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Architecture — GitNexus

Monorepo: CLI/MCP (gitnexus/) + browser UI (gitnexus-web/).

Repository layout

Path Role
gitnexus/ npm package gitnexus: CLI, MCP server (stdio), HTTP API, ingestion pipeline, LadybugDB graph, embeddings.
gitnexus-web/ Vite + React thin client: graph explorer + AI chat. All queries via gitnexus serve HTTP API.
gitnexus-shared/ Shared TypeScript types and constants (consumed by CLI and Web).
.claude/, gitnexus-claude-plugin/, gitnexus-cursor-integration/ Agent skills and plugin metadata.
eval/ Evaluation harnesses for benchmarking tool usage.
.github/ CI workflows + composite actions (setup-gitnexus/, setup-gitnexus-web/).

End-to-end flow: index → graph → tools

  1. Ingestion — analyze.ts → runFullAnalysis (run-analyze.ts) → runPipelineFromRepo (pipeline.ts). DAG of 15 phases builds a KnowledgeGraph in memory, then loads into LadybugDB under .gitnexus/. Repo registered in ~/.gitnexus/registry.json for MCP discovery.

  2. Persistence — repo-manager.ts (paths, registry, LadybugDB cleanup). lbug-adapter.ts (graph load, queries, embedding batches).

  3. Query layer — three interfaces to the same backend:

    • MCP (stdio): mcp.ts → LocalBackend → tools (tools.ts) + resources (resources.ts)
    • HTTP bridge: serve.ts → Express (api.ts, mcp-http.ts) for web UI
    • CLI direct: gitnexus query|context|impact|cypher in tool.ts

  4. Staleness — staleness.ts compares indexed lastCommit to HEAD, surfaces hints.

MCP tools

Tool Purpose
list_repos Discover indexed repos
query Hybrid BM25 + vector search over the graph
cypher Ad hoc Cypher against the schema
context Callers, callees, processes for one symbol
impact Blast radius (upstream/downstream) with risk summary
detect_changes Map git diffs to affected symbols and processes
rename Graph-assisted multi-file rename with dry_run preview
api_impact Pre-change impact report for an API route handler
trace Shortest directed path between two symbols (call + class-member edges); group-aware (repo: "@<group>") for cross-repo traces
route_map API route → handler → consumer mappings
tool_map MCP/RPC tool definitions and handlers
shape_check Response shape vs consumer property access mismatches
explain Persisted taint findings (source→sink data flows) — needs analyze --pdg
pdg_query Control/data dependence — CDG (mode: controls) / REACHING_DEF (mode: flows) — needs analyze --pdg
group_list List repo groups or details for one group
group_sync Rebuild group Contract Registry (contracts.json) and bridge graph

query, context, and impact are group-aware: pass repo: "@<groupName>" (or "@<groupName>/<memberPath>" to scope to one member) plus optional service: "<monorepo/path>". Group-mode query merges per-repo results via Reciprocal Rank Fusion; group-mode impact runs the local walk in the chosen member and fans out across boundaries via the Contract Bridge (gitnexus/src/core/group/cross-impact.ts). trace is also group-aware via repo: "@<groupName>" — but, unlike the others, it resolves from/to across all members (a @<groupName>/<memberPath> suffix is advisory for trace, not a scope); pass from_uid/to_uid to disambiguate a symbol name that occurs in more than one member.

Group-mode trace (gitnexus/src/core/group/cross-trace.ts) stitches a path that crosses repositories: it resolves from/to across all members, and when they live in different repos it joins the home-repo segment to the target-repo segment over a single ContractLink boundary (an HTTP consumer→provider link, joined on Contract.symbolUid), reported as a CONTRACT_LINK hop in crossings[]. The crossing is clamped to one boundary (MAX_SUPPORTED_CROSS_DEPTH, shared with cross-impact); deeper crossDepth is reported via notes[]. With pdg: true (experimental, opt-in), each boundary-adjacent segment is enriched with its intra-procedural REACHING_DEF data-flow when that repo was indexed with --pdg (reusing the same anchored flows query as pdg_query); data flow never crosses the repo boundary, and a missing PDG layer degrades to call-level hops with a note. Two stores meet only at the symbolUid grain — the per-repo PDG/call graph and the group bridge — so this is the documented join; full cross-program (SDG-like) data flow across the boundary remains deferred (see docs/plans/2026-06-18-002-feat-unified-pdg-impact-evaluation-plan.md). The previously-planned group_query, group_context, group_impact, group_contracts, group_status MCP tools are intentionally not introduced — group-level state is exposed via resources instead:

Resource URI Purpose
gitnexus://group/{name}/contracts Contract Registry (provider/consumer rows + cross-links)
gitnexus://group/{name}/status Per-member index + Contract Registry staleness

Where to change what

Concern Start in
CLI commands/flags src/cli/ (index.ts, per-command modules)
Parsing/graph construction src/core/ingestion/pipeline-phases/ + pipeline.ts
Graph schema/DB src/core/lbug/ (schema.ts, lbug-adapter.ts)
MCP tools/resources src/mcp/server.ts, tools.ts, resources.ts
Cross-repo groups (sync, contracts, @<group> routing) src/core/group/ (service.ts, cross-impact.ts, sync.ts, bridge-db.ts)
Search ranking src/core/search/ (BM25, hybrid fusion)
Embeddings src/core/embeddings/ + src/core/run-analyze.ts
Wiki generation src/core/wiki/
Language support src/core/ingestion/languages/ + tree-sitter-queries.ts + gitnexus-shared/src/languages.ts
Import resolution src/core/ingestion/import-processor.ts + import-resolvers/configs/ + model/resolution-context.ts
Call resolution/inheritance/MRO src/core/ingestion/scope-resolution/ (pipeline, passes, graph-bridge)
Type extraction src/core/ingestion/type-extractors/
Worker pool src/core/ingestion/workers/
Web UI gitnexus-web/src/
CI .github/workflows/*.yml, .github/actions/

Paths above are relative to gitnexus/ unless they start with gitnexus-web/ or .github/.

Pipeline Phase DAG

15 phases defined in gitnexus/src/core/ingestion/pipeline-phases/, each with explicit deps and typed output.

scan → structure → [markdown, cobol] → parse → [routes, tools, orm]
  → crossFile → scopeResolution → pruneLocalSymbols → mro → di → communities → processes
Phase File Deps Output
scan scan.ts (root) File paths + sizes
structure structure.ts scan File/Folder nodes, CONTAINS edges, allPathSet
markdown markdown.ts structure Section nodes, cross-link edges from .md/.mdx
cobol cobol.ts structure COBOL program/paragraph/section nodes (regex, no tree-sitter)
parse parse.ts + parse-impl.ts structure, markdown, cobol Symbol nodes, IMPORTS/CALLS/EXTENDS edges, extracted routes/tools/ORM queries
routes routes.ts parse Route nodes + HANDLES_ROUTE edges (Next.js, Expo, PHP, decorators)
tools tools.ts parse Tool nodes + HANDLES_TOOL edges
orm orm.ts parse QUERIES edges (Prisma, Supabase)
crossFile cross-file.ts + cross-file-impl.ts parse, routes, tools, orm Cross-file type propagation in topological import order
scopeResolution scope-resolution/pipeline/phase.ts parse, crossFile, structure Binding/reference + inheritance edges; disposes BindingAccumulator
pruneLocalSymbols prune-local-symbols.ts scopeResolution Drops inert block-local Const/Variable/Static nodes (only a File→DEFINES edge) post-resolution
mro mro.ts crossFile, scopeResolution, pruneLocalSymbols, structure METHOD_OVERRIDES + METHOD_IMPLEMENTS edges
di di.ts mro INJECTS edges (framework-neutral DI resolution; per-language matchers registered in di-extractors/)
communities communities.ts mro, pruneLocalSymbols, structure Community nodes + MEMBER_OF edges (Leiden algorithm)
processes processes.ts communities, routes, tools, pruneLocalSymbols, structure Process nodes + STEP_IN_PROCESS edges

Non-phase files in the same directory: parse-impl.ts, cross-file-impl.ts (implementation), wildcard-synthesis.ts (whole-module import expansion), types.ts, runner.ts, index.ts.

DAG runner

runner.ts — static phase graph, no plugins, compile-time type safety.

  1. Validation — Kahn's topological sort. Rejects on: duplicate names, missing deps, cycles (DFS traces the concrete cycle path, e.g., A -> B -> C -> A, plus count of transitively blocked dependents).

  2. Execution — sequential in topological order. Each phase receives:

    • ctx: PipelineContext — shared mutable KnowledgeGraph, repoPath, progress callback, options
    • deps: ReadonlyMap<string, PhaseResult> — declared deps only (runner filters the results map to prevent hidden coupling)

  3. Error handling — wraps phase errors with the phase name, emits terminal error progress event, swallows progress handler errors to preserve the original cause.

  4. Timing — per-phase durationMs in PhaseResult, dev-mode console logging.

Design patterns:

  • Single graph accumulator — all phases mutate the same KnowledgeGraph in ctx; the graph is the primary output.
  • Typed phase access — getPhaseOutput<T>(deps, 'name') for type-safe upstream results.
  • Binding accumulator lifecycle — created in parse, disposed by crossFile (in finally). No other phase should take ownership.
  • Skippable phases — skipGraphPhases omits MRO/di/communities/processes (faster tests); pruneLocalSymbols still runs (it is graph cleanup, not analysis). skipWorkers is no longer a sequential escape hatch — it (like --workers 0 / GITNEXUS_WORKER_POOL_SIZE=0) is rejected with an actionable error, since the worker pool is the sole parse path (§ Chunked parse-and-resolve).
  • Local-symbol pruning — pruneLocalSymbols removes inert block-local value symbols after scope resolution has consumed them. Opt out per-call with PipelineOptions.keepLocalValueSymbols or globally with the GITNEXUS_KEEP_LOCAL_VALUE_SYMBOLS env var.

How to add a new phase

  1. Create pipeline-phases/my-phase.ts with a PipelinePhase<MyOutput> (name, deps, execute)
  2. Export from pipeline-phases/index.ts
  3. Add to buildPhaseList() in pipeline.ts
import type { PipelinePhase, PhaseResult } from './types.js';
import { getPhaseOutput } from './types.js';
import type { ParseOutput } from './parse.js';

export interface MyPhaseOutput { /* ... */ }

export const myPhase: PipelinePhase<MyPhaseOutput> = {
  name: 'myPhase',
  deps: ['parse'],
  async execute(ctx, deps) {
    const { allPaths } = getPhaseOutput<ParseOutput>(deps, 'parse');
    // ... write to ctx.graph ...
    return { /* typed output */ };
  },
};

Semantic model

SemanticModel (gitnexus/src/core/ingestion/model/semantic-model.ts) is the authoritative store for every symbol-indexed lookup (by nodeId, simpleName, qualifiedName, or filePath). The scope-resolution pipeline reads from here: findOwnedMember, pickOverload, and findExportedDefByName all consult model.methods / model.fields / model.symbols.

ParsedFile (gitnexus-shared/src/scope-resolution/parsed-file.ts) is the single per-file artifact the scope-resolution pipeline consumes. Scope-resolution passes MUST NOT build a parallel parse representation. If a per-language hook needs AST-level facts that ParsedFile doesn't expose, it should reuse the orchestrator's treeCache (RunScopeResolutionInput.treeCache) rather than re-invoking parser.parse(...) on its own — the C# populateNamespaceSiblings hook is the reference implementation of this pattern.

The scope-resolution pipeline additionally carries WorkspaceResolutionIndex for Scope-valued lookups (classScopeByDefId, moduleScopeByFile) that SemanticModel structurally cannot hold. No symbol-indexed duplicates exist outside SemanticModel.

Write / read phase contract. The model is mutable during three ordered phases and read-only afterward:

 Phase 1: parse            ──► symbolTable.add fans into types/methods/fields
 Phase 2: scope-resolution ──► reconcileOwnership() registers corrected ownerIds
 Phase 3: finalize         ──► model.attachScopeIndexes(bundle) — one-shot freeze
 ─────────────────────────── phase boundary ───────────────────────────
 Read phase: all resolution passes + MCP + HTTP + embeddings see
             SemanticModel (read-only handle); writes are type-errors.

runScopeResolution narrows MutableSemanticModel → SemanticModel at the phase boundary so downstream passes physically cannot mutate the model even accidentally.

Reconciliation pass. reconcileOwnership (scope-resolution/pipeline/reconcile-ownership.ts) is a shim for languages whose parse-time extractor doesn't resolve enclosingClassId at parse time (Python class-body methods are the canonical case). It walks parsed.localDefs[i].ownerId after populateOwners and registers any missed methods/fields into the model. Idempotent — safe to re-run, safe alongside languages whose extractor already carries ownerId (C#).

The architectural end state is for every language's parse-time extractor to emit the correct ownerId directly, making reconciliation a no-op (tracked as a follow-up refactor). The dev-mode validator validateOwnershipParity surfaces any drift via onWarn under NODE_ENV !== 'production' && VALIDATE_SEMANTIC_MODEL !== '0'.

References: semantic-model.ts file-head (full write/read contract); contract/scope-resolver.ts Contract Invariant I9 (scope-resolution-side rule).

Scope-Resolution Pipeline (RFC #909 Ring 3)

Language-agnostic scope-resolution resolver. This is the resolution path for every language — it owns CALLS/ACCESSES/USES emission and inheritance edges. Adding a language is one interface implementation (ScopeResolver) plus one registration in the SCOPE_RESOLVERS map — no changes to shared code, no new pipeline phase. (RING4-1 #942 removed the legacy call-resolution DAG and the per-language MIGRATED_LANGUAGES flag, so SCOPE_RESOLVERS registration is all that's needed.)

Pipeline stages

 ParsedFile[]  (extractParsedFile per file)
    │  finalizeScopeModel (+ provider hooks)
    ▼
 ScopeResolutionIndexes
    │  resolveReferenceSites  (via MethodRegistry.lookup)
    ▼
 ReferenceIndex
    │  emitReceiverBoundCalls  ── FIRST
    │  emitFreeCallFallback    ── THEN
    │  emitReferencesViaLookup ── uses handledSites + deferred-site skip set
    │  emitPropertyDispatchCalls ── registration USES + conservative CALLS
    │  emitCallableValueFlow   ── assigned/passed callable invocation CALLS
    │  emitImportEdges
    ▼
 KnowledgeGraph  (IMPORTS / CALLS / ACCESSES / INHERITS / USES)

Orchestrator: runScopeResolution(input, provider) in scope-resolution/pipeline/run.ts. Pipeline phase: scopeResolutionPhase in scope-resolution/pipeline/phase.ts — iterates the registered SCOPE_RESOLVERS over the worker-serialized ParsedFiles. (Per-language emitScopeCaptures hooks may reuse a cached Tree via the orchestrator's treeCache, but in worker-pool runs that cache is empty — Trees can't cross MessageChannels — so they consume the pre-extracted ParsedFile instead; § Performance notes.)

Callable-value flow

First-class callable values use a language-neutral inclusion analysis in passes/callable-value-flow.ts. Providers recognize their own syntax and emit JSON-safe CallableFlowSite facts (seed, copy, alias, address, load, store, formal, argument, and invoke) into ParsedFile; shared ingestion never branches on a language name. These always-on facts cross workers and the durable parse store, whose schema is bumped whenever their semantic shape changes.

The emit stage defers only invocation sites proven to reference a flow cell. Ordinary receiver/free/reference passes still resolve direct callees first and record exact callee IDs by file/line/column. Property dispatch then runs before callable flow because a property-dispatched wrapper call can seed actual-to-formal propagation. The callable solver consumes those direct targets, propagates callable sets through lexical cells and formals, and emits CALLS at the real indirect invocation site with reason callable-value-flow (confidence 0.8 for a singleton, 0.7 for a bounded multi-target set).

The solver is flow-insensitive but bounded: dependency-indexed work items rerun only when a cell they read changes; target/address sets cap at 32; a hostile fact graph has a finite work budget; overflow or budget exhaustion emits no partial CALLS and produces a structured warning. Lexical shadowing is function/block aware, invocation/constructor results are not reinterpreted as callable designators, and overload selection uses provider-supplied signature metadata. C/C++ additionally associate visible prototypes with unique definitions so actual-to-formal flow crosses translation units; the provider-owned hasFileLocalCallableLinkage hook prevents static declarations or definitions from leaking across files. C++ member-function pointers preserve parameter/cv shape, keep non-virtual targets exact, and expand virtual targets through MethodDispatchIndex/MRO.

Property-key dispatch remains a separate conservative fallback. Its per-key fan-out cap is 32; capped keys synthesize no partial calls and are reported at warning level with language, skipped-key count, dropped key names (bounded), and cap; the count also travels in RunScopeResolutionStats.propertyDispatchSkippedKeys.

Standalone (regex-based) providers such as COBOL participate via ScopeResolver.scopeResolutionEdgeMode: 'callable-flow-only': runScopeResolution runs for them, but every ordinary emission path — heritage, interface implementations, receiver-bound, free-call fallback, reference/import edges, post-resolution hooks — is gated off, so their legacy phase (e.g. cobolPhase) remains the sole owner of structural edges and the callable solver's CALLS are purely additive. A callable-flow-only provider whose files emitted no callable facts exits early, before finalize, keeping the opt-in proportional to source scanning.

Optional CFG/PDG emission (--pdg, #2081–#2086)

On a --pdg run the parse worker builds a per-function control-flow graph from the tree-sitter AST (LanguageProvider.cfgVisitor; TypeScript/JavaScript today) and serializes it onto ParsedFile.cfgSideChannel as plain data. Scope-resolution then emits the program-dependence layers from that side-channel inside Phase 4 of runScopeResolution, while the disk-backed ParsedFile store is still live — the only window where the worker-built CFGs are loaded (the store is cleared right after the phase returns). A standalone post-mro phase would read an empty store, so the emit deliberately lives in-phase, mirroring the applyCaptureSideChannel pattern. The opt-in is off by default (graph byte-identical), folded into the parse-cache key (a pdg-off warm cache is never reused on a --pdg run), and each layer is bounded by a per-function edge cap that logs any dropped edges. All layers are BasicBlock → BasicBlock edges in the single CodeRelation table, keyed by type; there is no Function → BasicBlock edge — the symbol↔block join is reconstructed from the BasicBlock id prefix + line span. The layers build on each other:

  • M1 — CFG (#2081): BasicBlock nodes + CFG edges. Edge kind (seq/cond-true/loop-back/…) rides the reason column (CFG is one CodeRelation type, not one per kind).
  • M2 — REACHING_DEF (#2082): GEN/KILL def→use data dependence from a pure fixpoint solver; the variable name rides reason.
  • M3/M4 — TAINTED / SANITIZES / TAINT_PATH (#2083–#2084): intra- and inter-procedural taint (source→sink) — the explain tool's data.
  • M5 — CDG (#2085): Ferrante control dependence over a Cooper–Harvey–Kennedy post-dominator tree (the EXIT-rooted reverse CFG); branch sense ('T'/'F') rides reason. A CFG whose EXIT is unreachable from some block is skipped for CDG (post-dominance would be unsound) while its CFG/REACHING_DEF layers are kept.
  • M6 — read surface (#2086): the pdg_query MCP tool answers "what gates X?" (CDG, mode: controls) and "where does Y flow?" (REACHING_DEF, mode: flows); explain is the taint consumer. Both are always anchored + LIMIT-bounded (LadybugDB has no rel-property index) and share one resolveBlockAnchor helper. These PDG edge types are deliberately kept out of the default VALID_RELATION_TYPES / web schema.
  • Cross-repo trace enrichment: group-mode trace (pdg: true) reuses the same anchored REACHING_DEF flows query to annotate a boundary-adjacent segment with how a value reaches the cross-repo call — strictly intra-procedural (data flow never crosses the repo boundary). See the group-aware tools note above.

See core/ingestion/cfg/ (emit + the pure CFG / post-dominator / control-dependence / reaching-defs / taint passes) and mcp/local/local-backend.ts (_pdgQueryImpl, _explainImpl, the shared resolveBlockAnchor).

ScopeResolver contract

Single interface a language implements to plug into the pipeline. Contract fully documented in scope-resolution/contract/scope-resolver.ts.

Hook Purpose
languageProvider Base LanguageProvider (tree-sitter query, emitScopeCaptures, import/binding interpreters, hooks)
populateOwners(parsed) Fill deferred ownerId fields on method defs (captures can't always know the owning class at parse time)
buildMro(graph, parsed, nodeLookup) Produce mroByClassDefId: Map<DefId, DefId[]> — C3, Ruby-mixin, or first-wins per language
resolveImportTarget(target, fromFile, allFiles) (rawImportPath, sourceFile) → targetFilePath (PEP-328 for Python, etc.)
mergeBindings(existing, incoming, scopeId) Shadowing / LEGB precedence
arityCompatibility Provider consumed by registry during MethodRegistry.lookup Step 2
importEdgeReason Confidence-tier string for IMPORTS edge reason field
propagatesReturnTypesAcrossImports? Opt out of cross-file return-type propagation (default on)
fieldFallbackOnMethodLookup? Statically-typed languages turn this OFF — the heuristic over-connects (default on)
unwrapCollectionAccessor? Property-style collection views (data.Values on Dictionary-like receivers) — default off
collapseMemberCallsByCallerTarget? One CALLS edge per (caller, target) instead of per-site — default off
populateNamespaceSiblings? Cross-file implicit visibility (compiler-implicit namespace sharing) — default off; ctx carries treeCache
hoistTypeBindingsToModule? Walk up to Module scope when looking up a method's return-type typeBinding — default off; enable only when bindings are stored at module level
hasFileLocalCallableLinkage? Precise internal-linkage predicate used only when joining callable declarations/prototypes to cross-file definitions; C/C++ use it for static free functions

Per-language registration

  1. Implement ScopeResolver in languages/<lang>/scope-resolver.ts.
  2. Add entry to SCOPE_RESOLVERS in scope-resolution/pipeline/registry.ts.

CI auto-discovers the set via tsx. No workflow edit required.

Code references

Module Purpose
scope-resolution/contract/scope-resolver.ts ScopeResolver interface + shared types
scope-resolution/pipeline/run.ts Generic orchestrator
scope-resolution/pipeline/phase.ts Pipeline-phase wrapper (deps: parse, structure)
scope-resolution/pipeline/registry.ts SCOPE_RESOLVERS map
scope-resolution/passes/*.ts Reference-resolution passes (receiver-bound, free-call fallback, compound-receiver, MRO, cross-file return-type propagation)
scope-resolution/graph-bridge/*.ts CLI-local translation from resolved references → KnowledgeGraph edges
scope-resolution/scope/*.ts Generic scope-chain walkers + namespace targets
scope-resolution/workspace-index.ts Build-once O(1) lookup index
languages/python/index.ts Python ScopeResolver hooks + known-limitation docs
languages/python/captures.ts emitPythonScopeCaptures (honors cross-phase Tree cache)
languages/csharp/index.ts C# ScopeResolver hooks + known-limitation docs
languages/csharp/captures.ts emitCsharpScopeCaptures (honors cross-phase Tree cache)
languages/csharp/namespace-siblings.ts Cross-file implicit-namespace visibility hook (reads treeCache)

Performance notes

  • Cross-phase Tree cache: the orchestrator's treeCache (RunScopeResolutionInput.treeCache) lets a scope-resolution per-language hook (emitScopeCaptures) reuse a tree instead of re-parsing. Workers leave it empty — Trees can't cross MessageChannels — so in normal (worker-pool) runs scope-resolution does NOT rely on it: workers serialize each file's ParsedFile (+ capture side-channel) and stream them in, so scope-resolution consumes the pre-extracted artifact rather than re-parsing on the main thread (§ Chunked parse-and-resolve). PROF_SCOPE_RESOLUTION=1 emits hit/miss counters and a worker-engaged warning.
  • Typed relationship iteration: heritage + MRO walk only the EXTENDS / IMPLEMENTS / HAS_METHOD edges via iterRelationshipsByType, not the full relationship map.
  • Workspace-resolution-index: O(1) findOwnedMember / findExportedDef / classScopeByDefId built once per run.
  • Callable-value worklist: dependency-indexed inclusion propagation is linear in a reverse-ordered copy-chain fixture; target/address sets cap at 32 and the whole worklist has a finite budget with no partial edge emission on exhaustion.
  • SCC-ordered cross-file return-type propagation (PR #1050): propagateImportedReturnTypes walks indexes.sccs in reverse-topological order (leaves first), so multi-hop alias chains like models.User → service.user → app.user collapse to the terminal class in a single linear pass. Within each importer, the source module's typeBindings is chain-followed BEFORE mirroring (so we mirror terminal types, not intermediate refs), and the importer's own typeBindings is chain-followed AFTER mirroring (so local const x = importedFn() resolves before downstream importers run). Cyclic SCCs reach a partial fixpoint within a single pass without iterating to convergence — see the ts-circular cross-file-binding fixture which only asserts pipeline-no-throw. PROF output (PROF_SCOPE_RESOLUTION=1) splits finalize from propagate so quadratic regressions in the chain-follow surface independently.

Language-agnostic graph feeding

16 languages → single unified graph. Four abstraction layers:

 Unified Graph Schema (44 node types, 21 relationship types)
           ↑
 Scope-Resolution Pipeline (registry lookup + 3-tier import resolution + MRO)
           ↑
 Language Providers (import semantics, type config, export checker, MRO strategy)
           ↑
 Tree-Sitter Queries (per-language S-expressions, unified capture tags)

Language providers

Each language implements LanguageProvider (language-provider.ts). Key fields:

Field Purpose
id, extensions Language identity and file matching
treeSitterQueries S-expression queries for AST extraction
importSemantics named / wildcard-leaf / wildcard-transitive / namespace
importResolver Language-specific path → file resolution
exportChecker Public/exported symbol detection
typeConfig Type annotation extraction rules
mroStrategy first-wins / c3 / none
descriptionExtractor Optional hook returning a symbol's doc-comment text as its description; feeds the embedding metadata header so doc-only terms are semantically searchable (issue #2270). Most languages register createLeadingDocDescriptionExtractor (shared, language-neutral; per-language comment/wrapper config passed at the call site)

16 providers in languages/index.ts via satisfies Record<SupportedLanguages, LanguageProvider> — missing a language is a compile error.

Unified capture tags

Per-language tree-sitter queries use different AST node names but produce the same semantic capture tags: @definition.class, @definition.function, @call.name, @import.source, @reference.inherits. Downstream extraction needs no language branching. Defined in tree-sitter-queries.ts.

Import resolution

Per-language import resolution uses the configs + factory pattern (like call/method/class extractors). Each language declares an ImportResolutionConfig in import-resolvers/configs/, listing an ordered chain of ImportResolverStrategy functions. createImportResolver() (in resolver-factory.ts) composes them: first non-null result wins. Low-level helpers shared across strategies live alongside the configs in import-resolvers/ (e.g. go.ts, rust.ts, python.ts).

Unified 3-tier algorithm (model/resolution-context.ts), per-language importSemantics controls which tier activates:

Tier Confidence Mechanism
1 — same-file 0.95 Symbol table for caller's file
2 — import-scoped 0.9 NamedImportMap chains (named) or all files in importMap (wildcard)
3 — global 0.5 O(1) index lookups: class, impl, callable. Fallback only
Import strategy Languages Behavior
named TS, JS, Java, C#, Rust, PHP, Kotlin Only explicitly imported names visible
wildcard-leaf Go, Ruby, Swift, Dart Whole-package import, no transitive re-exports
wildcard-transitive C, C++ #include closure chains through re-exports
namespace Python Module aliases resolved at call site

Chunked parse-and-resolve

parse processes files in ~20 MB byte-budget chunks to bound memory. Per chunk:

  1. Worker pool dispatches files (the sole parse path — there is no sequential fallback; skipWorkers, --workers 0, and GITNEXUS_WORKER_POOL_SIZE=0 are rejected with an actionable error)
  2. Each worker: detect language → load grammar → run queries → return unified ParseWorkerResult
  3. Synthesize wildcard bindings (wildcard-synthesis.ts)
  4. Resolve imports
  5. Collect BindingAccumulator entries for cross-file propagation

Inheritance edges are emitted later, by the scope-resolution phase (preEmitInheritanceEdges + emitHeritageEdges), not during parse.

Workers: workers/worker-pool.ts, workers/parse-worker.ts.

Worker-serialized ParsedFiles (#2038). To index very large repos (e.g. the Linux kernel) without OOM, the worker pool is the sole parse path and workers serialize each file's ParsedFile (plus its capture side-channel) in parallel, streaming them to scope-resolution through a disk-backed store. Scope-resolution consumes the pre-extracted artifact instead of re-parsing every file on the main thread — tree-sitter's native input buffers are not GC-reclaimable, so the former main-thread re-parse leaked native memory until the process died. Pool creation is lazy / cache-miss-gated, so a warm all-cache-hit run replays cached worker output without spawning a worker (hence usedWorkerPool can be false even when the repo has parseable files).

Inheritance and MRO

Inheritance is captured by the @reference.inherits tag and emitted by the scope-resolution phase: preEmitInheritanceEdges resolves each base in scope, then emitHeritageEdges writes the EXTENDS/IMPLEMENTS edges. The phase then computes method resolution order via each ScopeResolver's buildMro hook, feeding a MethodDispatchIndex used for owner-scoped lookups. Per-language strategy:

  • first-wins — Java, C#, C++, TS, Ruby, Go
  • c3 — Python (C3 linearization)
  • ruby-mixin — Ruby (mixin-aware linearization)
  • none — single-inheritance languages

Full analysis flow

runFullAnalysis in run-analyze.ts orchestrates everything around the pipeline:

CLI (analyze.ts) → runFullAnalysis(repoPath, options, callbacks)
  1. Early exit if lastCommit == HEAD (unless --force)     [0%]
  2. Cache existing embeddings from prior index             [0%]
  3. runPipelineFromRepo() → KnowledgeGraph                [0-60%]
  4. Clean up legacy KuzuDB files                          [60%]
  5. initLbug() → loadGraphToLbug() via CSV streaming      [60-85%]
  6. Create FTS indexes (File, Function, Class, Method...) [85-90%]
  7. Restore cached embeddings (batch insert)              [88%]
  8. Generate new embeddings if --embeddings               [90-98%]
  9. Save metadata + register repo + update .gitignore     [98-100%]
 10. Generate AI context files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md)      [100%]

Options: --force (rebuild regardless), --embeddings (opt-in, skipped if >50k nodes), --skipGit, --noStats.

Storage

<repo>/.gitnexus/
  ├── lbug           # LadybugDB database
  ├── lbug.wal       # Write-ahead log
  ├── lbug.shadow    # Shadow sidecar (checkpoint staging)
  ├── lbug.lock      # Single-writer lock
  ├── lbug.{wal,shadow}.dirty-recovery  # parked sidecars from a crashed run; safe to delete
  ├── gitnexus.json  # lastCommit, indexedAt, stats (primary metadata file)
  └── meta.json      # legacy mirror of gitnexus.json, kept in sync (see MIGRATION.md)

~/.gitnexus/
  └── registry.json  # Global repo registry (MCP discovery)

Managed by repo-manager.ts.

LadybugDB schema

Defined in lbug/schema.ts. Separate node tables per type, single CodeRelation table.

Node tables: File, Folder, Function, Class, Interface, Method, Constructor, CodeElement, Struct, Enum, Macro, Typedef, Union, Namespace, Trait, Impl, TypeAlias, Const, Static, Property, Record, Delegate, Annotation, Template, Module, Community, Process, Route, Tool, Section, Embedding.

Relation types (CodeRelation.type): CONTAINS, DEFINES, CALLS, IMPORTS, EXTENDS, IMPLEMENTS, HAS_METHOD, HAS_PROPERTY, ACCESSES, METHOD_OVERRIDES, METHOD_IMPLEMENTS, MEMBER_OF, STEP_IN_PROCESS, HANDLES_ROUTE, FETCHES, HANDLES_TOOL, ENTRY_POINT_OF.

Optional --pdg additions (off by default, opt-in via gitnexus analyze --pdg; see Optional CFG/PDG emission above): a BasicBlock node table, plus the PDG relation types CFG, REACHING_DEF, CDG, TAINTED, SANITIZES, and TAINT_PATH on the same CodeRelation table. These are deliberately kept out of the default VALID_RELATION_TYPES / web graph schema — query them via cypher, explain, or pdg_query.

Embeddings and search

Embeddings (src/core/embeddings/): Snowflake arctic-embed-xs (384D). Embeddable: File, Function, Class, Method, Interface. Incremental via SHA1 content hash. Separate Embedding table.

Search (src/core/search/): Hybrid BM25 + semantic vector, merged via Reciprocal Rank Fusion (K=60).

Known limitations

Overloaded method resolution

Node IDs use arity suffix (#<paramCount>): Method:file:Class.method#1 vs #2.

Same-arity disambiguation: type-hash suffix ~type1,type2 when collision detected and type annotations present. Languages without types (Python, Ruby, JS) use arity-only. TS/JS overload signatures excluded (collapse to implementation body). See #651.

C++ const-qualified: $const suffix after type-hash when non-const collision exists: Method:file:Container.begin#0$const.

Generic/template types: type-hash uses rawType (full AST text including generics): ~vector<int> vs ~vector<std::string>.

ID stability: collision-only tags mean IDs change when overloads are added. save#1 becomes save#1~int when save(String) is added.

Variadic matching: confidence 0.7 when one side is variadic and the other has fixed count.

METHOD_IMPLEMENTS confidence tiering:

Match quality Confidence
Exact parameter types match 1.0
Arity match, types unavailable 1.0
Variadic vs fixed 0.7
Insufficient info 0.7

Related docs

  • MIGRATION.md — breaking changes and migration guidance
  • RUNBOOK.md — operational commands and recovery
  • GUARDRAILS.md — safety boundaries for humans and agents
  • TESTING.md — how to run tests
  • AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md — agent workflows and tool usage