Two tiers

Two tiers

Two tiers — migrated from the README on 2026-08-31 and verified against the code at tag v0.1.4; if code and wiki ever disagree, the code wins and this page gets a PR.

Two tiers

cie has two tiers, and the split is deliberate — they target two different audiences:

Acquisition tier — zero-config, embedded. One local SQLite file, no server, nothing to configure (see Quickstart). The full code graph (search, traversal, call graph, file skeleton, the virtual filesystem, the heuristic fallback, GraphRAG Q&A) + ~135 tools over MCP/HTTP/CLI. No task/QA tracking, no quality-governance layer (clone/drift detection, confidence, contracts). This is the tier a solo dev or a first-time visitor tries — the sharp hook that wins the first star.

Retention tier — Neo4j-backed. Every capability, multi-project namespacing, and the things a team keeps querying every day (not a one-time "wow"): task/QA traceability (which tasks and tests implement which code), continuous quality-governance, the PRD hierarchy, and coverage trending. This is the tier that makes cie worth keeping installed past week one — the story no pure code graph has.

from pathlib import Path
from cie.config import CieConfig, Neo4jConfig
from cie.factory import build_tool_service_from_config

config = CieConfig(
    project_root=Path("/path/to/your/project"),
    project="my-project",
    neo4j=Neo4jConfig(uri="bolt://localhost:7687", user="neo4j", password="password"),
)
service = build_tool_service_from_config(config)

service.reindex()
print(service.search_symbol("main"))

Or over MCP: cie-mcp /path/to/your/project (no --embedded) — reads CIE_NEO4J_*/NEO4J_* env vars, or pass --neo4j-uri/--neo4j-user/ --neo4j-password explicitly.