code-radar

AI-powered codebase indexer that reduces Claude Code token usage by up to 10x.

code-radar indexes your codebase into a local SQLite database and exposes it to Claude Code via MCP (Model Context Protocol). Instead of reading whole files just to find a function or trace a route, Claude queries a structured index — fast, cheap, and complete.

Why

Claude Code burns tokens reading files to figure out where things are. On a real project that's hundreds of thousands of tokens just on exploration. coderadar pre-indexes:

• Symbols — functions, classes, methods, constants, types, interfaces (20+ languages)
• Routes — HTTP endpoints across 12 web frameworks
• Models — DB schemas across 10 ORMs
• Call graph — who calls what
• Imports / exports / references — full dependency graph
• Git activity — recent changes, branch diff

Claude then uses MCP tools like find_symbol, get_structure, impact_analysis, list_routes instead of reading files blind.

Install

npm install -g @yashshahbacancy/code-radar
coderadar setup

That's it. The npm package is @yashshahbacancy/code-radar but the CLI command is coderadar. setup registers it as a Claude Code MCP server (user scope, so it works in every project).

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Claude Code CLI (claude in your PATH)
• Git (optional — needed for recent_changes and branch_diff tools)

Usage

Once setup is done, just open Claude Code in any project. coderadar runs in the background. You don't need to do anything else.

Optional commands:

coderadar init                    # pre-index the current project
coderadar init --all              # index every git repo under the current directory
coderadar status                  # show what's indexed for the current project
coderadar search <name>           # search for a symbol from the CLI
coderadar stats                   # how many tool calls / bytes coderadar has served
coderadar short-replies on|off    # tell Claude to keep replies short (saves output tokens)
coderadar keepalive on|off        # auto-reindex + session brief + /compact nudge
coderadar uninstall               # remove the MCP registration

Short replies (optional, on by default)

coderadar setup adds a small <!-- coderadar-short-replies --> block to your ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md that tells Claude to skip preamble, trailing summaries, and unnecessary narration. Turn it off any time with coderadar short-replies off.

Keepalive (optional, on by default)

coderadar setup installs three Claude Code hooks in ~/.claude/settings.json:

• PreCompact — before /compact fires, runs coderadar reindex (so the code index is fresh) and coderadar session-brief (saves a short markdown summary of recent user messages, files Claude edited, and impact analyses run).
• SessionStart — at the start of every new session (including post-compact), prints the most recent brief into context, so Claude picks up the task instead of starting blind.
• Stop — when the session crosses ~80% of the context window, prints a one-line nudge suggesting /compact (throttled to one nudge per session).

Toggle with coderadar keepalive on|off|status.

Supported stacks

Languages (symbol extraction): TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, Kotlin, Swift, C#, Ruby, PHP, and more.

Web frameworks (route extraction): Express, Koa, Fastify, NestJS, Spring Boot, ASP.NET (attribute + minimal API), Rails, Laravel, FastAPI, Django, Next.js App Router.

ORMs (model + relation extraction): Objection.js, TypeORM, Sequelize, Prisma, Mongoose, ActiveRecord, Eloquent, Django ORM, SQLAlchemy.

If your stack isn't listed, coderadar still indexes symbols and imports — you just lose the route/model intelligence.

How it works

1. coderadar init walks your project, parses every source file with a fast regex-based AST-light parser, and stores symbols/routes/models/etc. in ~/.coderadar/<project>.db.
2. Claude Code launches coderadar serve as an MCP server.
3. Claude calls MCP tools (find_symbol, impact_analysis, etc.) instead of reading files.
4. Subsequent runs incrementally re-index only changed files (~1-2 seconds).

The index is per-project, lives at ~/.coderadar/, and never leaves your machine.

Platform support

| Platform | Status | |---|---| | macOS (arm64, x64) | ✅ | | Linux (x64, arm64) | ✅ | | Windows (x64) | ✅ |

better-sqlite3 ships prebuilt native binaries for all of the above. On unusual archs you may need a C++ toolchain (node-gyp).

License

MIT