ast-index — Fast Code Search for Agents

Main

• Index once, query forever: run rebuild initially, then prefer incremental update for day-to-day changes.

• Teach agents a rule: call outline or symbol/usages before reading a 500+ line file to reduce token burn.

• For monorepos, enable walk-up indexing so subprojects reuse the root index instead of reindexing per folder.

Source-backed notes

• README provides Homebrew install (brew tap defendend/ast-index then brew install ast-index) and lists 46+ commands.
• README documents integrations: Claude plugin, Codex MCP install (ast-index install-codex-mcp), and Cursor plugin wiring.
• README mentions a binary size hint (~44MB) for the release CLI output.

FAQ

• Do I need to reindex after every change?: No — use incremental update and rebuild only when the index gets out of sync.
• Is this language-specific?: It supports multiple symbol queries; check README for supported languages in your repo.
• Can agents access it via MCP?: Yes — README describes an MCP server wrapper that exposes ast-index tools to MCP clients.