AutoDev — AI Agent for GitHub Repositories

AutoDev is a Chrome extension that deploys a multi-hop reasoning agent over any public GitHub repository. Ask complex questions about a codebase and get back accurate, sourced answers, without cloning the repo or leaving your browser.

"How does authentication work in this repo?"
"Trace the flow from the API endpoint to the database."
"What calls handleQuestion and where is it defined?"

---

How It Works

AutoDev uses an agent loop powered by OpenAI's function calling API. Rather than doing a single search and returning results, the agent autonomously chains multiple tool calls to build a complete picture before answering.

For a question like "how does authentication work?", the agent might:

1. Search for authentication-related code semantically
2. Find the auth_middleware function and read its source
3. Trace what auth_middleware calls using the call graph
4. Read the verify_token implementation
5. Synthesize a full explanation with file references

Every step is visible to the user in a collapsible reasoning trace.

---

Architecture

Chrome Extension (Frontend)

• React/TypeScript sidebar injected into GitHub pages
• Streams progress updates in real time via Server-Sent Events
• Displays agent reasoning chain alongside the final answer

Flask Backend

• Clones and indexes repositories on first request
• Builds a cross-file AST call graph using two-pass Python parsing
• Stores function embeddings in ChromaDB for semantic search
• Runs the agent loop using OpenAI function calling

Agent Tools

• find_function_location — exact AST lookup for function definitions
• get_callers — find all functions that call a given function
• get_called_functions — find all functions a given function calls
• get_function_code — read actual source code of a function
• semantic_search — vector search over function embeddings
• get_repo_structure — read README and top-level file structure

Caching

• Repositories are cloned once and reused across sessions
• Call graphs and embeddings are invalidated automatically when the repo's git commit changes
• Repeated queries on the same repo respond in under 5 seconds

---

Setup

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/Jacob-GHub/AutoDev
cd AutoDev

2. Install backend dependencies

cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set your OpenAI API key

cp .env.example .env
# Add your OPENAI_API_KEY to .env

4. Start the backend

python server.py

5. Load the extension

• Open chrome://extensions
• Enable Developer Mode
• Click "Load unpacked" and select the frontend/dist folder
• Navigate to any public Python GitHub repository and click "Ask Repo Question"

---

Limitations

• Currently supports Python repositories only
• Requires a local backend server running on port 3000
• Cross-file call resolution is limited to same-language calls

---

Roadmap

• JavaScript/TypeScript support
• Local repository support via companion CLI
• Change impact analysis ("if I modify this function, what breaks?")
• Conversational follow-up with full session memory

---

License

MIT