Xanther CLI

What is Xanther CLI?

Xanther CLI indexes your codebase into the Xanther Context Engine (XCE), giving your coding agent deep architectural understanding of your code. It works with any git repository — public, private, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or local-only.

Install

npm install -g xanther-cli

Or use directly with npx:

npx xanther-cli init --api-key xce_your_key_here

Quick Start

1. Get your API key

Sign up at xanther.ai/signup and generate an API key from the dashboard.

2. Initialize and index your repo

cd your-project
npx xanther-cli init --api-key xce_your_key_here

This does three things:

1. Uploads your codebase (respecting .gitignore)
2. Triggers full indexing (AST parsing, embeddings, architecture docs)
3. Installs a post-commit git hook for automatic incremental updates

3. Connect your coding agent

Add XCE to your agent's MCP config — see XCE MCP Server for setup instructions.

That's it. Your agent now has deep codebase context on every interaction.

Commands

xanther-cli init

Initialize and perform a full index of the current repository.

xanther-cli init --api-key xce_your_key_here

Options:

• --api-key — Your Xanther API key (required on first run, saved for future use)
• --branch — Branch to index (default: current branch)
• --no-hook — Skip installing the git post-commit hook

xanther-cli sync

Manually sync changes since the last index. Performs incremental indexing — only changed files are re-processed.

xanther-cli sync

Options:

• --full — Force a full re-index instead of incremental

xanther-cli status

Check the indexing status of the current repository.

xanther-cli status

Output:

Repository: owner/my-project (main)
Status:     Indexed
Nodes:      12,450
Last sync:  2 hours ago
Plan:       Pro (8,234 / 10,000 queries used)

xanther-cli uninstall

Remove the git hook and local configuration.

xanther-cli uninstall

How Auto-Sync Works

When you run xanther-cli init, it installs a post-commit git hook:

git commit → post-commit hook fires → xanther-cli sync --incremental (background)

The incremental sync:

1. Gets changed files from the commit (git diff --name-only HEAD~1)
2. Uploads only those files
3. Re-indexes affected graph nodes (the changed files + their dependencies)

This runs in the background and typically takes 2-5 seconds for a normal commit.

Configuration

Xanther CLI stores its config in .xanther/config.json in your project root:

{
  "api_key": "xce_...",
  "repo_id": "user-id:my-project",
  "api_url": "https://api.xanther.ai",
  "last_sync": "2026-04-26T10:00:00Z",
  "last_commit": "abc123"
}

Add .xanther/ to your .gitignore — it contains your API key.

Works Everywhere

| Git Host | Supported | Auto-update | |---|---|---| | GitHub (public) | Yes | post-commit hook | | GitHub (private) | Yes | post-commit hook | | GitLab | Yes | post-commit hook | | Bitbucket | Yes | post-commit hook | | Self-hosted git | Yes | post-commit hook | | Local (no remote) | Yes | post-commit hook |

Privacy

• Your code is uploaded over HTTPS to Xanther's servers for indexing
• Code is processed and stored as graph nodes (not raw source)
• .gitignore patterns are respected — ignored files are never uploaded
• You can delete your indexed data anytime from the dashboard

Links

• XCE MCP Server — Connect your coding agent
• Xanther Website — Learn more
• Dashboard — Manage repos, API keys, usage
• Discord — Community and support
• Benchmark Results — SWE-bench performance data

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.