What is CONTEXT Builder?

CONTEXT Builder is a CLI tool that helps developers prepare their codebase as context for AI assistants. When working with AI-powered IDEs or co-pilots, your code needs to be formatted properly to be understood by AI tools. However, if you prefer to stick with your favorite code editor rather than switching to an AI-powered IDE, preparing this context manually can be tedious and time-consuming.

CONTEXT Builder solves this problem by automatically converting your codebase into a format that's optimized for AI consumption. Once prepared, you can easily upload this context to your favorite AI tool (like ChatGPT, Claude, or others) and start asking questions about your code, getting suggestions, or debugging issues—all without leaving your preferred development environment.

Installation

Install CONTEXT Builder globally using pnpm:

pnpm i -g @json-express/context-builder

Usage

Navigate to your project directory and run the tool. By default, it will process the current directory and output to llm-context.md.

cd project-dir
context-builder

Specifying Directories

You can specify one or more directories to include in the context by passing them as arguments:

context-builder src views components

Options

• -o, --out <directory>: Specify the output directory (defaults to current folder .)
• -n, --name <filename>: Specify the output filename (defaults to llm-context.md)
• -f, --format <format>: Specify the output file format (md, txt, json - defaults to md)
• -c, --compress: Compress output to save LLM tokens by removing whitespace and comments
• --copy: [NEW] Skip generating the file and only copy the context string to your clipboard (Note: Without this flag, generating the file will also copy the content natively)
• -v, --version: Output the current version
• -h, --help: Display help for command

Example: Generate a .txt context from the src folder, compress it, and save it to dist/my-context.txt:

context-builder src -o dist -n my-context.txt -f txt -c

Example: Build context from the views folder and ONLY copy it to the clipboard (no file output):

context-builder views --copy

The tool will process your codebase and generate the context file that you can upload to your AI assistant.

Ignoring Files

By default, CONTEXT Builder automatically respects your .gitignore file. Any files or folders ignored by Git will not be included in the generated context.

Using .contextignore

Sometimes, you might want to keep certain files in your Git repository but exclude them from the AI context (for example: large documentation files, lock files, or asset metadata that might consume too many tokens).

You can create a .contextignore file in your root directory. This file uses the same pattern syntax as .gitignore.

Example .contextignore:

# Exclude heavy documentation
/docs/legacy-manuals/

# Exclude specific files
package-lock.json
pnpm-lock.yaml

# Exclude all .svg files from context
**/*.svg

Uninstallation

To remove CONTEXT Builder from your system:

pnpm uninstall -g @json-express/context-builder