sqry — Semantic Code Search

sqry

sqry is a local semantic code search tool. It parses source code into AST-backed symbol and relationship graphs so you can ask code questions that text search cannot answer reliably.

Everything runs on your machine. Indexing and querying make no network calls, and sqry sends no telemetry.

Website: https://sqry.dev

Current Capabilities

• 37 language plugins, 28 with full relation support and 9 with symbol extraction plus imports. By build cost, 29 are on the default fast path, json is compiled but excluded by default as high-wall-clock, and 7 specialty plugins sit behind Cargo features. The sqry://meta/manifest MCP resource reports these counts for the binary you have installed.
• Structural queries over symbol kind, language, visibility, names, return types, references, and relations.
• Graph analysis for callers, callees, imports, exports, call paths, cycles, unused symbols, duplicates, impact, semantic diff, and focused subgraphs.
• Edge-backed returns:<TypeName> and resolution-aware resolved_via:<kind> predicates for supported graph paths. See Call resolution predicates.
• Cross-language FFI edges. The C, C++, C#, Elixir, Haskell, Kotlin, Lua, PHP, R, Ruby, and Rust plugins emit FfiCall edges from mechanisms such as extern "C", DllImport / P/Invoke, JNI, Ruby FFI attach_function, and R .Call / Rcpp. Query them with sqry graph cross-language or the cross_language_edges MCP tool.
• Structural shape matching with sqry shape-match, which finds functions with similar body structure independently of their identifiers.
• A declarative rule layer. sqry rules run executes shipped rule IDs and packs, or your own TOML rule packs, against the graph; the rules_run MCP tool exposes the same engine.
• Go context propagation analysis (sqry context-propagation) for call sites that drop context.Context.
• Rust macro-boundary analysis: sqry cache expand builds a macro expansion cache, --expand-cache materializes macro-generated symbols as searchable nodes, and --cfg marks #[cfg]-gated symbols active or inactive. Both index-path options are execution-free and recorded in the index manifest, and every rebuild that persists reuses the record until --no-macro-options (or reset_macro_options) clears it: sqry index --force, sqry update, sqry watch, the sqry query auto-index and --auto-rebuild, the daemon (sqry daemon rebuild, its file-watcher rebuilds, and its MCP rebuild_index), the LSP (sqry.index, its auto-index and self-heal), and the standalone MCP (rebuild_index and its auto-index). Over an existing index they need --force. A relative --expand-cache resolves against your working directory; the MCP expand_cache field resolves against the directory its path argument names (that directory, or a file's parent directory), and daemon/rebuild against the workspace it rebuilds. The directory must exist, and one whose canonical path is not valid UTF-8 is refused, because the manifest records it as JSON text. --cfg refuses an empty or blank value, and one with leading or trailing whitespace.
• Visualization and export as Mermaid, Graphviz DOT, or D2 (sqry visualize, sqry export).
• An interactive shell (sqry shell) and batch runner (sqry batch) that keep the session cache warm across many queries.
• Index refresh with sqry update and sqry watch, each a full rebuild that reuses the plugin selection and macro options the index records (no command re-indexes only the changed files).
• Workspace-aware indexing through .sqry-workspace registries and VS Code .code-workspace sqry.workspace blocks.
• Daemon-backed shared graph loading through sqryd for editor, MCP, and repeated-agent workflows.
• One-shot repository orientation with sqry overview (and the matching generate_overview MCP tool for agents): a single report of the load-bearing hubs, path/package subsystems, complexity hotspots, potential issues, and ready-to-run follow-up queries.
• MCP integration for AI assistants. Standalone sqry-mcp currently exposes 39 tools; daemon-hosted MCP exposes a 17-tool subset. Use tools/list, sqry-mcp --list-tools, or sqry://meta/manifest as the authoritative catalog.
• LSP and VS Code extension support for editor workflows.

When To Use sqry

Use sqry when you need structural answers:

sqry index .
sqry overview            # orient in an unfamiliar repo, then run the queries it suggests
sqry query "kind:function AND visibility:public AND lang:rust"
sqry query "returns:Result"
sqry graph direct-callers authenticate
sqry graph trace-path main handle_request
sqry visualize "callers:authenticate" --format mermaid

Use ripgrep for simple text search, ast-grep for syntax rewrite patterns, language linters for policy enforcement, and an IDE language server for full editor semantics. sqry stays focused on local semantic code search.

Install

Linux And macOS

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/verivus-oss/sqry/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --component all

The shell installer downloads release assets, verifies SHA256 checksums by default, and installs:

• sqry
• sqry-mcp
• sqry-lsp
• sqryd

Supported release platforms are Linux x86_64/arm64 (glibc and musl builds), macOS x86_64/arm64, and Windows x86_64.

Useful options:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/verivus-oss/sqry/main/scripts/install.sh | \
  bash -s -- --component all --version vX.Y.Z --verify-signatures

--verify-signatures requires gh or Cosign. It verifies the current release-artifacts.attestation.json GitHub artifact attestation from release-distribute.yml; older releases can still fall back to legacy per-asset Cosign bundles. SHA256 verification remains the default integrity check.

Windows

Invoke-WebRequest https://raw.githubusercontent.com/verivus-oss/sqry/main/scripts/install.ps1 -OutFile install.ps1
Get-Content .\install.ps1
.\install.ps1 -Component all -VerifySignatures

The PowerShell installer downloads the Windows x86_64 release ZIP, verifies checksums by default, and installs sqry.exe, sqry-mcp.exe, sqry-lsp.exe, and sqryd.exe into the user install directory.

Use a pinned release when reproducibility matters:

.\install.ps1 -Component all -Version vX.Y.Z -VerifySignatures

Homebrew

Homebrew is the package-manager surface currently backed by the public release manifest.

brew tap verivus-oss/sqry
brew install sqry

The formula installs sqry, sqry-mcp, sqry-lsp, and sqryd for Linux x86_64/arm64 and macOS x86_64/arm64.

Scoop, Winget, AUR, Nix, and Snap are not advertised as public release assets until their release-control surfaces are complete and validated.

Build From Source

git clone https://github.com/verivus-oss/sqry.git
cd sqry
cargo install --path sqry-cli
cargo install --path sqry-mcp
cargo install --path sqry-lsp
cargo install --path sqry-daemon

Requirements:

• Rust 1.94+ with Edition 2024.
• The repository pins toolchain 1.94.1 in rust-toolchain.toml.
• A full workspace build compiles the bundled tree-sitter grammars and language plugins and can require substantial disk space.

Agent Setup

Two steps connect the installed binaries to a coding agent. Run them in this order: MCP gives the agent the tools, the skills tell it when to reach for them.

1. Wire The MCP Server

sqry mcp setup --tool claude --scope global
sqry mcp setup --tool codex --scope global
sqry mcp setup --tool gemini --scope global
sqry mcp status

Pass --scope global unless you specifically want a per-project entry. See MCP And Editors for what the scopes do and how to preview a change before it is written.

Once an agent is connected, sqry-mcp serves its own reference material as MCP resources (sqry://docs/tool-guide, sqry://docs/query-syntax, sqry://docs/patterns, sqry://docs/architecture, sqry://docs/capability-map, sqry://meta/manifest). Those ship inside the binary and version with it, so the tool reference an agent reads cannot drift from the tools it can actually call.

2. Add The Agent Skills

The skills are what teach an agent to reach for sqry mid-task instead of falling back to text search. That routing judgement is the part no amount of tool documentation supplies, which is why it is a separate artifact from the MCP resources above.

They live in verivus-oss/sqry-skills, which publishes eight: sqry-semantic-search, the core routing skill, plus one each for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Grok, OpenCode, Antigravity, and Mistral Vibe.

That repository root is also a Claude-compatible plugin, registering the skills, sqry-mcp, and sqry-lsp together. Clone it into the plugin directory your agent reads, or point the agent at a checkout:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/verivus-oss/sqry-skills ~/.grok/plugins/sqry
# or, without installing:  claude --plugin-dir /path/to/sqry-skills

For the skills on their own, without the plugin wiring:

npx skills add https://github.com/verivus-oss/sqry-skills

Per-agent paths and a doctor.sh health check are documented in that repository's README. Neither the shell installer nor the Homebrew formula stages the skills today, so this step is manual.

First Index

# Build the default fast-path index.
sqry index .

# Check status without rebuilding.
sqry index --status --json .

# Force a rebuild after upgrading across graph-format or semantics changes.
sqry index --force .

Index artifacts live under .sqry/. Add .sqry/ and legacy .sqry-index artifacts to your project ignore rules unless you intentionally share them.

Index Validation

sqry search main . --validate fail --auto-rebuild
sqry index --status --metrics-format prometheus .

--validate takes off, warn (default), or fail. Under fail a stale index aborts with exit code 2 instead of returning results computed from it, which is what makes it usable as a CI gate. --auto-rebuild makes fail rebuild a stale index once and then run on it; under warn and off it does nothing. The command's own arguments (the pattern, the query in every form, --var, the fuzzy algorithm) are checked before that rebuild, so an argument the command refuses leaves the index as it was. The one threshold is --threshold-orphaned-files RATIO (0.0 to 1.0, default 0.20): validation trips when more than that share of the indexed files no longer exists on disk, so --threshold-orphaned-files 0.5 tolerates half the files going missing and 0 tolerates none.

Note the limit: these are global flags, but validation runs only for the sqry search and sqry query subcommands (not the sqry <pattern> shorthand, and not a revision query, which reads a revision the daemon holds). Passing them to sqry index when an index already exists does not trigger a validation pass.

--metrics-format prometheus emits OpenMetrics-compatible text for scraping index status.

Plugin Selection

sqry records the plugin set that built an index so later graph-loading commands reuse the same semantics.

sqry index .                         # default fast path
sqry index --include-high-cost .     # all compiled non-default plugins
sqry index --exclude-high-cost .     # force the fast path
sqry index --enable-plugin json .    # opt into one plugin
sqry index --disable-plugin json .   # opt out of one plugin

The registry has fast plugins, high-wall-clock plugins, and optional specialty plugins. json is high-wall-clock. Optional specialty plugins include apex, abap, servicenow-xanadu-js, servicenow-xml, terraform, puppet, and pulumi when compiled with the matching Cargo features or specialty-plugins.

See Indexing for artifact cleanup, plugin tiers, and high-cost behavior.

Query Examples

# Symbol and attribute predicates.
sqry query "kind:function AND name:parse_*"
sqry query "kind:struct AND lang:rust"
sqry query "kind:function AND returns:Result"

# Relation predicates.
sqry query "callers:authenticate"
sqry query "callees:handle_request"
sqry query "imports:serde"

# Planner-backed query.
sqry plan-query "kind:function callers:main"

# Resolution-aware call filtering where populated by graph metadata.
sqry plan-query "kind:function callers:my_read resolved_via:binding_plane"

returns:<TypeName> uses graph TypeOf{Return} edges.

Call Resolution Predicates

resolved_via:<kind> filters call edges by what kind of binding produced the edge. That is a different question from how confident the resolver is: a duck_typed edge is not a low-confidence direct edge, it is a record that the call was bound by Python duck typing rather than by a syntactic reference. Knowing the mechanism lets you separate calls the compiler could have checked from calls that only resolve at runtime.

The parser accepts eight values:

Value	Binding mechanism
direct	Syntactic call resolved by the language plugin
type_match	Indirect call matched against compatible signatures by type
binding_plane	Designated-initializer witnesses in the binding plane
virtual_dispatch	JVM virtual or abstract method dispatch
interface_dispatch	Go interface dispatch
duck_typed	Python duck-typed dispatch
structural	TypeScript structural dispatch
promiscuous_elided	Fan-out cap exceeded, so the resolver recorded a diagnostic self-edge instead of N targets

# Callers of my_read that only bind through the binding plane,
# not through a plain syntactic call.
sqry plan-query "kind:function callers:my_read resolved_via:binding_plane"

framework filtering is exposed as a typed MCP parameter. The planner also parses framework:<id>, but framework-route metadata is only populated where extractors have run. Treat a non-match as absent metadata, not proof that a framework is unused.

See Advanced Analysis for graph predicates, snapshot wording, impact analysis, semantic diff, and visualization.

Workspaces

Use a workspace when one logical project spans several repositories or folders.

sqry workspace init .
sqry workspace scan .
sqry workspace status . --json
sqry workspace clean .

Workspace configuration can come from a .sqry-workspace registry or a VS Code .code-workspace file with a sqry.workspace block. See Workspaces.

Daemon

sqryd keeps graph state warm for repeated CLI, LSP, MCP, and editor workflows.

sqry daemon start
sqry daemon load .
sqry daemon status --json
sqry daemon rebuild . --force
sqry daemon logs --follow

See Daemon Mode.

MCP And Editors

Configure MCP clients with:

sqry mcp setup --tool claude --scope global
sqry mcp setup --tool codex --scope global
sqry mcp setup --tool gemini --scope global

--scope defaults to auto, which resolves to a per-project Claude Code entry when the working directory sits inside a repository, and errors when it does not. Pass --scope global for a machine-wide entry, or --scope project from inside the repository you want pinned. Codex and Gemini CLI only support global configuration, so the two scopes behave identically for them and workspace resolution follows the directory the tool is started from. sqry mcp setup --dry-run prints the changes without writing them, and sqry mcp status reports what is currently configured.

Standalone sqry-mcp is the full local tool surface. sqry-mcp --daemon attaches to sqryd and exposes the daemon-hosted subset. workspace_status.source_root_id is an opaque display/correlation token, not a path. See MCP Guide and the component docs in sqry-mcp/README.md.

MCP search tools keep string predicates and structured JSON parameters separate:

{
  "name": "semantic_search",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "kind:function items:true",
    "filters": {
      "language": ["rust"],
      "visibility": "public"
    }
  }
}

Use items:true or is_definition:true in query for definition-only query predicates. When calling list_symbols, use the structured items_only parameter:

{
  "name": "list_symbols",
  "arguments": {
    "kind": "function",
    "language": "rust",
    "items_only": true
  }
}

If a graph was built before the V16 definition-signal snapshot format, definition-only query predicates and list_symbols.items_only return a reindexRequired / reindex-required advisory rather than trusting stale marker data.

For the VS Code extension, see sqry-vscode/README.md and sqry-vscode/USER_GUIDE.md.

User Guides

• Quick Start
• User Guide Index
• Indexing
• Workspaces
• Daemon Mode
• MCP Guide
• Query Languages
• Repository Overview
• Rules
• Context Propagation
• Doctor
• Revision-Aware Workspaces
• Advanced Analysis
• Structural Shape Matching
• Visualization

Security And Supply Chain

• Release artifacts carry a GitHub OIDC keyless attestation, published as the release-artifacts.attestation.json asset and verifiable with gh attestation verify or Cosign. SHA256SUMS.txt ships alongside, and both installers verify checksums by default.
• Each release also publishes a release manifest and a release ledger asset recording the stages the build passed through.
• Dependencies are gated in CI by cargo-vet (importing the Mozilla, Google, Bytecode Alliance, and ISRG audit sets), cargo-deny, and cargo-audit. Clippy runs as -D warnings.
• The query planner's text parser is fuzzed nightly with cargo-fuzz. cargo-mutants runs on changed lines per PR and against a canary-crate baseline on master; it currently reports rather than blocks.
• SBOMs (CycloneDX and SPDX) and OpenVEX documents are generated by a separate workflow.

Do not assume an artifact is present unless it appears in the asset list for the release you are installing. To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

Project Scope

sqry is an MIT-licensed open-source project focused on one product goal: local semantic code search. It is not a hosted search platform, linter, IDE replacement, or general metrics platform.