codegraph-partner

Codegraph partner

OSB and codegraph are complementary, not overlapping. OSB owns the vault (Markdown prose, the Brain layer, preferences, paid-action audit). The codegraph CLI and its MCP server own the code-symbol graph of a repository - callers, callees, impact radius, AST. This skill teaches the agent to detect codegraph in the current scope and to use, recommend, or stay quiet about it, depending on what is actually nearby.

This skill never installs, initializes, or writes data for codegraph itself. Those actions stay in the user's hands or in codegraph's own installer.

Step 1 - detect

Run these checks in order. Stop at the first state that matches.

1. CLI presence: which codegraph (or, in Bun runtimes, Bun.which("codegraph")).
2. Code-project signal in the current working directory: a .git/ directory plus at least one of package.json, pyproject.toml, Cargo.toml, go.mod, tsconfig.json, Gemfile, composer.json, build.gradle, pom.xml.
3. If neither cwd nor the user's named project is a code project, look at the vault's parent directory and inspect the top-level entries (one level only). Many users keep their repos as siblings of the vault.
4. Index state: a .codegraph/ directory inside the code project root.
5. Confirmed index: codegraph status -j <project_path> returns {"initialized": true, ...}. The same command on an uninitialized project returns {"initialized": false, ...} rather than failing.

The structured way to ask is o2b doctor. When OSB is installed in the workspace, the doctor report carries a code_graph line that summarises detection result with node count and file count.

Step 2 - branch on result

State	Agent behaviour
ok (CLI present, indexed)	Use codegraph for AST and graph queries. No install talk.
not_indexed (CLI present, no .codegraph/ or initialized: false)	Offer one line: "run codegraph init <path> to index this repo". Do not run it yourself unless the user asks.
missing + code project	Argued recommendation (Step 5).
missing + no code project in scope	Stay quiet.
error (CLI present, status -j errors with a lock or schema issue)	Suggest codegraph unlock <path> or a rebuild, but do not run it.

Step 3 - hard rule after codegraph init

Whenever you run codegraph init in any repository on the user's behalf, immediately read that repo's .gitignore and append a .codegraph/ line if one is not already present. The append must be atomic, must preserve the existing trailing newline policy, and must not touch any other line.

If the repo does not have a .gitignore, do not create one yourself. Tell the user the file is missing and that they should decide whether to add it.

This rule exists so the local codegraph index never lands in a commit.

Step 4 - tool-vs-tool disambiguation

Use this table to pick the right tool for each kind of question. Do not duplicate a codegraph answer by also running a grep; treat its output as authoritative.

Question shape	Tool
Where is symbol X defined?	codegraph_search
Who calls function Y?	codegraph_callers
What does Y call?	codegraph_callees
What would break if I change Z?	codegraph_impact
Show Y's signature or body.	codegraph_node
Survey several related symbols at once.	codegraph_explore
What files exist under path P?	codegraph_files
Prose, page bodies, MOC content, daily notes.	brain_search
Confirmed preferences, taste rules.	brain_query
Free-text fallback when neither index helps.	Plain grep, last resort.

Step 5 - argued install recommendation

Trigger only when both conditions hold: there is a code project in the current scope, and codegraph is not on the user's PATH.

Show the user a short paragraph that uses real numbers from their project, with no emoji and no marketing voice. Template:

Found a code project at <path> with N source files. Without an index, every structural question (callers, impact, "where is X") spawns a grep+read loop that burns several thousand tokens per answer. codegraph keeps a SQLite knowledge graph and serves the same question in sub-millisecond time. Installer: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colbymchenry/codegraph/main/install.sh | sh (or npm i -g @colbymchenry/codegraph). After install: codegraph init <path> from inside the repo.

If the user says no, drop the topic for the rest of the session. Do not nag.

Out of scope

• Do not call codegraph install, codegraph init, or codegraph index automatically.
• Do not read or write .codegraph/codegraph.db.
• Do not mirror codegraph data into the Brain or the vault search index.
• Do not modify ~/.claude.json, .cursor/rules/, or any other agent config on behalf of codegraph.