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Codebase Memory CLI — Quickstart

Quick reference for building this pure-C11 project from source and running it as a local CLI to generate and query a code graph. For the full walkthrough with a diagram, see CLI_BUILD_RUN_GUIDE.md.

This is the CLI-only, no-MCP, no-network fork. See the "About this fork" section in the top-level README. There is no Go toolchain here — the project was rewritten from Go to pure C11 at upstream v0.5.0. Do not run go build.

1. Prerequisites

A C11 toolchain (clang or gcc), make, and — only if you want the graph UI bundled — node. Everything else (tree-sitter grammars, SQLite, yyjson, mimalloc, …) is vendored and compiled into the binary. No language runtime, no network fetch at build time.

The repo also ships a .devcontainer (Docker Compose); JetBrains IDEs and VS Code will offer to reopen the project in the container, where your workspace is mounted at /workspace.

2. Build

Standard release build:

scripts/build.sh
# -> build/c/codebase-memory-mcp

With the localhost graph-viz UI bundled in (needs node):

scripts/build.sh --with-ui

Equivalent via make:

make -f Makefile.cbm cbm

Fork roadmap: a dedicated CLI-only binary (codebase-memory-cli, built via scripts/build.sh --cli-only, with the MCP server and coordination daemon compiled out) is tracked on the roadmap and not yet wired up. Until then, use the standard build above and the cli subcommand below — the query behavior is identical.

3. Run a tool (one-shot CLI)

The binary runs any tool locally and exits via the cli subcommand:

build/c/codebase-memory-mcp --help
build/c/codebase-memory-mcp cli --json <tool> [args]

4. Index a repository, then query it

# Build/refresh the code graph for the current repo
build/c/codebase-memory-mcp cli --json index_repository

# Structural search
build/c/codebase-memory-mcp cli --json search_graph --query cbm_mcp_handle_tool

# Orient on module structure
build/c/codebase-memory-mcp cli --json get_architecture

# Callers/callees of a symbol
build/c/codebase-memory-mcp cli --json trace_path --from run_cli

Available tools include: index_repository, search_graph, query_graph (Cypher), trace_path, get_code_snippet, get_architecture, search_code, list_projects, index_status, check_index_coverage, detect_changes, manage_adr, and more — run --help to list them.

5. Graph UI (localhost only)

The 3D graph visualization is served over HTTP on 127.0.0.1:9749 — loopback only, never a non-loopback interface. Build with --with-ui to bundle it. (In this fork the UI is started on-demand by the CLI rather than by a background daemon; the dedicated ui subcommand is tracked on the roadmap.)

Notes

  • Machine-readable output: cli --json <tool> prints the raw result envelope; most query tools also accept --format json for a stable per-tool JSON shape. This is the intended path for scripting and for driving the tool from an editor/agent.
  • Confirm exact subcommands and flags with build/c/codebase-memory-mcp --help and ... cli <tool> --help.