symdex 0.1.18

Repo-local code intelligence for AI coding agents - symbols, semantic search, call graphs, routes, and token savings

SymDex

The codebase oracle AI coding agents wish every repo already had.

Index once. Jump straight to the exact symbol, route, caller, callee, or file slice. Read only what you need.

7,500 tokens -> 200 tokens

Per lookup. Every lookup. Approximate, but directionally real.

# Install the lean core
pip install symdex

# Add local semantic search when you want the sentence-transformers backend
pip install "symdex[local]"

# Or install the local-backend CLI as an isolated tool
uv tool install "symdex[local]"

# Or run without installing
uvx symdex --help

# Upgrade an existing install
py -m pip install -U symdex
uv tool upgrade symdex
uvx symdex@latest --help

# Install the SymDex agent skill globally for supported agents
npx skills add https://github.com/husnainpk/SymDex --skill symdex-code-search --yes --global

---

Why SymDex

SymDex exists for one reason:

• stop agents from reading whole files just to find one function

In plain terms:

• SymDex is not another grep wrapper and not another black-box hosted index
• SymDex is the repo-local intelligence layer that makes coding agents feel like they already know your codebase
• it turns blind file-browsing into exact retrieval
• and it does that while cutting token spend hard

SymDex pre-indexes a repository into:

• a symbol table with byte offsets
• semantic embeddings for intent search
• a call graph
• extracted HTTP routes
• a registry in the active SymDex state directory (~/.symdex by default or workspace-local ./.symdex)

That lets an agent jump straight to the exact symbol or file slice it needs, which means fewer blind file reads and materially lower token burn.

Current main-branch highlights:

• symdex index prints a code summary with files, Lines of Code, symbol counts, routes, skipped files, and language breakdown
• symdex search, find, text, and semantic print approximate token-savings footers
• Kotlin, Dart, and Swift are now grammar-backed parser targets, so Android, Flutter, and iOS codebases are first-class citizens
• route extraction now covers Spring and Kotlin, Gin-style Go routers, ASP.NET, Rails and Sinatra, Phoenix, and Actix in addition to Python, JS/TS, and Laravel
• normal CLI commands now show an upgrade notice when a newer SymDex release is available
• --repo is the canonical naming flag, with --name retained as a compatibility alias
• omitting --repo on index and watch auto-generates a stable repo id from the current git branch and worktree path hash
• local sentence-transformers embeddings now live behind the optional symdex[local] extra
• Voyage AI is available as an optional embedding backend, including optional multimodal asset indexing
• optional workspace-local state keeps repo databases plus registry.json inside ./.symdex for Docker and portable workspaces

---

SymDex Skill For Agents

Install the SymDex code-search skill to make agents use SymDex before broad file browsing:

npx skills add https://github.com/husnainpk/SymDex --skill symdex-code-search --yes --global

If you want the interactive installer instead, omit --yes --global.

What it does:

• checks repo/index readiness first
• uses SymDex before Read/Grep/Glob for discovery
• prefers symbol-level and outline-level retrieval over full-file reads
• guides agents toward callers, callees, routes, and semantic search when those are the better fit
• keeps the workflow centered on lower-token code retrieval instead of broad file reads

The skill lives in this repo at skills/symdex-code-search/SKILL.md and follows the standard skills/<name>/SKILL.md layout.

Installing through the skills CLI is also the path that feeds skills.sh discovery telemetry.

---

60-second quickstart

# Install
pip install "symdex[local]"
# or
uv tool install "symdex[local]"

# Index a project
symdex index ./myproject --repo myproject

# Search by symbol name
symdex search "validate_email" --repo myproject

# Search by intent
symdex semantic "check email format" --repo myproject

# Show HTTP routes
symdex routes myproject -m POST

# Start the MCP server
symdex serve

Notes:

• If you omit --repo on symdex index or symdex watch, SymDex auto-generates a stable repo id from the current git branch and worktree path hash.
• After indexing, SymDex prints a code summary.
• After successful search commands, SymDex prints an approximate ROI footer with tokens read, tokens avoided, and tokens saved.
• When a newer PyPI release exists, normal CLI commands print exact upgrade commands for pip, uv tool, and uvx.
• Set SYMDEX_STATE_DIR=.symdex on first index to keep repo databases, registry.db, and registry.json inside the current workspace. After that, commands run from the workspace auto-discover the local state.

Add to your agent config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "symdex": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["symdex", "serve"]
    }
  }
}

HTTP mode:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "symdex": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp"
    }
  }
}

---

Workspace-local state and Docker

SymDex still defaults to ~/.symdex, but it now also supports a workspace-local state directory for portable and containerized workflows.

Use it like this on first setup:

SYMDEX_STATE_DIR=.symdex symdex index ./myproject --repo myproject

That creates:

• ./.symdex/<repo>.db
• ./.symdex/registry.db
• ./.symdex/registry.json

registry.json is the human-readable manifest. In workspace-local mode it stores relative root_path and db_path values, so you can inspect what is indexed without opening SQLite.

After the local state exists, SymDex auto-discovers it from the current workspace or any nested subdirectory.

---

What you get

Feature	Details
Symbol search	Find functions, classes, and methods with exact byte offsets
Semantic search	Find code by intent instead of exact name
Text search	Search indexed files by literal text across the repo
Byte-precise retrieval	Read only the symbol span you need
File outline	List symbols in a file without transferring the whole file
Repo outline	Get a directory tree plus repo summary through MCP
Call graph	Trace callers, callees, and circular dependencies
HTTP routes	Extract Flask, FastAPI, Django, Express, Spring/Kotlin, Laravel, Gin-style Go, ASP.NET, Rails/Sinatra, Phoenix, and Actix routes
Auto-watch	Re-index on change and keep the index fresh
Cross-repo registry	Manage multiple indexed repos from one local registry
Workspace-local state	Keep repo databases plus registry.json inside ./.symdex for Docker and portable workspaces
Search ROI footer	Approximate token savings after successful search commands
Code summary	Files, Lines of Code, symbols, routes, skipped files, and languages after indexing
Optional embedding backends	Add symdex[local] for local embeddings or symdex[voyage] for hosted embeddings only when needed

---

Where SymDex Fits

The old README used a named-tool matrix. I removed it during the cleanup because those claims go stale quickly and are hard to keep precise. This smaller section keeps the positioning signal without overcommitting on other tools' current feature sets.

Approach	Strong at	Tradeoff	Where SymDex differs
Editor-bound LSPs	type-aware navigation and refactors inside the editor	tied to an editor session and weak on intent search	pre-indexed, terminal-first, semantic, and route-aware
LSP wrappers for agents	deeper language-server-backed analysis	heavier per-language setup and live-file coupling	one SQLite index per repo and the same interface across repos
Graph-backed code indexers	graph-style architecture queries	extra backend/storage complexity	zero-infra local storage with SQLite
Docker-heavy hybrid search stacks	chunked semantic search with external services	more moving parts at install and runtime	local-first workflow with simple CLI and MCP setup
SymDex	fast repo-local symbol, text, semantic, route, and call-graph retrieval	not a full type checker or automated refactoring engine	optimized for precise retrieval and agent efficiency

If you need full type-system reasoning or editor-native refactors, a language server still goes deeper. If you need pre-indexed retrieval, repo-local portability, and an MCP-friendly search layer, SymDex is the better fit.

---

CLI reference

# Indexing and maintenance
symdex index ./myproject --repo myproject       # Index with an explicit repo id
symdex index ./myproject                        # Auto-name from git branch + path hash
symdex watch ./myproject --repo myproject       # Keep an index fresh automatically
symdex invalidate --repo myproject              # Force re-index of a repo
symdex invalidate --repo myproject --file app.py
symdex gc                                       # Remove stale index databases
symdex repos                                    # List indexed repos

# Search
symdex search "validate_email" --repo myproject
symdex search "validate_email"                 # Search across all indexed repos
symdex find validate_email --repo myproject     # Exact lookup
symdex text "JWT" --repo myproject
symdex semantic "check auth token" --repo myproject

# Navigation
symdex outline auth/utils.py --repo myproject
symdex callers validate_email --repo myproject
symdex callees validate_email --repo myproject
symdex routes myproject
symdex routes myproject --method POST
symdex routes myproject --path /api

# Server
symdex serve
symdex serve --port 8080

MCP currently exposes additional repo-tree and repo-stats views that are not surfaced as dedicated CLI commands: get_file_tree, get_repo_outline, get_index_status, and get_repo_stats.

---

MCP tools

SymDex currently exposes 20 MCP tools:

Tool	Purpose
index_folder	Index a local folder and return indexing statistics
index_repo	Index a repo and register it in the central registry
search_symbols	Find functions, classes, and methods by name
semantic_search	Find symbols by meaning using embedding similarity
search_text	Search indexed files by text and return matching lines
get_symbol	Read one symbol by byte offsets
get_symbols	Bulk exact-name symbol lookup
get_file_outline	List symbols in a single file
get_file_tree	Return a directory tree without file contents
get_repo_outline	Return a repo tree plus summary stats
get_callers	Return symbols that call a named function
get_callees	Return symbols called by a named function
search_routes	Query extracted HTTP routes
get_index_status	Return symbol count, file count, Lines of Code, staleness, and watcher state
get_repo_stats	Return repo metrics such as language mix, fan-in, fan-out, and circular dependency count
get_graph_diagram	Generate a Mermaid call graph
find_circular_deps	Detect circular dependencies
list_repos	List all indexed repos
invalidate_cache	Force re-index on next use
gc_stale_indexes	Remove index databases for repos that no longer exist on disk

---

Supported languages

Language	Extensions
Python	.py
JavaScript	.js, .jsx, .mjs
TypeScript	.ts, .tsx
Go	.go
Rust	.rs
Java	.java
Kotlin	.kt, .kts
Dart	.dart
Swift	.swift
PHP	.php
C#	.cs
C	.c
C++	.h, .cpp, .cc
Elixir	.ex, .exs
Ruby	.rb
Vue	.vue script blocks parsed as JavaScript or TypeScript

Powered by tree-sitter plus grammar fallbacks that keep mobile ecosystems covered too.

---

Supported platforms

SymDex works with any MCP client that supports stdio or streamable HTTP.

Platform	Typical setup
Claude Desktop	Add to claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Code	claude mcp add symdex -- uvx symdex serve
Codex CLI	Add to MCP settings
Gemini CLI	Add to MCP settings
Cursor	.cursor/mcp.json
Windsurf	Add to MCP settings
GitHub Copilot	.vscode/mcp.json
Roo	Add to MCP settings
Continue.dev	config.json
Cline	Add to MCP settings
Kilo Code	VS Code MCP settings
Zed	Add to MCP settings
OpenCode	opencode.json
Any MCP client	uvx symdex serve or symdex serve --port 8080

---

Voyage AI embeddings

Base symdex now installs the lean core only. Choose the embedding extra that matches how you want semantic search to work:

• symdex[local] for local sentence-transformers
• symdex[voyage] for Voyage text embeddings
• symdex[voyage-multimodal] for Voyage text plus images and PDFs

Voyage AI is the hosted backend for users who want to offload embedding work to the cloud.

Text mode

pip install "symdex[voyage]"

SYMDEX_EMBED_BACKEND=voyage \
VOYAGE_API_KEY=... \
SYMDEX_VOYAGE_MODEL=voyage-code-3 \
symdex index . --repo myrepo

SYMDEX_EMBED_BACKEND=voyage \
VOYAGE_API_KEY=... \
symdex semantic "parse source code" --repo myrepo

Multimodal mode

pip install "symdex[voyage-multimodal]"

SYMDEX_EMBED_BACKEND=voyage
SYMDEX_VOYAGE_MULTIMODAL=1
VOYAGE_API_KEY=...
SYMDEX_VOYAGE_MULTIMODAL_MODEL=voyage-multimodal-3.5
symdex index . --repo myrepo

Multimodal mode lets SymDex index supported images, screenshots, and PDFs as searchable asset entries.

Notes:

• Base symdex keeps symbol, text, route, and call-graph features without pulling in the local embedding stack.
• Voyage is opt-in. If SYMDEX_EMBED_BACKEND is unset, SymDex keeps using the local backend when symdex[local] is installed.
• Local semantic search requires symdex[local] and downloads the model on first use.
• Voyage text mode requires symdex[voyage].
• Voyage multimodal mode requires symdex[voyage-multimodal].
• If the selected backend extra is missing, SymDex prints an actionable install hint.
• Multimodal indexing is only active when SYMDEX_VOYAGE_MULTIMODAL=1.

---

FAQ

Where are indexes stored? By default, each repo gets its own SQLite database under ~/.symdex, plus a central registry database. If you set SYMDEX_STATE_DIR=.symdex or use symdex --state-dir .symdex ..., SymDex keeps repo databases, registry.db, and registry.json inside the current workspace instead.

What does indexing print now? A code summary with files, Lines of Code, symbol counts, routes, skipped files, errors, and language breakdown.

What do search commands print now? An approximate ROI footer showing lines searched, tokens that would likely have been spent without SymDex, tokens used with SymDex, and tokens saved.

Does semantic search require the internet? Not by default. Install symdex[local] for the local backend; it downloads its model once and then runs offline. Voyage mode requires symdex[voyage] or symdex[voyage-multimodal], network access, and a VOYAGE_API_KEY.

Can I install SymDex without sentence-transformers? Yes. pip install symdex keeps the core symbol, text, route, and call-graph features without the local embedding dependencies. Install symdex[local] only when you want local semantic search.

Can I use SymDex on multiple repos and worktrees? Yes. SymDex maintains a central registry, supports explicit --repo names, and can auto-generate stable repo ids from the current branch and worktree path when you omit --repo.

What happens when I delete a worktree or repo? Run symdex gc or call gc_stale_indexes through MCP. SymDex removes stale registry entries and their database files.

Can I exclude generated files? Yes. Use .symdexignore at the repo root with gitignore-style patterns. Common generated/build paths are also skipped by default.

Can I use SymDex without an AI agent? Yes. All core search and navigation features are available through the CLI.

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Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome at github.com/husnainpk/SymDex.

If SymDex saves you tokens, a star helps other people find it.