAFE. Reports direct callers (non-test), transitive dependents, affected files, and a public-API bump that flips SAFE -> REVIEW for exported symbols whose name matches a common public-API prefix. Different from roam_dead_code (all unreferenced symbols) and roam_impact (transitive blast radius) -- this is the single go/no-go gate.
roam_safe_zones	Classify the refactor containment zone around a symbol or file: ISOLATED (no external connections), CONTAINED (<=5 boundary symbols), or EXPOSED (>5). Reports strictly-internal vs boundary symbols and external caller / callee counts per boundary. Different from roam_impact (unbounded reverse blast radius) and roam_closure (exact locations needing modification) -- this maps the bounded zone where it is safe to refactor freely.
roam_sbom	Emit a Software Bill of Materials (CycloneDX 1.7 by default, or SPDX 2.3) enriched with call-graph reachability — distinguishes phantom dependencies from those actually exercised. Pair with --aibom for the AIBOM extension required by EU AI Act Art. 50.
roam_search_semantic	Find symbols by natural language query (hybrid BM25 + vector + framework packs).
roam_search_symbol	Find symbols by name substring. Returns kind, file, line, PageRank importance.
roam_secrets	Scan for hardcoded secrets, API keys, tokens, passwords (24 patterns).
roam_semantic_diff	Structural change summary: what symbols were added/removed/modified.
roam_session_metrics	Local-only telemetry: per-tool invocation counts grouped by outcome (success / rate_limited / error). Helps answer "which tools are agents actually using?" and "are 90 of the 137 tools dead weight?". Never phones home — counters live in the MCP server process and reset on restart.
roam_side_effects	Classify symbols by side-effect bucket: none (pure), io_read (disk / network / DB read), io_write (disk / network / DB write), mutation (global / module state mutation), process (subprocess / thread / async), or unknown. Coarse five-bucket taxonomy designed for agent decisions. Different from roam_effects (finer 11-kind taxonomy + transitive propagation) -- this is the agent's go/no-go classifier for can I retry this safely?.
roam_simulate	Predict metric deltas from move/extract/merge/delete operations.
roam_simulate_departure	Simulate knowledge loss if a developer leaves the team.
roam_sketch	Render a compact structural skeleton of a directory: every file's exported symbols with kind, signature, line range, and first-line docstring. Different from roam_understand (broader project overview) and roam_file_info (one-file skeleton) -- this is the directory-level API surface in a single view, with optional full=True to include private symbols.
roam_smells	Run 15 deterministic code-smell detectors over the indexed codebase: brain methods, god classes, deep nesting, shotgun surgery, feature envy, long parameter lists, large classes, dead params, low cohesion, message chains, data clumps, and more. Different from roam_vibe_check (AI-rot pattern regex) and roam_patterns (positive design patterns) -- this surfaces negative structural anti-patterns from DB queries.
roam_spectral	Spectral bisection: Fiedler vector partition tree and modularity gap.
roam_split	Analyse a file's internal call / reference graph and propose natural decomposition groups via Louvain community detection. Reports per-group isolation %, internal vs cross-group edges, and ranked extraction candidates (groups with >=3 symbols and >=50% isolation). Different from roam_clusters (repo-wide module partitioning) -- this analyses ONE file's internal seams.
roam_stale_refs	Find dangling file references — markdown links / HTML href-src / backtick paths whose target is missing. v12.48 adds anchor validation, confidence-tagged hints, --diff branch filter, --fix preview/apply, and --sort-by ranking. Set enrich_with_llm=True for LLM-sampled hints on findings the deterministic providers couldn't resolve.
roam_stats	Aggregate high-level statistics: language / role / kind counts plus a recent-commit activity counter over a configurable window. Different from roam_metrics (per-symbol static-metric report) and roam_graph_stats (graph-wide topology stats) -- this is the language-and-role inventory snapshot.
roam_suggest_refactoring	Rank proactive refactoring candidates using complexity/coupling/churn/smells.
roam_suggest_reviewers	Suggest optimal code reviewers for changed files.
roam_supply_chain	Dependency risk dashboard: pin coverage, risk scoring, supply-chain health.
roam_symbol	Symbol definition, callers, callees, PageRank, fan-in/out metrics.
roam_syntax_check	Tree-sitter syntax validation. Finds ERROR/MISSING AST nodes. No index needed.
roam_taint	Graph-reach taint analysis. Returns OpenVEX-shaped findings (spec-legal status + justification — never code_not_reachable). 10 starter rule packs: sqli, xss, ssrf, path-traversal, command-injection, deserialization, open-redirect, urllib, socketio, fileupload. Pair with --ci to gate on findings (exit 5).
roam_taint_classify	Run roam taint then ask the agent's own LLM (via MCP sampling) to classify each reachable finding as IDOR/AUTHZ/SQLI/XSS/CMD_INJECTION/etc. with confidence + reasoning. Counter to Semgrep Multimodal — same LLM-reasoning narrative without a hosted API key.
roam_test_gaps	Find changed symbols missing test coverage, ranked by severity.
roam_test_impact	Tests transitively reachable from changed symbols — sharper scope than affected_tests.
roam_test_map	Map a symbol or file to its current test coverage: direct test edges (test file calls the symbol), file-level importers (test file imports the symbol's module), and convention-based matches (Salesforce <Name>Test / <Name>_Test classes). Different from roam_test_gaps (untested symbols in changed files) and roam_affected_tests (forward trace from changes to affected tests) -- this is the lookup for what currently exercises a given symbol.
roam_test_pyramid	Count indexed test files by kind (unit / integration / e2e / smoke / unknown) using path and name conventions, and flag inverted pyramids (when e2e + integration > unit). Different from roam_test_gaps (missing coverage) -- this measures the shape of the existing test suite for slow-CI risk.
roam_test_scaffold	Generate a test-file skeleton for a source file or symbol (functions, classes, methods) with the right imports and per-symbol stub blocks. Supports pytest / unittest (Python), jest / mocha / vitest (JS/TS), Go testing, JUnit4 / JUnit5 (Java), and RSpec / Minitest (Ruby). Dry-run by default; pair with roam_test_map first to confirm no existing coverage. Skips symbols that already have tests in the target file.
roam_timeline	Chronological commits that touched the file owning a symbol — author, date, lines added/removed.
roam_tour	Codebase onboarding guide: reading order, entry points, architecture roles.
roam_trace	Shortest dependency path between two symbols with hop details.
roam_trends	Historical metric tracking: record and query health metric trends over time.
roam_tx_boundaries	Classify functions by transactional safety: transactional (begin matched by commit/rollback, all mutations inside scope), partial_transactional (mutations both inside AND outside scope), unsafe_mutation (mutations OUTSIDE any transaction wrapper -- latent bug), unmatched_begin (begin without commit/rollback -- leak), unmatched_commit, non_transactional, or unknown. Composes on top of roam_side_effects. Different from roam_idempotency (retry safety) -- this gates transaction correctness.
roam_understand	Full codebase briefing: stack, architecture, health, hotspots. Call FIRST in a new repo.
roam_uses	All consumers of a symbol: callers, importers, inheritors by edge type. Use this instead of a multi-shape grep ("->X|.X\b|'X'|"X"") to find references — graph-precise, no string-literal / comment false positives, and the result is already structured by edge type. For 3+ symbols call roam_batch_get (one round-trip) instead.
roam_validate_plan	Pre-apply validator for a multi-step change plan. Returns blockers, warnings, advice per operation.
roam_verify	Check changed files for naming, import, error-handling, and duplicate issues.
roam_verify_imports	Hallucination firewall: validate import statements resolve to indexed symbols.
roam_vibe_check	AI rot score (0-100): 8-pattern taxonomy of AI code anti-patterns.
roam_visualize	Generate Mermaid/DOT architecture diagram with smart filtering.
roam_vuln_map	Ingest vulnerability scanner reports (npm/pip/trivy/osv), match to symbols.
roam_vuln_reach	Vulnerability reachability through call graph: paths, hops, blast radius.
roam_weather	Churn x complexity hotspot ranking: highest-leverage refactoring targets.
roam_why	Explain why a symbol matters: role classification (Hub/Bridge/Leaf), transitive reach, critical-path membership, cluster cohesion, and a one-line verdict. Accepts multiple symbol names for batch triage. Different from roam_fan (raw connectivity ranking) and roam_preflight (blast-radius gate before edit) -- this is the per-symbol role explainer for triage and onboarding.
roam_why_fail	Triage a failing test/symbol: recently-changed symbols transitively reachable from it.
roam_why_slow	Rank runtime hotspots by cost = log10(call_count + 1) * p99_latency_ms. Reads runtime_stats populated by roam ingest-trace. Optionally restricts to symbols in changed files vs a base ref. Different from roam_hotspots (static-vs-runtime classification) -- this is the pure latency-weighted ranking.
roam_workflow	Inspect a workflow recipe DAG, list available recipes, or suggest what to run next given a prior command. Useful as an agent navigation aid: 'I just ran roam impact -- what should I run next?' Different from the heavyweight analytical recipes -- this is the metadata-only recipe browser.
roam_ws_context	Cross-repo augmented context for a symbol spanning multiple repos.
roam_ws_understand	Multi-repo workspace overview: per-repo stats, cross-repo connections.
roam_x_lang	Show cross-language symbol bridges: Protobuf .proto -> generated Go/Java/Python stubs, Salesforce Apex -> Aura/LWC/Visualforce, REST API frontend -> backend route, template variable -> source, and env-var read -> .env definition. Use roam_bridges to list registered bridge types.

Resources: roam://health (current health score), roam://summary (project overview)

Claude Code

claude mcp add roam-code -- roam mcp

Or add to .mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "roam-code": {
      "command": "roam",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "roam-code": {
      "command": "roam",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/your/project"
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "roam-code": {
      "command": "roam",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code + Copilot

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "roam-code": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "roam",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Roam Review (PR bot for AI-generated changes)

Status (2026-05-09): Early access. Pricing published, sign-up via [e-mail]. Flat tiers from $99/mo: Starter $99 · Team $299 · Business $799 · Scale $1,499. Free for open-source forever. Full pricing at https://roam-code.com/pricing.

Most "AI safety net" tools — CodeRabbit, Greptile, Qodo — review PR semantics (does the diff look right?). They don't read your graph: who calls the changed symbol, which layer it belongs to, whether the AI just touched a god-component with 47 callers. Roam Review fills that gap.

roam pr-analyze is the CLI engine: pipe a unified diff in, get back a verdict (INTENTIONAL / SAFE / REVIEW / BLOCK) plus AI-likelihood score, blast radius, rule violations, suggested reviewers, and a governance audit-trail record.

git diff main..HEAD | roam pr-analyze --explain --with-reviewers --audit-trail
roam pr-analyze main..HEAD --gate                      # exit 5 on BLOCK (CI gate)
roam --json pr-analyze --input pr.diff | roam pr-comment-render   # ready-to-post markdown
roam pr-analyze --batch ./diffs/ --cache --parallel 4  # 24-55x speedup on incremental re-runs
roam audit-trail-verify                                # check SHA-256 chain integrity
roam audit-trail-conformance-check --gate              # governance-evidence score (CI)

Nine weighted heuristic signals score the diff for AI-likelihood: add/remove ratio, comment density, test coverage, function-size variance, generic naming, orphan imports, placeholder density (TODO/FIXME/NotImplementedError stubs), LLM-phrase density ("we use this approach because…"), suspicious imports (numbered modules, mass typing imports). Each carries language-aware weights across Python / TypeScript / JavaScript / Go / Rust / Java / Kotlin. Starter rule packs ship for Python, TypeScript, Go, and Java at templates/rules/ — drop one at .roam/rules.yml to enable. Custom rules look like:

rules:
  - id: no-frontend-db-import
    description: Frontend modules must not import from db/ directly
    pattern: import_from              # supported: import_from, function_call, class_inherit, decorator_use
    source_glob: "frontend/**/*.{ts,tsx}"
    forbidden_target_glob: "lib/db/**"
    severity: BLOCK
  - id: no-eval
    pattern: function_call
    source_glob: "src/**/*.py"
    forbidden_target_glob: "eval"
    severity: BLOCK

A drift baseline (--save-baseline / --baseline FILE) compares the current PR's signals against the previous analysis and auto-escalates the verdict on regression — the GitHub App reads this to render (+5 vs prev) / (-22 vs prev) arrows on every push.

The pr-analyze --audit-trail flag appends a SHA-256-chained record to .roam/audit-trail.jsonl for each analysis (actor, repo, git SHA, diff hash, verdict, blast radius, AI-likelihood, intent marker). roam audit-trail-verify walks the chain and surfaces tampered records; roam audit-trail-export --format md|csv|json produces procurement-friendly reports. This is best framed as SOC 2 CC8.1, ISO 42001, and internal AI-governance evidence. Article 12 is only relevant for actual Annex III high-risk AI-system buyers, and Roam's records are supporting evidence rather than complete runtime inference logs.

A hosted GitHub App is in development on top of this CLI engine. Until it ships, the CLI is usable today as a free CI gate (roam pr-analyze --gate exits 5 on BLOCK).

Roam Cloud (metrics history, no source upload)

Status (2026-05-09): Early access. From $19/repo/mo (Starter), $99/mo Team (10 repos), $299/mo Growth. 30-day money-back. Source code is never uploaded — only metrics.

roam metrics-push sends a summary-only payload from roam audit --json to a Roam Cloud endpoint — numerical metrics, file paths (or SHA-256 hashes when --anonymize), and identifier names only. No source-code bodies are transmitted, ever. Inspect the exact payload locally with --dry-run before any token is set.

roam metrics-push --dry-run                            # local-only inspection
roam metrics-push --token $ROAM_CLOUD_TOKEN --anonymize
roam metrics-push --no-hotspots --json                 # minimal payload

The hosted dashboard at roam.cloud (in development) renders trend charts of health-score, debt, dead-code count, danger-zone count, and bus-factor concentration over time. The schema (roam-metrics-v1) is allow-listed: any payload key outside the allow-list is rejected by the receiving API.

Both products are paid layers on top of the free CLI; the CLI itself stays Apache 2.0, zero-API-key, fully local, forever.

PR Replay (one-shot paid audit)

Status (2026-05-09): Available today via email. Self-serve checkout launches alongside Roam Review.

PR Replay runs Roam against your last 30 or 90 merged PRs and ships a written structural-review report plus a founder walk-through. Same engine as the free CLI; the engagement is the report + the call.

Tier	Price	What you get
Sample	Free, DIY (roam pr-replay --tier sample)	5 PRs, watermarked, no founder review. Same engine as the paid tiers.
Team	$2,500	30-PR report, 30-min walk-through. $1,250 credit toward a Roam Review subscription within 60 days.
Deep	$6,000	90-PR report with per-detector deep-dive + a 90-day remediation plan + 90-min walk-through. $3,000 credit toward a Roam Review subscription within 60 days.

Order paid tiers by emailing [e-mail] — the self-serve Stripe checkout launches with Roam Review. Full deliverable shape at https://roam-code.com/audit.

CI/CD Integration

All you need is Python 3.10+ and pip install roam-code.

GitHub Actions

# .github/workflows/roam.yml
name: Roam Analysis
on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  roam:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: Cranot/roam-code@main
        with:
          commands: health
          gate: "score>=70"
          sarif: true
          comment: true

Use roam init to auto-generate this workflow.

Input	Default	Description
commands	health	Space-separated roam commands to run
gate	(empty)	Quality gate expression (e.g., score>=70). Exit 5 on failure
sarif	false	Upload SARIF results to GitHub Code Scanning
comment	true	Post sticky PR comment with results
python-version	3.11	Python version
version	latest	Pin to a specific roam-code version
cache	true	Cache the SQLite index between runs
changed-only	false	Incremental mode: adapt commands to changed files

GitLab CI

roam-analysis:
  stage: test
  image: python:3.12-slim
  before_script:
    - pip install roam-code
  script:
    - roam index
    - roam health --gate
    - roam --json pr-risk origin/main..HEAD > roam-report.json
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - roam-report.json
  rules:
    - if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID

Azure DevOps / any CI

Universal pattern:

pip install roam-code
roam index
roam health --gate               # exit 5 on failure (reads .roam-gates.yml)
roam --json health > report.json

SARIF Output

Roam exports analysis results in SARIF 2.1.0 format for GitHub Code Scanning.

Fourteen commands honour the global --sarif flag (the authoritative list is _SARIF_CONSUMERS in src/roam/cli.py, drift-guarded by tests/test_sarif_consumer_list.py). Minimal end-to-end upload:

- run: roam --sarif health > roam-health.sarif
- uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
  with:
    sarif_file: roam-health.sarif

For the full CI integration playbook -- plain-pip quickstart, composite Action, GitLab/Jenkins/Azure/BitBucket templates, severity gates, and upload guardrails -- see docs/ci-integration.md.

Programmatic access from Python:

from roam.output.sarif import health_to_sarif, write_sarif

sarif = health_to_sarif(health_data)
write_sarif(sarif, "roam-health.sarif")

For Teams

Zero infrastructure, zero vendor lock-in, zero data leaving your network.

Tool	Annual cost (20-dev team)	Infrastructure	Setup time
SonarQube Server	$15,000-$45,000	Self-hosted server	Days
CodeScene	$20,000-$60,000	SaaS or on-prem	Hours
Code Climate	$12,000-$36,000	SaaS	Hours
Roam	$0 (Apache 2.0)	None (local)	5 minutes

Team rollout guide

Week 1-2 (pilot): 1-2 developers run roam init on one repo. Use roam preflight before changes, roam pr-risk before PRs.

Week 3-4 (expand): Add roam health --gate to CI as a non-blocking check (configure thresholds in .roam-gates.yml).

Month 2+ (standardize): Tighten gate thresholds. Expand to additional repos. Track trajectory with roam trends.

Complements your existing stack

If you use...	Roam adds...
SonarQube	Architecture-level analysis: dependency cycles, god components, blast radius, health scoring
CodeScene	Free, local alternative for health scoring and hotspot analysis
ESLint / Pylint	Cross-language architecture checks. Linters enforce style per file; Roam enforces architecture across the codebase
LSP	AI-agent-optimized queries. roam context answers "what calls this?" with PageRank-ranked results in one call

Language Support

Tier 1 -- Full extraction (dedicated parsers)

Language	Extensions	Symbols	References	Inheritance
Python	.py .pyi	classes, functions, methods, decorators, variables	imports, calls, inheritance	extends, __all__ exports
JavaScript	.js .jsx .mjs .cjs	classes, functions, arrow functions, CJS exports	imports, require(), calls	extends
TypeScript	.ts .tsx .mts .cts	interfaces, type aliases, enums + all JS	imports, calls, type refs	extends, implements
Java	.java	classes, interfaces, enums, constructors, fields	imports, calls	extends, implements
Go	.go	structs, interfaces, functions, methods, fields	imports, calls	embedded structs
Rust	.rs	structs, traits, impls, enums, functions	use, calls	impl Trait for Struct
C / C++	.c .h .cpp .hpp .cc	structs, classes, functions, namespaces, templates	includes, calls	extends
C#	.cs	classes, interfaces, structs, enums, records, methods, constructors, properties, delegates, events, fields	using directives, calls, new, attributes	extends, implements
PHP	.php	classes, interfaces, traits, enums, methods, properties	namespace use, calls, static calls, new	extends, implements, use (traits)
Visual FoxPro	.prg	functions, procedures, classes, methods, properties, constants	DO, SET PROCEDURE/CLASSLIB, CREATEOBJECT, =func(), obj.method()	DEFINE CLASS ... AS
YAML (CI/CD)	.yml .yaml	GitLab CI: jobs, template anchors, stages. GitHub Actions: workflow name, jobs, reusable workflows. Generic: top-level keys	extends:, needs:, !reference, uses:	—
HCL / Terraform	.tf .tfvars .hcl	resource, data, variable, output, module, provider, locals entries	var.*, module.*, data.*, local.*, resource cross-refs	—
Vue	.vue	via <script> block extraction (TS/JS)	imports, calls, type refs	extends, implements
Svelte	.svelte	via <script> block extraction (TS/JS)	imports, calls, type refs	extends, implements

Salesforce ecosystem (Tier 1)

Language	Extensions	Symbols	References
Apex	.cls .trigger	classes, triggers, SOQL, annotations	imports, calls, System.Label, generic type refs
Aura	.cmp .app .evt .intf .design	components, attributes, methods, events	controller refs, component refs
LWC (JavaScript)	.js (in LWC dirs)	anonymous class from filename	@salesforce/apex/, @salesforce/schema/, @salesforce/label/
Visualforce	.page .component	pages, components	controller/extensions, merge fields, includes
SF Metadata XML	*-meta.xml	objects, fields, rules, layouts	Apex class refs, formula field refs, Flow actionCalls

Cross-language edges mean roam impact AccountService shows blast radius across Apex, LWC, Aura, Visualforce, and Flows.

| Ruby | .rb | classes, modules, methods, singleton methods, constants | require, require_relative, include/extend, calls, ClassName.new | class inheritance | | Kotlin | .kt .kts | classes, interfaces, enums, objects, functions, methods, properties | imports, calls, type refs | extends, implements | | Scala | .scala .sc | classes, traits, objects, case classes, functions, methods, val/var, type aliases | imports, calls, new | extends, with (trait mixins) | | SQL (DDL) | .sql | tables, columns, views, functions, triggers, schemas, types (enums), sequences | foreign keys, view table deps, trigger table/function refs | -- | | Swift | .swift | classes, structs, enums, protocols, functions, methods, properties | imports, calls, type refs | extends, conforms | | JSONC | .jsonc | via JSON grammar | -- | -- | | MDX | .mdx | via Markdown grammar | -- | -- |

Performance

Metric	Value
Index 200 files	~3-5s
Index 3,000 files	~2 min
Incremental (no changes)	<1s
Any query command	<0.5s

Detailed benchmarks

Indexing Speed

Project	Language	Files	Symbols	Edges	Index Time	Rate
Express	JS	211	624	804	3s	70 files/s
Axios	JS	237	1,065	868	6s	41 files/s
Vue	TS	697	5,335	8,984	25s	28 files/s
Laravel	PHP	3,058	39,097	38,045	1m46s	29 files/s
Svelte	TS	8,445	16,445	19,618	2m40s	52 files/s

Quality Benchmark

Repo	Language	Score	Coverage	Edge Density
Laravel	PHP	9.55	91.2%	0.97
Vue	TS	9.27	85.8%	1.68
Svelte	TS	9.04	94.7%	1.19
Axios	JS	8.98	85.9%	0.82
Express	JS	8.46	96.0%	1.29

Token Efficiency

Metric	Value
1,600-line file → roam file	~5,000 chars (~70:1 compression)
Full project map	~4,000 chars
--compact mode	40-50% additional token reduction
roam preflight replaces	5-7 separate agent tool calls

Agent-efficiency benchmarks: see the benchmarks/ directory for harness, repos, and results.

How It Works

Codebase
    |
[1] Discovery ──── git ls-files (respects .gitignore + .roamignore)
    |
[2] Parse ──────── tree-sitter AST per file (28 languages)
    |
[3] Extract ────── symbols + references (calls, imports, inheritance)
    |
[4] Resolve ────── match references to definitions → edges
    |
[5] Metrics ────── adaptive PageRank, betweenness, cognitive complexity, Halstead
    |
[6] Algorithms ── 23-pattern anti-pattern catalog (O(n^2) loops, N+1, recursion)
    |
[7] Git ────────── churn, co-change matrix, authorship, Renyi entropy
    |
[8] Clusters ───── Louvain community detection
    |
[9] Health ─────── per-file scores (7-factor) + composite score (0-100)
    |
[10] Store ─────── .roam/index.db (SQLite, WAL mode)

After the first full index, roam index only re-processes changed files (mtime + SHA-256 hash). Incremental updates are near-instant.

.roamignore

Create a .roamignore file in your project root to exclude files from indexing. It uses full gitignore syntax:

Pattern	Meaning
*.log	Exclude all .log files (basename match)
vendor/	Exclude the vendor directory and everything under it
/build/	Exclude build/ at repo root only (anchored)
src/**/*.pb.go	Exclude .pb.go files at any depth under src/
**/test_*.py	Exclude test_*.py files anywhere
?	Match any single character (not /)
[abc] / [!abc]	Character class / negated character class
!important.log	Un-exclude (re-include) important.log
# comment	Lines starting with # are comments

Key rules: * matches within a single path segment (not across /). ** matches across / boundaries. Last matching pattern wins (for negation). Patterns containing / are anchored to the repo root.

# .roamignore example
*_pb2.py
*_pb2_grpc.py
vendor/
node_modules/
*.generated.*
/build/
!build/keep/

You can also exclude patterns via roam config --exclude "*.proto" (stored in .roam/config.json) or inspect active patterns with roam config --show.

Graph algorithms

• Adaptive PageRank -- damping factor auto-tunes based on cycle density (0.82-0.92); identifies the most important symbols (used by map, search, context)
• Personalized PageRank -- distance-weighted blast radius for impact (Gleich, 2015)
• Adaptive betweenness centrality -- exact for small graphs, sqrt-scaled sampling for large (Brandes & Pich, 2007); finds bottleneck symbols
• Edge betweenness centrality -- identifies critical cycle-breaking edges in SCCs (Brandes, 2001)
• Tarjan's SCC -- detects dependency cycles with tangle ratio
• Propagation Cost -- fraction of system affected by any change, via transitive closure (MacCormack, Rusnak & Baldwin, 2006)
• Algebraic connectivity (Fiedler value) -- second-smallest Laplacian eigenvalue; measures architectural robustness (Fiedler, 1973)
• Louvain community detection -- groups related symbols into clusters
• Modularity Q-score -- measures if cluster boundaries match natural community structure (Newman, 2004)
• Conductance -- per-cluster boundary tightness: cut(S, S_bar) / min(vol(S), vol(S_bar)) (Yang & Leskovec)
• Topological sort -- computes dependency layers, Gini coefficient for layer balance (Gini, 1912), weighted violation severity
• k-shortest simple paths -- traces dependency paths with coupling strength
• Renyi entropy (order 2) -- measures co-change distribution; more robust to outliers than Shannon (Renyi, 1961)
• Mann-Kendall trend test -- non-parametric degradation detection, robust to noise (Mann, 1945; Kendall, 1975)
• Sen's slope estimator -- robust trend magnitude, resistant to outliers (Sen, 1968)
• NPMI -- Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information for coupling strength (Bouma, 2009)
• Lift -- association rule mining metric for co-change statistical significance (Agrawal & Srikant, 1994)
• Halstead metrics -- volume, difficulty, effort, and predicted bugs from operator/operand counts (Halstead, 1977)
• SQALE remediation cost -- time-to-fix estimates per issue type for tech debt prioritization (Letouzey, 2012)
• Algorithm anti-pattern catalog -- 23 patterns detecting suboptimal algorithms (quadratic loops, N+1 queries, quadratic string building, branching recursion, manual top-k, loop-invariant calls) with confidence calibration via caller-count and bounded-loop analysis

Health scoring

Composite health score (0-100) using a weighted geometric mean of sigmoid health factors. Non-compensatory: a zero in any dimension cannot be masked by high scores in others.

Factor	Weight	What it measures
Tangle ratio	30%	% of symbols in dependency cycles
God components	20%	Symbols with extreme fan-in/fan-out
Bottlenecks	15%	High-betweenness chokepoints
Layer violations	15%	Upward dependency violations (severity-weighted by layer distance)
Per-file health	20%	Average of 7-factor file health scores

Each factor uses sigmoid health: h = e^(-signal/scale) (1 = pristine, approaches 0 = worst). Score = 100 * product(h_i ^ w_i). Also reports propagation cost (MacCormack 2006) and algebraic connectivity (Fiedler 1973). Per-file health (1-10) combines: cognitive complexity (triangular nesting penalty per Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory), indentation complexity, cycle membership, god component membership, dead export ratio, co-change entropy, and churn amplification.

How Roam Compares

roam-code is the only tool that combines graph algorithms (PageRank, Tarjan SCC, Louvain clustering), git archaeology, architecture simulation, and multi-agent partitioning in a single local CLI with zero API keys.

Documentation lives at https://roam-code.com/docs/:

• Tutorial — https://roam-code.com/docs/getting-started
• Command reference — https://roam-code.com/docs/command-reference
• Architecture guide — https://roam-code.com/docs/architecture
• Integration tutorials — https://roam-code.com/docs/integration-tutorials

Capability	roam-code	AI IDEs (Cursor, Windsurf)	AI Agents (Claude Code, Codex)	SAST (SonarQube, CodeQL)
Persistent local index	SQLite	Cloud embeddings	None	Per-scan
Call graph analysis	Yes	No	No	Yes (CodeQL)
PageRank / centrality	Yes	No	No	No
Cycle detection (Tarjan)	Yes	No	No	Deprecated (SonarQube)
Community detection (Louvain)	Yes	No	No	No
Git churn / co-change	Yes	No	No	No
Architecture simulation	Yes	No	No	No
Multi-agent partitioning	Yes	No	No	No
MCP tools for agents	101 (24 in default core preset)	Client only	Client only	34 (SonarQube)
Languages	26	70+	50+	12-42
100% local, zero API keys	Yes	No	No	Partial
Open source	Apache 2.0	No	Partial	Partial

Key Differentiators

• vs AI IDEs (Cursor, Windsurf, Augment): roam-code provides deterministic structural analysis. AI IDEs use probabilistic embeddings that can't guarantee reproducible results.
• vs AI Agents (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI): These agents read files one at a time. roam-code pre-computes relationships so agents get instant answers about architecture, blast radius, and dependencies.
• vs SAST Tools (SonarQube, CodeQL, Semgrep): SAST tools find bugs and vulnerabilities. roam-code understands architecture -- how code is structured, where it's coupled, and what breaks when you change it. Complementary, not competitive.
• vs Code Search (Sourcegraph/Amp, Greptile): Text search finds where code is. roam-code understands why code matters -- which functions are central, which modules are tangled, which files are high-risk.

FAQ

Does Roam send any data externally? No. Zero network calls. No telemetry, no analytics, no update checks.

Can Roam run in air-gapped environments? Yes. Once installed, no internet access is required.

Does Roam modify my source code? Read-only by default. Creates .roam/ with an index database. The roam mutate command can apply code changes (move/rename/extract) but defaults to --dry-run mode — you must explicitly pass --apply to write changes.

How does Roam handle monorepos? Indexes from the root. Batched SQL handles 100k+ symbols. Incremental updates stay fast.

How does Roam handle multi-repo projects (e.g., frontend + backend)? Use roam ws init <repo1> <repo2> to create a workspace. Each repo keeps its own index; a workspace overlay DB stores cross-repo API edges. roam ws resolve scans for REST endpoints and matches frontend calls to backend routes. Then roam ws context, roam ws trace, etc. work across repos.

Is Roam compatible with SonarQube / CodeScene? Yes. Roam complements existing tools. Both can run in the same CI pipeline. SARIF output integrates with GitHub Code Scanning.

Limitations

Static analysis trade-offs:

• Static analysis primarily -- can't trace dynamic dispatch, reflection, or eval'd code. Runtime trace ingestion (roam ingest-trace) adds production data but requires external trace export
• Import resolution is heuristic -- complex re-exports or conditional imports may not resolve
• Limited cross-language edges -- Salesforce, Protobuf, REST API, and multi-repo edges are supported, but not arbitrary FFI
• Tier 2 languages get basic symbol extraction only via generic tree-sitter walker
• Large monorepos (100k+ files) may have slow initial indexing

Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
roam: command not found	Ensure install location is on PATH. For uv: uv tool update-shell
Another indexing process is running	Delete .roam/index.lock and retry
database is locked	roam index --force to rebuild
Unicode errors on Windows	chcp 65001 for UTF-8
Symbol resolves to wrong file	Use file:symbol syntax: roam symbol myfile:MyFunction
Health score seems wrong	roam --json health for factor breakdown
Index stale after git pull	roam index (incremental). After major refactors: roam index --force

Update / Uninstall

# Update
pipx upgrade roam-code
uv tool upgrade roam-code
pip install --upgrade roam-code

# Uninstall
pipx uninstall roam-code
uv tool uninstall roam-code
pip uninstall roam-code

Delete .roam/ from your project root to clean up local data.

Development

git clone https://github.com/Cranot/roam-code.git
cd roam-code
pip install -e ".[dev]"   # includes pytest, ruff
pytest tests/              # ~7,500 tests, Python 3.10-3.13

# Or use Make targets:
make dev      # install with dev extras
make test     # run tests
make lint     # ruff check

Project structure

roam-code/
├── pyproject.toml
├── action.yml                         # Reusable GitHub Action
├── src/roam/
│   ├── __init__.py                    # Version (from pyproject.toml)
│   ├── cli.py                         # Click CLI (201 canonical + 7 aliases)
│   ├── mcp_server.py                  # MCP server (169 tools, 10 resources, 6 prompts)
│   ├── db/
│   │   ├── connection.py              # SQLite (WAL, pragmas, batched IN)
│   │   ├── schema.py                  # Tables, indexes, migrations
│   │   └── queries.py                 # Named SQL constants
│   ├── index/
│   │   ├── indexer.py                 # Orchestrates full pipeline
│   │   ├── discovery.py               # git ls-files, .gitignore
│   │   ├── parser.py                  # Tree-sitter parsing
│   │   ├── symbols.py                 # Symbol + reference extraction
│   │   ├── relations.py               # Reference resolution -> edges
│   │   ├── complexity.py              # Cognitive complexity (SonarSource) + Halstead metrics
│   │   ├── git_stats.py               # Churn, co-change, blame, Renyi entropy
│   │   ├── incremental.py             # mtime + hash change detection
│   │   ├── file_roles.py              # Smart file role classifier
│   │   └── test_conventions.py        # Pluggable test naming adapters
│   ├── languages/
│   │   ├── base.py                    # Abstract LanguageExtractor
│   │   ├── registry.py                # Language detection + aliasing
│   │   ├── *_lang.py                  # One file per language (21 dedicated + generic)
│   │   └── generic_lang.py            # Tier 2 fallback
│   ├── bridges/
│   │   ├── base.py, registry.py       # Cross-language bridge framework
│   │   ├── bridge_salesforce.py       # Apex <-> Aura/LWC/Visualforce
│   │   └── bridge_protobuf.py         # .proto -> Go/Java/Python stubs
│   ├── catalog/
│   │   ├── tasks.py                  # Universal algorithm catalog (23 patterns)
│   │   └── detectors.py              # Anti-pattern detectors with confidence calibration
│   ├── workspace/
│   │   ├── config.py                  # .roam-workspace.json
│   │   ├── db.py                      # Workspace overlay DB
│   │   ├── api_scanner.py             # REST API endpoint detection
│   │   └── aggregator.py              # Cross-repo aggregation
│   ├── graph/
│   │   ├── builder.py, pagerank.py    # DB -> NetworkX, PageRank
│   │   ├── cycles.py, clusters.py     # Tarjan SCC, propagation cost, Louvain, modularity Q
│   │   ├── layers.py, pathfinding.py  # Topo layers, k-shortest paths
│   │   ├── simulate.py, spectral.py   # Architecture simulation, Fiedler bisection
│   │   ├── partition.py, fingerprint.py # Multi-agent partitioning, topology fingerprints
│   │   └── anomaly.py                 # Statistical anomaly detection
│   ├── commands/
│   │   ├── resolve.py                 # Shared symbol resolution
│   │   ├── graph_helpers.py           # Shared graph utilities (adj builders, BFS)
│   │   ├── context_helpers.py         # Data-gathering helpers for context command
│   │   ├── gate_presets.py            # Framework-specific gate rules
│   │   └── cmd_*.py                   # One module per command
│   ├── analysis/
│   │   ├── effects.py                 # Side-effect classification engine
│   │   └── taint.py                   # Taint analysis
│   ├── refactor/
│   │   ├── codegen.py                 # Import generation (Python/JS/Go)
│   │   └── transforms.py             # move/rename/add-call/extract transforms
│   ├── rules/
│   │   ├── engine.py                  # YAML rule parser + graph query evaluator
│   │   ├── builtin.py                 # 10 built-in governance rules
│   │   ├── ast_match.py               # AST pattern matching with $METAVAR captures
│   │   └── dataflow.py                # Intra-procedural dataflow analysis
│   ├── runtime/
│   │   ├── trace_ingest.py            # OpenTelemetry/Jaeger/Zipkin ingestion
│   │   └── hotspots.py                # Runtime hotspot analysis
│   ├── search/
│   │   ├── tfidf.py                   # TF-IDF semantic search engine
│   │   ├── index_embeddings.py        # Embedding index builder
│   │   └── onnx_embeddings.py         # Optional local ONNX semantic backend
│   ├── security/
│   │   ├── vuln_store.py              # CVE/vulnerability storage
│   │   └── vuln_reach.py              # Vulnerability reachability paths
│   └── output/
│       ├── formatter.py               # Token-efficient formatting
│       ├── sarif.py                   # SARIF 2.1.0 output
│       └── schema_registry.py         # JSON envelope schema versioning
└── tests/                             # ~7,500 tests across 267 test files

Dependencies

Package	Purpose
click >= 8.0	CLI framework
tree-sitter >= 0.23	AST parsing
tree-sitter-language-pack >= 0.6	165+ grammars
networkx >= 3.0	Graph algorithms

Optional: fastmcp >= 2.0 (MCP server — install with pip install "roam-code[mcp]")

Optional: Local semantic ONNX stack (numpy, onnxruntime, tokenizers) via pip install "roam-code[semantic]"; verify activation with roam config --semantic-status.

Roadmap

Shipped

• MCP v2 agent surface: in-process execution, compound operations, presets, schemas, annotations, and compatibility profiles.
• Full command and MCP inventory parity in docs: 229 canonical CLI commands (236 with aliases) and 169 MCP tools.
• CI hardening: composite action, changed-only mode, trend-aware gates, sticky PR updater, and SARIF guardrails.
• Performance foundation: FTS5/BM25 search, O(changed) incremental indexing, DB/index optimizations.
• Agent governance suite: vibe-check, ai-readiness, verify, ai-ratio, duplicates, advanced algo scoring/SARIF.
• Ownership/review intelligence: codeowners, drift, simulate-departure, suggest-reviewers, api-changes, test-gaps, semantic-diff, secrets.
• Multi-agent operations: partition, affected, syntax-check, workspace-aware context and traces.
• Budget-aware context delivery: --budget (partial rollout), PageRank-weighted truncation, conversation-aware ranking.

Next

• Terminal demo GIF in README.
• GitHub repo topics.
• GitHub Discussions enabled.
• MCP directory + awesome-list submissions.

Contributing

git clone https://github.com/Cranot/roam-code.git
cd roam-code
pip install -e .
pytest tests/   # all ~7,500 tests must pass

Good first contributions: add a Tier 1 language (see go_lang.py or php_lang.py as templates), improve reference resolution, add benchmark repos, extend SARIF converters, add MCP tools.

Please open an issue first to discuss larger changes.

License

Apache 2.0