Self-hosted code memory with semantic search — no API key required, works fully offline.

Index your repos and knowledge sources into a local vector database and search them by natural language — from the CLI or directly inside Claude Code via MCP. A local WASM/ONNX embedder (Xenova/multilingual-e5-small, ~120 MB on first run) is the default; run scrybe init to use Voyage AI, OpenAI, or a custom endpoint instead. No Docker — LanceDB runs in-process.

Why scrybe?

Ask your agent a natural-language question. scrybe returns the right chunks; Grep can't.

"How does incremental reindex decide which files changed?"

scrybe returns src/indexer.ts:100-159 at score 0.81 — the exact function that computes toRemove and toReindex from the cursor + oldHashes diff. grep "files changed" returns 0 hits — the phrase isn't in the code, only the concept is. Semantic search bridges that gap.

Quick start

npx scrybe-cli@latest init

The wizard picks an embedding provider, validates any API key, discovers repos, generates .scrybeignore files, and auto-registers the MCP server in ~/.claude.json / ~/.cursor/mcp.json.

Requirements: Node.js 22.13+. Windows, Linux, and macOS are all tested in CI on every commit.

Claude Code / MCP integration

Recommended (global install — fastest cold boot):

npm install -g scrybe-cli
scrybe daemon install     # optional: keep the daemon running at login (no admin needed)

"scrybe": {
  "type": "stdio",
  "command": "scrybe",
  "args": ["mcp"]
}

Prefer no global install? Use "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "scrybe-cli@latest", "mcp"] (first run takes ~10s to install). Credentials go in <DATA_DIR>/.env (shown by scrybe doctor).

MCP tools

| Tool | Description | | --- | --- | | search_code | Semantic search over indexed code | | search_knowledge | Semantic search over indexed knowledge (issues, docs) | | lookup_symbol | Exact-symbol lookup by name — deterministic, no embedding cost | | list_projects · add_project · update_project · remove_project | Manage project containers | | add_source · update_source · remove_source | Manage indexable sources (code repo, issues) | | reindex_all · reindex_project · reindex_source · reindex_status · cancel_reindex | Background reindexing | | list_jobs · queue_status · gc | Job & maintenance ops | | list_branches · list_pinned_branches · pin_branches · unpin_branches | Branch indexing | | set_private_ignore · get_private_ignore · list_private_ignores | Per-source ignore rules |

Full parameter docs: docs/mcp-reference.md.

How it works

Claude Code (any project)
    ↕ MCP stdio
scrybe daemon  ──►  LanceDB (embedded, in-process)
                     ├── code_{hash}       ← search_code
                     └── knowledge_{hash}  ← search_knowledge

• AST-aware chunking — Tree-sitter aligns chunk boundaries to real functions/classes/methods (TypeScript, TSX, JS, JSX, C#, Vue, Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, Java). Each chunk carries its enclosing symbol_name. Unsupported languages fall back to sliding-window chunking.
• Hybrid search — BM25 full-text runs alongside vector search, fused with Reciprocal Rank Fusion (on by default). On large indexes the vector side is served by a native quantized ANN index, built and maintained automatically in the background — fast, with recall on par with an exact scan.
• Optional reranking — post-retrieval re-scoring via a reranking provider (e.g. Voyage rerank-2.5); set SCRYBE_RERANK=true.

Data lives in the OS user data dir (~/.local/share/scrybe/, %LOCALAPPDATA%\scrybe\ on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/scrybe/ on macOS). Tuning knobs: docs/configuration.md.

Knowledge sources

Index non-code sources (GitLab / GitHub issues) into search_knowledge, incrementally and cursor-based:

# GitLab
scrybe source add -P myrepo -S gitlab-issues --type ticket --provider gitlab \
  --url https://gitlab.example.com --project 42 --token '${SCRYBE_GITLAB_TOKEN}'

# GitHub (fine-grained PAT: Issues + Metadata read-only)
scrybe source add -P myrepo -S github-issues --type ticket --provider github \
  --project owner/repo --token '${SCRYBE_GITHUB_TOKEN}'

scrybe index -P myrepo -S github-issues --full

Tokens are referenced via ${VAR} and resolved at fetch time. Knowledge sources can use a separate embedding model (SCRYBE_KNOWLEDGE_EMBEDDING_*). Details: docs/configuration.md.

Embedding providers

Scrybe uses an OpenAI-compatible embeddings API. The default is the local offline embedder; point SCRYBE_CODE_EMBEDDING_BASE_URL at a provider to switch. Model/dimensions are auto-detected for known providers (OpenAI, Voyage AI, Mistral).

# Example — Voyage AI (voyage-code-3, code-optimized, free first 200M tokens)
SCRYBE_CODE_EMBEDDING_API_KEY=pa-...
SCRYBE_CODE_EMBEDDING_BASE_URL=https://api.voyageai.com/v1

Changing model/dimensions makes existing indexes incompatible — scrybe detects this and returns repair instructions (scrybe doctor --repair, or scrybe index -P <id> -S <id> --full). All embedding vars: docs/configuration.md.

CLI

Projects are containers; sources are the indexable units (a code repo, an issues feed).

scrybe project add --id myrepo --desc "My project"
scrybe source add -P myrepo -S primary --type code --root /path/to/repo --languages ts,vue
scrybe index -P myrepo -I                                  # incremental index
scrybe search code -P myrepo "authentication login flow"   # search
scrybe status                                              # project/index status
scrybe doctor [--repair]                                   # health check + repair

Full command reference: docs/cli-reference.md.

Background service

The daemon starts on demand when Claude Code calls any scrybe MCP tool and shuts down when idle — no setup needed for basic use. To keep it running between sessions (auto-indexing new commits in the background):

scrybe daemon install                     # per-user autostart (no admin)
scrybe hook install -P myrepo             # opt-in: git commit/checkout/merge → instant reindex
scrybe branch pin -P myrepo main dev      # index branches beyond current HEAD

Architecture, autostart, and pinned branches: docs/daemon.md.

Upgrading & uninstalling

• Global install: scrybe daemon stop --force && npm install -g scrybe-cli (exit Claude Code first). --force is deliberate: a plain daemon stop exits non-zero while the daemon finishes an in-flight reindex, which would short-circuit the && and skip the upgrade.
• npx users: upgrades are automatic on each new session.
• Uninstall: scrybe uninstall reverses everything scrybe writes outside the binary (daemon, MCP entries, git-hook blocks, DATA_DIR — with timestamped backups), then npm uninstall -g scrybe-cli.

Documentation

| Doc | Contents | | --- | --- | | Getting started | Full setup walkthrough, first project, MCP config | | CLI reference | All commands and flags | | MCP reference | All tools, parameters, return values, error types | | Configuration | All env vars by category | | Daemon | Background daemon, HTTP API, pinned branches, autostart | | Troubleshooting | Windows AV exclusions, Linux npm prefix, MCP repair |

Known limitations

• HTML / CSS / SCSS and Kotlin / PHP / Swift fall back to sliding-window chunking — Tree-sitter grammars exist but these have no function/class boundaries wired up, so chunks are positional rather than semantic.

Contributing

See docs/contributing.md for running tests locally and adding new ones.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.