Local-first SCIP code navigation and Zoekt search over your own indexed repositories
jarvis MCP Server — Local-first SCIP Navigation & Zoekt Search
The io.github.jarvis-intelligence/jarvis MCP server provides local-first code intelligence and search over indexed repositories. It exposes SCIP-style navigation (e.g., go-to-definition, find-references, call hierarchy, document symbols) and Zoekt lexical search, with options including cross-repo “blast radius” and semantic search, via MCP tools.
Your coding agent should not spend its context window on grep.
When your agent asks "where is AuthService used?", grep returns comments,
markdown, test fixtures, and similarly named symbols in one noisy pile. The
agent burns context re-reading files to filter signal from noise — and still
misses call sites.
jarvis precomputes a local code-intelligence layer so your agent calls
findReferences for exact occurrences, goToDefinition for the defining
range, callHierarchy for call paths, and searchCode for precise lexical
search — ten MCP tools for Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client.
Your code and indexes never leave your machine.
Without jarvis
Grep → comments, tests, imports mixed with real hits → opens files to filter → guesses at call sites → burns context on search instead of reasoning
With jarvis
findReferences("AuthService") → exact file-and-range occurrences → callHierarchy for the graph → searchCode("token refresh") → answers without opening every match
Linux users need Homebrew/Linuxbrew
installed first. The formula supports macOS arm64/x86_64 and Linux
arm64/x86_64, installs both jarvis and jarvis-server, and embeds Python
3.12, dashboard assets, tree-sitter libraries, watch, scip,
zoekt-git-index, and zoekt-webserver. Homebrew supplies
universal-ctags. No Python, uv, pip, or PyPI installation is required.
Upgrade with brew upgrade jarvis; recover a damaged installation with
brew reinstall jarvis.
2. Index a repo (slug defaults to the directory name):
bash
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo
3. Register the MCP server:
bash
claude mcp add jarvis --scope user -- jarvis-server
Ask your agent "find all references to AuthService" — it calls
findReferences instead of grepping.
Other MCP clients (Cursor, Claude Desktop, any stdio client)
The standalone package includes the SCIP converter and both Zoekt binaries.
The Homebrew formula does not install setup.sh; from a jarvis source
checkout, install the optional per-language indexer for your repo:
Language
Installer
Toolchain
TypeScript/TSX
sh setup.sh --only scip-typescript
Node.js/npm
Python
sh setup.sh --only scip-python
Node.js/npm
Java/Kotlin
sh setup.sh --only scip-java
JDK; Kotlin repos require Kotlin 2.2.0 exactly
Swift
sh setup.sh --only scip-swift
Xcode on macOS arm64
For Maven-built Java repositories on macOS, also install a modern Bash with
brew install bash, then run sh setup.sh --only bash-shim from that same
source checkout. Reindex after adding an indexer. Without the matching
indexer, documentSymbols and goToDefinition still work via Tree-sitter
where coverage exists;
findReferences, callHierarchy, and typeHierarchy return recovery
guidance.
Not included
semanticSearch is registered for MCP compatibility but is excluded from the
standalone distribution. It returns a Homebrew-specific unavailability error
that points to the source-build steps below; lexical search and symbol search
remain available.
Source-build semantic search
The standalone Homebrew package excludes semantic dependencies. In a source
checkout, install them with:
bash
uv run jarvis install-semantic
Then index explicitly:
bash
uv run jarvis index /path/to/repo --semantic
install-semantic also pre-downloads the embedding model (BAAI/bge-m3,
~4.3 GB, one time) into the shared Hugging Face cache
(~/.cache/huggingface/); every indexed repo reuses it. If the download is
interrupted, the next jarvis index retries it automatically.
MCP tools
Tool
What it does
goToDefinition
Resolve a symbol to its defining file and range
findReferences
Every occurrence of a symbol across the indexed repo
callHierarchy
Incoming/outgoing calls for a symbol
typeHierarchy
Supertypes/subtypes
documentSymbols
Outline of every symbol defined in one file
searchCode
Zoekt lexical/regex search, optionally filtered to one repo
semanticSearch
Returns the Homebrew distribution's semantic-unavailability error
blastRadius
Which other indexed repos depend on a package, up to 2 hops
getIndexStatus
Published commit, freshness, staleness vs. working tree
indexRepo
Build an index for a git repo at path
Dashboard
bash
jarvis dashboard # serves http://127.0.0.1:6080 and opens a browser
A localhost web console over the same ~/.jarvis data the CLI and MCP server read:
Repositories viewTool playground
Requirements and limits
macOS arm64/x86_64 and Linux arm64/x86_64 only. Windows is not supported.
Semantic search is unavailable in the Homebrew distribution.
One language per repo — detected by extension plurality across git-tracked files; override with --language.
jarvis never edits code. It is the retrieval half — Serena complements it for renames/refactors.
Indexing is explicit — run jarvis index (or jarvis watch) before querying.
Details
How it works
One indexing CLI writes precomputed indexes into ~/.jarvis; one stdio
runtime reads them down. The two share no other contract.
Publishing is atomic — a reindex writes a new snapshot, then flips the current pointer via os.replace. A query reading the old snapshot keeps working; no downtime window.
The runtime path never writes — every query opens the published snapshot read-only (mode=ro&immutable=1).
The package graph is rebuilt, not accumulated — each reindex clears that repo's outgoing edges before recomputing.
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo # slug defaults to the directory name
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --slug foo # or pick one explicitly
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --scheme MyScheme # Swift repo with an ambiguous Xcode scheme
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --language python # force the language instead of detecting it
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --no-scip # skip optional SCIP enrichment; syntax baseline + Zoekt still publish
jarvis index /path/to/your/repo --scip # re-enable SCIP enrichment (both flags persist per repo)
jarvis list
jarvis status foo
jarvis reindex foo
jarvis forget foo
jarvis watch /path/to/your/repo [--debounce 5.0] # debounced auto-reindex on file changes (foreground)
Known upstream limitations
scip-java can't index Android/Gradle repos — its Gradle plugin keys off standard source sets that AGP replaces (scip-java#177). Detected automatically; degrades to search-only.
Kotlin indexing requires an exact Kotlin version match — scip-kotlinc is compiled against one pinned release (currently 2.2.0). Detected automatically.
Maven-built Java repos need bash ≥ 4.4 on macOS — brew install bash fixes it.
Swift indexing requires scip >= v0.9.0 — older converters silently drop occurrence ranges. jarvis index refuses an older scip rather than publishing a broken index.
Configuration
Variable
Purpose
JARVIS_DATA_DIR
Override default ~/.jarvis for all indexes and registry
The source-development semantic path has additional model-prefix overrides;
they have no effect in the standalone distribution.
