cortex-context CLI

CLI to initialize and manage Cortex Context (Knowledge Graph) tooling in any VS Code workspace.

Installs:

• Skills — VS Code Copilot Agent skills for Cortex (cortex-research, cortex-dimensions, cortex-ingest, generate-spec)
• MCP Server — TypeScript stdio server exposing Cortex tools to GitHub Copilot (bundled — no Python needed)
• VS Code Config — Injects cortex entry into .vscode/mcp.json

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• A running Cortex server

Installation

# Install globally
npm install -g @cortex-context/cli

# Or run directly without installing
npx @cortex-context/cli init

Usage

# Initialize Cortex Context in the current workspace
cortex-context init

# Initialize with specific options (non-interactive)
cortex-context init --url http://localhost:8082 --token <your-token>

# Initialize in a specific workspace folder
cortex-context init --workspace /path/to/your/workspace

# Sync Skills/MCP to latest bundled version
cortex-context sync

# Preview what sync would change
cortex-context sync --dry-run

# Validate installation and connectivity
cortex-context doctor

What init Does

1. Prompts for Cortex server URL and optional API token
2. Tests connectivity to the Cortex server
3. Copies Skills into {workspace}/.github/skills/
4. Injects cortex entry into {workspace}/.vscode/mcp.json (uses npx @cortex-context/cli mcp-serve)
5. Saves configuration to ~/.cortex-context/config.json

After Init

# Reload VS Code (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P → "Reload Window")
# Then run doctor to verify:
cortex-context doctor

Commands

Workspace setup

| Command | Description | | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | | cortex-context init | Full interactive setup (Skills, MCP, hooks, rules) | | cortex-context update | Update Skills + MCP files to latest bundled version | | cortex-context update --dry-run | Preview update changes without writing files | | cortex-context sync | Ingest latest git diff into the Cortex Knowledge Graph | | cortex-context sync --dry-run | Show diff without sending to Cortex API | | cortex-context doctor | Validate installation + test Cortex connectivity | | cortex-context uninstall | Remove Cortex Context from the workspace |

Local server

| Command | Description | | ----------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | cortex-context server | Install Docker (if needed) and start Neo4j + Cortex API locally | | cortex-context server --embeddings | Start with embeddings image (sentence-transformers, CPU, ~1.5 GB) | | cortex-context server --embeddings-gpu | Start with embeddings GPU image (PyTorch CUDA, ~2 GB — requires nvidia) | | cortex-context upgrade | Pull latest Cortex backend image and restart the local stack | | cortex-context upgrade --embeddings | Upgrade using the embeddings image variant | | cortex-context upgrade --embeddings-gpu | Upgrade using the embeddings GPU image variant (PyTorch CUDA, ~2 GB — requires nvidia) | | cortex-context upgrade --pull-only | Pull latest image without recreating the container | | cortex-context downgrade | Switch to the base image variant (lightest, no embeddings) | | cortex-context downgrade --embeddings | Switch to the CPU embeddings variant (lighter than GPU) |

Token management

| Command | Description | | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | | cortex-context token | Show current API token (masked) | | cortex-context token --show | Reveal the full token | | cortex-context token --rotate | Generate a new random token, save it, and restart stack | | cortex-context token --set <val> | Set a specific token value (empty string clears auth) |

Advanced

| Command | Description | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | cortex-context reset | Wipe all nodes and relationships from the Knowledge Graph | | cortex-context mcp-serve | Start the MCP server over stdio (used internally by VS Code/Cursor) |

Options (init)

| Flag | Description | | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --url <url> | Cortex server URL (skips prompt) | | --token <tok> | API token (skips prompt) | | --workspace | Target workspace path (default: cwd) | | --local | Deploy a local Cortex stack with Docker (mutually exclusive with --url) | | --skip-mcp | Don't configure MCP server | | --skip-skills | Don't install Skills | | --skip-hooks | Don't install git hooks | | --skip-rules | Don't inject Copilot/Cursor rules | | --force | Overwrite existing files without prompting |

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request.

Found a bug? Open a bug report.
Have an idea? Open a feature request.

License

MIT