Compass

A fast, local-first knowledge graph for understanding codebases.

Compass turns source code and project artifacts into a graph you can search, query, visualize, compare across Git history, and share with development tools.

large codebase
     |
     v
  Compass  ----->  architecture map
     |           \-> dependency and impact answers
     |            \-> exact CompassQL results
     |             \-> historical graph diffs
     |              \-> focused context for assistants
     v
less searching, smaller context, traceable evidence

Get started · Read the documentation · Explore the roadmap · View releases

Use Compass inside your editor with the first-party Compass Codegraph extension for VS Code. See the VS Code extension guide for current graphs, cursor-rooted call graphs, architecture flow, queries, and exact Git evolution.

What Compass gives you

Structural extraction and graph queries run locally. They do not require Python, embeddings, a vector database, model credentials, or runtime parser downloads.

How it works

Compass discovers project files, extracts entities and relationships, resolves cross-file references, analyzes the resulting graph, and publishes one consistent snapshot.

function / class / file / document / schema object       node
CALLS / IMPORTS_FROM / USES / CONTAINS                   relationship
dense group of related nodes                             community
direct / resolved / uncertain evidence                   provenance

Relationships retain their direction, source location, and provenance:

CheckoutHandler
    |
    +-- CALLS [EXTRACTED] --> authorizePayment()
    |                              |
    |                              +-- USES --> PaymentGateway
    |
    +-- CALLS [INFERRED]  --> reserveInventory()

Read How Compass works for the complete pipeline and Graph model for the data model.

Project lineage

Compass is inspired by and modeled after Graphify. Graphify established the core workflow: extract a codebase into a knowledge graph, analyze its communities, and use focused graph queries to navigate complex projects.

Compass gives explicit credit to that foundation, but it is now an independent product with its own implementation, commands, configuration, artifacts, and test suite. Compass does not execute or depend on Graphify.

Compass capabilities

See Compatibility for Compass-owned contracts and Migration from Graphify for the one-time hard cutover.

Performance

Compass performance is qualified against Compass-owned baselines while preserving graph correctness and deterministic output. Read Performance qualification for the evidence policy and benchmark commands.

Quick start

1. Install

On macOS or Linux (Apple Silicon/ARM64 or Intel/AMD64):

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf \
  https://github.com/crabbuild/compass/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

On Windows x64 or ARM64, run the checksum-verifying PowerShell installer:

irm https://github.com/crabbuild/compass/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

For an offline install, download the matching archive and .sha256 file from the latest release, verify the checksum, extract it, and add the directory containing compass.exe to PATH.

Or build from source with the pinned Rust 1.97.1+ toolchain:

git clone https://github.com/crabbuild/compass.git
cd compass
make install

make install uses an existing ~/.cargo/bin, otherwise it creates and uses ~/.local/bin. To choose another location, run make install BINDIR="$HOME/bin".

You can also install directly through Cargo:

cargo install --locked --path crates/compass-cli --bin compass

Upgrade any installed Compass executable to the latest stable release with:

compass upgrade

Compass verifies the official release checksum before replacing the executable. If no newer release is available, it exits successfully and reports that the installed version is already the latest.

2. Install the VS Code extension (optional)

After installing the Compass CLI, install Compass Codegraph from the VS Code Marketplace by selecting Install on its Marketplace page. You can also install it from a terminal:

code --install-extension crabbuild.crabbuild-compass-vscode

Open your repository in VS Code. The extension detects the installed Compass CLI and guides you to initialize the repository from the Compass sidebar.

3. Initialize and build a local graph

cd your-project
compass init

compass init previews the eligible corpus, saves project scope in .compass/config.toml, and performs the first structural build. For automation or a focused monorepo scope:

compass init . --include src --include 'services/*/src' --exclude '**/generated/**' --yes

After setup, compass update and compass watch automatically reuse the saved scope.

Compass writes:

compass-out/
├── graph.json        machine-readable graph
├── GRAPH_REPORT.md   architecture and community summary
├── graph.html        interactive visualization when size permits
└── manifest.json     incremental build state

4. Ask useful questions

compass query "where is authentication enforced?"
compass explain TokenVerifier
compass path ApiHandler TokenVerifier
compass affected TokenVerifier --depth 3

These commands read the saved graph and do not call a model.

Compass-specific workflows

Query exact graph patterns with CompassQL

compass query --cql \
  "MATCH (caller)-[:CALLS]->(target)
   WHERE target.label = 'authorizePayment()'
   RETURN caller.id, target.id
   LIMIT 20" \
  --format json

CompassQL is deterministic, read-only, parameterized, and resource-bounded. See the language contract and support matrix.

Travel through graph history

compass history enable --code-only
compass history build main
compass history build HEAD --profile-from main
compass query "authentication" --at HEAD~20
compass diff main HEAD
compass diff main HEAD --format html --output semantic-diff.html

Historical builds use exact Git commits and immutable extraction fingerprints. Current and historical graphs can be queried, compared, and exported without putting generated graph data into Git. Semantic diff leads with likely breaks, behavior changes, affected callers/modules, and test evidence; use --all to expand routine symbol churn. Default text output reports any findings beyond its display budget; use --limit N to raise that budget or --all for exhaustive output. HTML output is a self-contained interactive reviewer report with semantic findings, an enhanced unified/split source diff, and a changed-subgraph view with exhaustive node/edge delta lists. The source view is rendered by the pinned @pierre/diffs library and retains the exact Git patch as an offline fallback. HTML output requires an explicit --output path.

Read the versioned history guide and storage design.

Connect a coding assistant

compass install

Inside a Git repository, Compass detects installed coding agents and configures them at the repository root. Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Copilot, and generic Agent Skills clients share one portable .agents/skills/compass package; Claude Code, Kiro, and Cline use their native skill roots. Use repeatable --platform flags when you want explicit selection:

compass install --platform codex --platform claude
compass install --all --dry-run
compass install --user --format json

The skill teaches assistants to use an existing Compass graph as the first navigation layer, request a focused subgraph, and open only the source files needed to verify an answer. Installation does not build a graph; on