kodit

AI coding assistants work better when they have access to real examples from your codebase. Kodit indexes your repositories, splits source files into searchable snippets, and serves them to any MCP-compatible assistant. When your assistant needs to write new code, it queries Kodit first and gets back relevant, up-to-date examples drawn from your own projects.

Kodit also handles documents. PDFs, Word files, PowerPoint decks, and spreadsheets are rasterized and indexed so you can search across both code and documentation in one place.

What you get:

• Multiple search strategies including BM25 keyword search, semantic vector search, regex grep, and visual document search, each exposed as a separate MCP tool so your assistant picks the right approach for each query
• MCP server that works with Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Kilo Code, and any other MCP-compatible assistant
• REST API for programmatic access to search, repositories, enrichments, and indexing status
• AI enrichments (optional) including architecture docs, API docs, database schema detection, cookbook examples, and commit summaries, all generated by an LLM
• Document intelligence with visual search across PDF pages, Office documents, and images using multimodal embeddings
• No external dependencies required for basic operation, with a built-in embedding model and SQLite storage

Quickstart

Docker (recommended)

docker run -p 8080:8080 registry.helix.ml/helix/kodit:latest

This starts Kodit with SQLite storage and a built-in embedding model. No API keys needed.

Pre-built binaries

Download a binary from the releases page, then:

chmod +x kodit
./kodit serve

Verify it works

Open the interactive API docs at http://localhost:8080/docs.

Or index a small repository and run a search:

# Index a repository
curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/repositories \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "data": {
      "type": "repository",
      "attributes": {
        "remote_uri": "https://gist.github.com/philwinder/7aa38185e20433c04c533f2b28f4e217.git"
      }
    }
  }'

# Check indexing progress
curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/repositories/1/status

# Search (once indexing is complete)
curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/search \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "data": {
      "type": "search",
      "attributes": {
        "keywords": ["orders"],
        "text": "code to get all orders"
      }
    }
  }'

Connecting to AI Assistants

Kodit exposes an MCP endpoint at /mcp. Connect your assistant to start using Kodit as a code search tool.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http kodit http://localhost:8080/mcp

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kodit": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cline

Add to the MCP Servers configuration (Remote Servers tab):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kodit": {
      "autoApprove": [],
      "disabled": false,
      "timeout": 60,
      "type": "streamableHttp",
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Kilo Code

Add to the MCP configuration (Edit Project/Global MCP):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kodit": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp",
      "alwaysAllow": [],
      "disabled": false
    }
  }
}

Replace http://localhost:8080 with your server URL if running remotely.

Encouraging assistants to use Kodit

Some assistants may not call Kodit tools automatically. Add this to your project rules or system prompt to enforce usage:

For every request that involves writing or modifying code, the assistant's first
action must be to call the kodit search MCP tools. Only produce or edit code after
the tool call returns results.

In Cursor, save this as .cursor/rules/kodit.mdc with alwaysApply: true frontmatter.

MCP Tools

Kodit exposes these tools to connected AI assistants:

The enrichment tools (architecture_docs, api_docs, database_schema, cookbook, wiki, commit_description) require an LLM provider to be configured. See Enrichment Providers under Configuration Reference.

Go Library

Kodit can be embedded directly as a Go library. This is how Helix integrates Kodit into its platform.

import "github.com/helixml/kodit"

client, err := kodit.New(
    kodit.WithSQLite(".kodit/data.db"),
)
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}
defer client.Close()

// Index a repository
_, _, err = client.Repositories.Add(ctx, &service.RepositoryAddParams{
    URL: "https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes",
})

// Search
results, err := client.Search.Query(ctx, "create a deployment",
    service.WithLimit(10),
)

for _, result := range results.Enrichments() {
    fmt.Println(result.Subtype(), result.Content())
}

Library options

Search options

Go HTTP client

A generated HTTP client is available for calling a remote Kodit server from Go:

go get github.com/helixml/kodit/clients/go

import koditclient "github.com/helixml/kodit/clients/go"

client, err := koditclient.NewClient("https://kodit.example.com")

// List repositories
resp, err := client.GetRepositories(ctx, nil)

// Search
text := "create a deployment"
resp, err := client.PostSearch(ctx, koditclient.PostSearchJSONRequestBody{
    Data: &koditclient.DtoSearchData{
        Attributes: &koditclient.DtoSearchAttributes{
            Text: &text,
        },
    },
})

Types are auto-generated from the OpenAPI spec. See the interactive API docs at /docs for the full endpoint list.

Production Deployment

For production use, deploy with PostgreSQL (VectorChord) for scalable vector search and a dedicated LLM provider for enrichments.

Docker Compose

Save this as docker-compose.yaml:

services:
  kodit:
    image: registry.helix.ml/helix/kodit:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    command: ["serve"]
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - vectorchord
    environment:
      DATA_DIR: /data
      DB_URL: postgresql://postgres:mysecretpassword@vectorchord:5432/kodit

      # Enrichment LLM (optional, enables AI-generated docs)
      ENRICHMENT_ENDPOINT_BASE_URL: http://ollama:11434
      ENRICHMENT_ENDPOINT_MODEL: ollama/qwen3:1.7b

      # External embedding provider (optional, replaces built-in model)
      # EMBEDDING_ENDPOINT_API_KEY: sk-proj-xxxx
      # EMBEDDING_ENDPOINT_MODEL: openai/text-embedding-3-small

      LOG_LEVEL: INFO
      API_KEYS: ${KODIT_API_KEYS:-}
    volumes:
      - kodit-data:/data

  vectorchord:
    image: tensorchord/vchord-suite:pg17-20250601
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: kodit
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: mysecretpassword
    volumes:
      - vectorchord-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  kodit-data:
  vectorchord-data:

Kubernetes

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