cocoindex-code — Semantic Search

Finds code by meaning using local vector embeddings (no API key, works offline). Complement to codebase-memory-mcp (structural) — use both for complete discovery.

When to Use This vs Other Tools

Use cocoindex-code	Use codebase-memory-mcp instead
"find code that handles rate limiting"	"who calls rateLimit()?"
"locate authentication middleware"	"what does AuthService import?"
"find all error handling patterns"	"trace path from HTTP handler to DB"
Exploring unfamiliar codebase	Tracing known functions
Fuzzy conceptual search	Exact structural traversal

The One Tool: search

{
  "query": "string — natural language or code snippet",
  "limit": 5,
  "offset": 0,
  "refresh_index": true,
  "languages": ["python", "typescript"],
  "paths": ["src/auth/*"]
}

Result: Array of {file_path, language, content, start_line, end_line, score}.

After getting results: Use the Read tool on file_path at start_line–end_line for full context.

Performance Tips

• Set refresh_index: false for consecutive searches in the same session (no code changes)
• Use languages filter to scope search (faster for single-language queries)
• Use paths filter to limit to a directory (triggers full scan — slower than language filter)
• Default limit is 5. Increase to 10–20 for broad exploration.

Lifecycle Management

Index not built yet: ccc index — or handled automatically on first MCP search.

After major changes: Index auto-refreshes on each MCP search call (refresh_index=True default).

Check status: ccc status shows chunks and file counts.

Switch embedding model: Edit ~/.cocoindex_code/global_settings.yml, then ccc reset && ccc index. Warning: model switch requires full re-index — different vector dimensions are incompatible.

Supported Languages (29)

Python, JavaScript, TypeScript/TSX/JSX, Rust, Go, Java, C, C++, C#, SQL, Shell/Bash, Markdown, PHP, Lua, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, Scala, R, HTML, CSS/SCSS, JSON, YAML/TOML, XML, Solidity, Pascal, Fortran, plain text.