Code Intelligence

GitKB indexes your source code to build a call graph spanning 17 per-language crates. This lets you understand callers, callees, blast radius, dead code, execution flows, and architectural hotspots before making changes.

Zero-friction setup

Code intelligence works on any Git repository — no git-kb init required. Install GitKB and start querying:

brew install gitkb
cd your-project
git-kb code index
git-kb code callers your-function

The index is stored invisibly under .git/ — nothing added to your project, nothing to configure.

If you have a full GitKB knowledge base (.kb/), code intelligence integrates automatically — linking code symbols to documents, tasks, and specs in the knowledge graph.

Supported languages

Rust, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, C, C++, C#, Java, Ruby, Elixir, Kotlin, Swift, Scala, PHP, Haskell, and Lua. All 17 ship as per-language crates with full native AST extraction — symbols, calls, and imports. See Supported Languages for details.

Indexing

Index your source files:

# Index a directory
git-kb code index src/

# Index an entire repo (default when no path given)
git-kb code index

# Dry run — see what would be indexed
git-kb code index --dry-run

After initial indexing, the daemon’s file watcher keeps the index current automatically (500ms debounce on file save). Without the daemon, re-run git-kb code index after significant changes.

Querying

Symbols

List all symbols in a file:

git-kb code symbols --file src/auth.ts

Callers

Find every call site for a function:

git-kb code callers validateToken

Resolves trait dispatch, interface implementations, and cross-module references.

Callees

Find what a function calls:

git-kb code callees login

Impact analysis

Before modifying a file, check the transitive blast radius:

git-kb code impact src/auth.ts

Shows all dependent files at each depth — the complete set of things that could break.

Dead code

Find symbols with zero callers:

git-kb code dead src/

Framework entrypoints, route handlers, CLI commands, and test functions are classified separately — they aren’t reported as dead code.

Doctor

Diagnose index health — unresolved calls, resolution rates by language, stale files:

git-kb code doctor
git-kb code doctor --json

Entrypoints

Inspect inferred code entrypoints — CLI commands, route handlers, test functions, public API surfaces:

git-kb code entrypoints
git-kb code entrypoints --refresh

Flows

Trace execution flows from entrypoints through the call graph:

# List all flows
git-kb code flows
git-kb code flows --refresh

# Inspect a specific flow
git-kb code flow <flow-id>

Query templates

Run prebuilt architectural queries:

# Find the most-called symbols (highest fan-in)
git-kb code query hotspots

# Dead code with evidence explaining each classification
git-kb code query dead-code-explain

Stats

Index health dashboard — symbol counts by language, resolved vs unresolved edges, file coverage:

git-kb code stats

Refs (requires full KB)

Find documents that reference a code symbol via [[code:...]] wikilinks:

git-kb code refs validateToken

This command requires a full GitKB knowledge base (git-kb init).

Dump AST

Debug language indexing by inspecting the raw parse tree:

git-kb code dump-ast src/auth.rs
git-kb code dump-ast src/auth.rs --language rust --lines 10-25

Maintenance

# Remove stale symbols from deleted/renamed files
git-kb code prune

# Detect default branches for multi-repo setups
git-kb code detect-default-branches

Linking code to documents

When using a full GitKB knowledge base, reference code symbols in your documents:

The auth refactor changes [[code:src/auth.ts::validateToken]].

This creates references_code edges in the knowledge graph, connecting your documentation to the actual implementation.

Performance

GitKB’s code intelligence is built in Rust with tree-sitter for AST parsing:

  • Indexing: Several hundred thousand lines of code across 57 repos in ~3 seconds
  • Queries: Callers, callees, impact, dead code — typically under 30ms
  • Incremental updates: Daemon re-indexes on save with 500ms debounce — effectively instantaneous

Next steps

  • Daemon — How the background service powers code intelligence
  • CLI Reference — Full command reference
Knowledge Graph Daemon