@kenkaiiii/kencode-search

npm: @kenkaiiii/kencode-search · github: KenKaiii/kencode-search

Self-hosted code search MCP server. Your own grep.app for your AI agents — no rate limits, no shared infra.

One tool (searchCode), two backends:

• sourcegraph (default) — 2M+ public repos via Sourcegraph's public streaming API. Free, no auth.
• ripgrep — your local directory of <owner>/<name> checkouts.

Schema mirrors grep.app's searchGitHub so agents already trained on that surface "just work" against this server. Output is LLM-optimized: snippet merging, junk-path filtering (no node_modules/tests/generated noise), per-repo diversity cap, peek mode, pagination, total-count summary.

Why this exists

grep.app's MCP is rate-limited. Their open API is gated by a Vercel bot challenge, so scripts can't hit it. Sourcegraph's public stream API has none of those problems and indexes more repos. We wrap it cleanly.

Install

npm install -g @kenkaiiii/kencode-search

or run on demand without installing:

npx @kenkaiiii/kencode-search

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 20
• For the ripgrep backend only: ripgrep on PATH (brew install ripgrep).

Quick start

Most MCP clients (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.) take this in their config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kencode-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kenkaiiii/kencode-search"]
    }
  }
}

That's it — default sourcegraph backend, no config, no rate limits.

Run manually

# Default: sourcegraph backend, no config needed.
kencode-search-mcp

# Local repo tree:
CFM_BACKEND=ripgrep CFM_REPOS_DIR=/path/to/repos kencode-search-mcp

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/KenKaiii/kencode-search.git
cd kencode-search
npm install
npm run build
node dist/index.js

Pin to the ripgrep backend

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kencode-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kenkaiiii/kencode-search"],
      "env": {
        "CFM_BACKEND": "ripgrep",
        "CFM_REPOS_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/repos"
      }
    }
  }
}

Inspector

npm run inspector

Test

npm test                    # offline smoke (ripgrep backend)
npm run test:sourcegraph    # live integration (hits sourcegraph.com)
npm run test:all            # both

Skip the network leg with CFM_SKIP_NETWORK=1.

Tool: searchCode

| Field | Type | Notes | |---|---|---| | query | string | Literal pattern (or regex if useRegexp: true). | | useRegexp | boolean? | RE2 regex syntax. Prefix (?s) for multi-line. | | matchCase | boolean? | Default false. | | matchWholeWords | boolean? | Honored by ripgrep; ignored by sourcegraph (use \b in regex). | | language | string[]? | e.g. ["TypeScript"], ["Python"]. | | repo | string? | owner/name substring match. | | path | string? | File path substring filter. | | maxResults | number? | Default 50, hard cap 200. | | contextLines | number? | Lines of context per side. Default 5. |

Environment

| Var | Default | Purpose | |---|---|---| | CFM_BACKEND | sourcegraph | sourcegraph or ripgrep. | | CFM_REPOS_DIR | ./repos | Root for ripgrep backend. | | CFM_SOURCEGRAPH_URL | https://sourcegraph.com | Override base URL. | | CFM_SOURCEGRAPH_TOKEN | (unset) | Optional access token for higher limits. |

Architecture

MCP client (agent)
      │  stdio
      ▼
src/index.ts ── McpServer ── searchCode tool
                              │
                              ▼
                      SearchBackend (interface)
                       │              │
                       ▼              ▼
              SourcegraphBackend  RipgrepBackend
              (default; remote)   (local; CFM_REPOS_DIR)

The backend boundary is the whole point: tomorrow we can add Zoekt, on-demand cold-path clones, or stack backends without touching the MCP layer.

Benchmarks

bench/compare.mjs compares sourcegraph.com to grep.app's open API. As of last run:

• grep.app direct API: 0/30 successful (Vercel bot challenge, 429 on every call)
• sourcegraph.com: 30/30 successful, p50 ≈ 1.3s, no rate limit hit

node bench/compare.mjs 20 10

Roadmap

• [x] MCP server + searchCode tool with grep.app-style output
• [x] Ripgrep backend (works against any local checkout tree)
• [x] Sourcegraph backend (2M+ public repos, context fetched from raw endpoint)
• [ ] Optional fallback chain (Sourcegraph → ripgrep)
• [ ] Repo crawler for ripgrep corpus (clone top-N by stars, incremental refresh)
• [ ] Zoekt backend (sub-100ms regex on a self-hosted index)
• [ ] On-demand cold path (clone + index any GitHub repo on first miss)
• [ ] HTTP transport for remote hosting