jarvis

jarvis

Your coding agent should not spend its context window on grep.

When your agent asks "where is AuthService used?", grep returns comments, markdown, test fixtures, and similarly named symbols in one noisy pile. The agent burns context re-reading files to filter signal from noise — and still misses call sites.

jarvis precomputes a local code-intelligence layer so your agent calls findReferences for exact occurrences, goToDefinition for the defining range, callHierarchy for call paths, and searchCode for precise lexical search — ten MCP tools for Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client. Your code and indexes never leave your machine.

Without jarvis	Grep → comments, tests, imports mixed with real hits → opens files to filter → guesses at call sites → burns context on search instead of reasoning
With jarvis	findReferences("AuthService") → exact file-and-range occurrences → callHierarchy for the graph → searchCode("token refresh") → answers without opening every match

Quick start · MCP tools · Dashboard · Limits · Details · Docs

Quick start

1. Install the standalone binary:

brew install jarvis-intelligence/jarvis/jarvis

Linux users need Homebrew/Linuxbrew installed first. The formula supports macOS arm64/x86_64 and Linux arm64/x86_64, installs both jarvis and jarvis-server, and embeds Python 3.12, dashboard assets, tree-sitter libraries, watch, scip, zoekt-git-index, and zoekt-webserver. Homebrew supplies universal-ctags. No Python, uv, pip, or PyPI installation is required.

Upgrade with brew upgrade jarvis; recover a damaged installation with brew reinstall jarvis.

2. Index a repo (slug defaults to the directory name):

jarvis index /path/to/your/repo

3. Register the MCP server:

claude mcp add jarvis --scope user -- jarvis-server

Ask your agent "find all references to AuthService" — it calls findReferences instead of grepping.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jarvis": {
      "command": "jarvis-server"
    }
  }
}

If your client can't find jarvis-server on PATH (GUI apps often don't inherit your shell's), use the absolute path from which jarvis-server.

Install the Homebrew binary first. The plugin adds jarvis skills and can register the already-installed jarvis-server.

/plugin marketplace add jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index
/plugin install jarvis@jarvis

The standalone package includes the SCIP converter and both Zoekt binaries. The Homebrew formula does not install setup.sh; from a jarvis source checkout, install the optional per-language indexer for your repo:

Language	Installer	Toolchain
TypeScript/TSX	sh setup.sh --only scip-typescript	Node.js/npm
Python	sh setup.sh --only scip-python	Node.js/npm
Java/Kotlin	sh setup.sh --only scip-java	JDK; Kotlin repos require Kotlin 2.2.0 exactly
Swift	sh setup.sh --only scip-swift	Xcode on macOS arm64

For Maven-built Java repositories on macOS, also install a modern Bash with brew install bash, then run sh setup.sh --only bash-shim from that same source checkout. Reindex after adding an indexer. Without the matching indexer, documentSymbols and goToDefinition still work via Tree-sitter where coverage exists; findReferences, callHierarchy, and typeHierarchy return recovery guidance.

semanticSearch is registered for MCP compatibility but is excluded from the standalone distribution. It returns a Homebrew-specific unavailability error that points to the source-build steps below; lexical search and symbol search remain available.

The standalone Homebrew package excludes semantic dependencies. In a source checkout, install them with:

uv run jarvis install-semantic

Then index explicitly:

uv run jarvis index /path/to/repo --semantic

install-semantic also pre-downloads the embedding model (BAAI/bge-m3, ~4.3 GB, one time) into the shared Hugging Face cache (~/.cache/huggingface/); every indexed repo reuses it. If the download is interrupted, the next jarvis index retries it automatically.

MCP tools

Tool	What it does
goToDefinition	Resolve a symbol to its defining file and range
findReferences	Every occurrence of a symbol across the indexed repo
callHierarchy	Incoming/outgoing calls for a symbol
typeHierarchy	Supertypes/subtypes
documentSymbols	Outline of every symbol defined in one file
searchCode	Zoekt lexical/regex search, optionally filtered to one repo
semanticSearch	Returns the Homebrew distribution's semantic-unavailability error
blastRadius	Which other indexed repos depend on a package, up to 2 hops
getIndexStatus	Published commit, freshness, staleness vs. working tree
indexRepo	Build an index for a git repo at path

Dashboard

jarvis dashboard          # serves http://127.0.0.1:6080 and opens a browser

A localhost web console over the same ~/.jarvis data the CLI and MCP server read:

Requirements and limits

• macOS arm64/x86_64 and Linux arm64/x86_64 only. Windows is not supported.
• Semantic search is unavailable in the Homebrew distribution.
• One language per repo — detected by extension plurality across git-tracked files; override with --language.
• jarvis never edits code. It is the retrieval half — Serena complements it for renames/refactors.
• Indexing is explicit — run jarvis index (or jarvis watch) before querying.

Details

One indexing CLI writes precomputed indexes into ~/.jarvis; one stdio runtime reads them down. The two share no other contract.

• Publishing is atomic — a reindex writes a new snapshot, then flips the current pointer via os.replace. A query reading the old snapshot keeps working; no downtime window.
• The runtime path never writes — every query opens the published snapshot read-only (mode=ro&immutable=1).
• The package graph is rebuilt, not accumulated — each reindex clears that repo's outgoing edges before recomputing.

Full detail: docs/system-architecture.md

jarvis index /path/to/your/repo            # slug defaults to the directory name
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --slug foo # or pick one explicitly
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --scheme MyScheme # Swift repo with an ambiguous Xcode scheme
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --language python # force the language instead of detecting it
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --no-scip   # skip optional SCIP enrichment; syntax baseline + Zoekt still publish
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --scip      # re-enable SCIP enrichment (both flags persist per repo)
jarvis list
jarvis status foo
jarvis reindex foo
jarvis forget foo
jarvis watch /path/to/your/repo [--debounce 5.0]  # debounced auto-reindex on file changes (foreground)

• scip-java can't index Android/Gradle repos — its Gradle plugin keys off standard source sets that AGP replaces (scip-java#177). Detected automatically; degrades to search-only.
• Kotlin indexing requires an exact Kotlin version match — scip-kotlinc is compiled against one pinned release (currently 2.2.0). Detected automatically.
• Maven-built Java repos need bash ≥ 4.4 on macOS — brew install bash fixes it.
• Swift indexing requires scip >= v0.9.0 — older converters silently drop occurrence ranges. jarvis index refuses an older scip rather than publishing a broken index.

Variable	Purpose
JARVIS_DATA_DIR	Override default ~/.jarvis for all indexes and registry

The source-development semantic path has additional model-prefix overrides; they have no effect in the standalone distribution.

Documentation

• docs/project-overview-pdr.md — scope, value prop, out-of-scope items
• docs/system-architecture.md — architectural guarantees, storage layout, query paths
• docs/codebase-summary.md — module map, test coverage
• docs/code-standards.md — code patterns and conventions
• docs/dashboard.md — dashboard views, actions, security model

License

MIT