vibe-hnindex

Local MCP server — index your repo once, search it in every AI session

Keyword (SQLite FTS5) · Semantic (Qdrant + Ollama embeddings) · Hybrid — your code stays on disk

MCP server (vibe-hnindex) latest: v0.11.0 · hnindex-cli v0.11.1 — Docs · Changelog · GitHub Releases

What this does

vibe-hnindex is a Model Context Protocol server. After you index a folder once, assistants (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity, …) can search that codebase with paths and line ranges — data is stored locally (SQLite + optional Qdrant). Embeddings use Ollama; vectors use Qdrant (Docker, local, or Qdrant Cloud with QDRANT_API_KEY).

Documentation

📚 Full docs site: docs.hnindex.cloud — 16 pages covering Getting Started, Configuration, Tools Reference, Guides, and Code Agent.

| Page | What you'll learn | |------|-------------------| | Introduction | What vibe-hnindex does, key features, how it works | | Installation | Node, Ollama, Qdrant setup + MCP config | | Quick Start | 5-minute walkthrough with CLI + agent skill | | Configuration | All 25+ env vars with embedding model comparison | | Search | 6 search modes, regex, fuzzy, streaming, cache | | Code Agent 🆕 | code_session + code_apply with safety scopes | | Setup MCP | Per-platform config (Claude, Cursor, Antigravity, VS Code...) |

Also available in-repo: docs/getting-started.md, docs/configuration.md, docs/tools-reference.md.

CLI installer (hnindex)

Optional — writes the MCP JSON for you (merge-safe, same npx -y vibe-hnindex block as in the docs):

npm install -g hnindex-cli

# Setup MCP config
hnindex init --mcp antigravity    # or: claude, cursor, windsurf, vscode, codex
hnindex init --list               # show all targets and paths

# Install AI agent skill (recommended)
hnindex init-skill --target claude    # or: antigravity, cursor, windsurf, vscode
hnindex init-skill --list             # show all skill targets

# Update
hnindex update                    # npm update -g hnindex-cli

See docs.hnindex.cloud for full documentation.

Install in 5 steps

1. Node.js — v20+ (nodejs.org). On Windows, Node 20 or 22 LTS is strongly recommended so npm install does not need a C++ compiler. See Troubleshooting → Windows if npm i vibe-hnindex fails.
2. Ollama — install from ollama.com, then: ollama pull bge-m3:567m and keep ollama serve running (or set OLLAMA_URL to a remote server).
3. Qdrant — for semantic/hybrid search: docker run -d --name qdrant -p 6333:6333 qdrant/qdrant (or use Qdrant Cloud). Keyword-only search works without Qdrant.
4. MCP config — add the server to your assistant’s MCP settings. Minimal example (self-hosted Qdrant):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vibe-hnindex": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "vibe-hnindex"],
      "env": {
        "OLLAMA_URL": "http://localhost:11434",
        "OLLAMA_MODEL": "bge-m3:567m",
        "QDRANT_URL": "http://localhost:6333",
        "SEARCH_STREAM_ENABLED": "true",
        "CODE_AGENT_ENABLED": "true",
        "CODE_AGENT_SCOPE": "moderate"
      }
    }
  }
}

5. Restart the IDE or assistant, then in chat ask to index a path and search — see First steps.

For Qdrant Cloud, add QDRANT_API_KEY and set QDRANT_URL to your HTTPS cluster URL — details in Getting started.

Optional rerank (RERANK_URL)

Semantic/hybrid search already uses Ollama (OLLAMA_URL, OLLAMA_MODEL e.g. bge-m3:567m) for query vectors and Qdrant for retrieval. After that, the server can reorder the top pool of hits:

• Without RERANK_URL: reorder by Qdrant semantic scores (no extra network service). This is enough for most setups, including when you only run Ollama + Qdrant.
• With RERANK_URL: POST JSON { "query", "documents" } to your URL; response { "scores": number[] } (same length as documents). Use a small HTTP service you host that wraps your reranker; Ollama does not expose this contract on :11434 by default.

Ollama vs rerank: pulling a reranker model in Ollama (e.g. qllama/bge-reranker-v2-m3) does not replace RERANK_URL—you still need an adapter service unless you only rely on the built-in Qdrant reorder. See Configuration → Rerank.

| Env | Role | |-----|------| | SEARCH_RERANK | false disables post-retrieval reorder entirely (default: enabled). | | SEARCH_RERANK_POOL | Max candidates considered before trim (default 50). | | RERANK_URL | Full URL of your {query, documents} → {scores} API (optional). | | RERANK_TIMEOUT_MS | Timeout for that POST (default 15000). |

Timeouts

To prevent hanging when Ollama or Qdrant are unresponsive, vibe-hnindex applies timeouts on all external calls. You can tune these via environment variables:

| Env | Default | Controls | |-----|---------|----------| | OLLAMA_TIMEOUT_MS | 30000 (30s) | Max wait for Ollama /api/embed and /api/tags calls | | QDRANT_TIMEOUT_MS | 15000 (15s) | Max wait for Qdrant API calls (search, upsert, etc.) | | SEARCH_TIMEOUT_MS | 60000 (60s) | Overall timeout for the entire search operation |

Set any of these to a higher value if you have a slow machine or large dataset. Set to 0 to disable the timeout for that layer (not recommended).

Google Antigravity

Use the same mcpServers block as above, but save it in Antigravity’s MCP file:

| | | |--|--| | File | mcp_config.json under .gemini/antigravity/ in your user folder | | Windows | C:\Users\<your-username>\.gemini\antigravity\mcp_config.json | | macOS / Linux | ~/.gemini/antigravity/mcp_config.json | | UI | ⋮ menu → MCP → Manage MCP Servers → View raw config |

Step-by-step: Integrations → Google Antigravity.

Features (short)

| | | |--|--| | Search | 6 modes: keyword (FTS5+BM25), semantic (Qdrant vectors), hybrid (RRF fusion), regex, symbol, auto | | Code Agent 🆕 | code_session — 1 call replaces 5-15 searches. code_apply — safe code changes with auto test/lint/typecheck | | Streaming | Parallel keyword+semantic search (~1.5-2× faster), 4-phase progress notifications | | Fuzzy Search | Levenshtein distance auto-corrects typos ("fucntion" → "function") | | Smart Context | Task-aware context: impact analysis, test file detection, similar code patterns | | Storage | SQLite on disk + Qdrant for vectors; 100% local, no cloud required | | Indexing | Incremental (SHA-1 hash), parallel workers (~3-4× faster), watch mode (auto re-index on save), 40+ languages, .hnindexignore | | Resilience | Keyword search works without Qdrant or Ollama; graceful degradation | | Benchmark | Built-in benchmark_search tool — compare streaming vs non-streaming, all search modes | | Multiple Embedding Models | bge-m3 (default), nomic-embed-text, qwen3-embedding, mxbai-embed-large, and more |

Architecture

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Contributing

Issues and PRs: github.com/AndyAnh174/vibe-hnindex.

Contact

Ho Viet Anh (AndyAnh174) · [email protected] · GitHub