codebase-exploration

SocratiCode Codebase Exploration

Use SocratiCode MCP tools to explore codebases efficiently. The core principle: search before reading — the index gives you a map of the codebase in milliseconds; raw file reading is expensive and context-consuming.

Workflow

1. Start most explorations with codebase_search

Hybrid semantic + keyword search (vector + BM25, RRF-fused) runs in a single call.

• Broad queries for orientation: "how is authentication handled", "database connection setup", "error handling patterns"
• Precise queries for symbol lookup: exact function names, constants, type names
• Prefer search results to infer which files to read — do not speculatively open files
• Use fileFilter to narrow to a specific file path, languageFilter for a specific language
• Adjust minScore (default 0.10) for precision vs recall — lower for more results, higher for stricter matching

When to use grep instead: If you already know the exact identifier, error string, or regex pattern, grep/ripgrep is faster and more precise — no semantic gap to bridge. Use codebase_search when exploring, asking conceptual questions, or when you don't know which files to look in.

2. Follow the graph before following imports

Use codebase_graph_query to see what a file imports and what depends on it before diving into its contents. This prevents unnecessary reading of transitive dependencies.

• codebase_graph_query — imports and dependents for any file (pass relative path)
• codebase_graph_stats — architecture overview: total files, edges, most connected files, orphans, language breakdown
• codebase_graph_circular — find circular dependencies (these cause subtle runtime bugs; check proactively when debugging unexpected behaviour)
• codebase_graph_visualize — Mermaid diagram colour-coded by language, circular deps highlighted in red. Pass mode: "interactive" to open a self-contained HTML explorer (file + symbol views, blast-radius overlay, search, PNG export — works offline) instead.

The graph is auto-built after indexing. Use codebase_graph_status to check if the graph is ready. In SOCRATICODE_WATCHER=manual or off, graph queries do not create a missing graph; run codebase_graph_build explicitly when requested.

3. Read files only after narrowing via search