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Quickstart

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Colin Vaughn edited this page Jun 16, 2026 · 2 revisions

Quickstart

This walks through building a graph for a repository and using it. It assumes the codegraph binary is on your PATH (see Installation).

1. Build the graph

cd your-project
codegraph extract .

This scans the directory, extracts symbols and relationships, clusters and analyzes the graph, and writes everything to codegraph-out/. It honors .gitignore and .codegraphignore, skips dependency and build directories, and skips sensitive files such as .env and private keys. A code-only run makes no network calls. See Extraction for the full discovery and caching behavior.

Key outputs (full list in Output Formats):

  • codegraph-out/graph.json - the canonical graph
  • codegraph-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md - structural insight report
  • codegraph-out/graph.html, graph-3d.html, graph.svg - visualizations

2. Read the report

Open codegraph-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md for god nodes (most-connected symbols), surprising connections, import cycles, and suggested questions. See Analysis and Reports.

3. Query the graph

# Relevant subgraph for a topic:
codegraph query "authentication flow"

# Depth-first expansion (favors deep call chains):
codegraph query "request lifecycle" --dfs --max-nodes 40

# Shortest path between two symbols:
codegraph path login validate_token

# A node and its neighbours:
codegraph explain parse_config

# Reverse impact: what depends on a symbol?
codegraph affected parse_config --depth 3

See Querying for how seeds are resolved and how traversal works.

4. Explore visually

Open the generated files in a browser:

  • graph.html - 2D explorer with search, community color, and relation filters
  • graph-3d.html - 3D force graph
  • tree.html - file tree; callflow.html - call-flow diagram

See Visualizations.

5. Keep it current

codegraph update path/to/changed_file.rs   # incremental rebuild
codegraph watch                            # rebuild automatically on save
codegraph hook install                     # rebuild on commit/checkout via git hooks

See Incremental Updates.

6. Use it from an AI assistant

codegraph serve                 # MCP server over stdio
codegraph install               # wire CodeGraph into a host assistant

install wires CodeGraph into a host assistant so it queries the graph before grepping or reading files: a Claude skill file + hooks, an always-on instructions block for other assistants, and a native MCP server + hook for Codex. See MCP Server and Assistant Integration.

Next steps

CodeGraph

Getting started

Concepts

Using CodeGraph

Integrations

Scaling

Reference

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