Girder MCP server

Girder

<!-- mcp-name: io.github.dhishwasher/girder -->

Girder gives coding agents exactly the code they need, instead of whole files. It parses your repository into a living semantic graph — functions, definitions, call edges — and answers questions against that graph: exact function source, callers and callees, impact analysis, minimal test selection, and verified graph-addressed edits. It is one static Rust binary that any agent can drive over MCP, plus an optional native IDE.

npx -y girder-mcp setup --dry-run
npx -y girder-mcp setup

Languages: Rust, Python, TypeScript/TSX, and Go. Rust and Python are the most mature; TypeScript and Go are measured and gated, with their limits written down (TypeScript, Go).

Tiers: the free tier is permanent and needs no account — getsource, finddefinition, searchcode, askcodebase, reviewchanges, and orient on a single repository. The impactedtests tool needs a paid license. Keys are verified offline; the binary never phones home.

On the committed 15-task orient measurement, one bundled call per task returned 48,814 output bytes versus 101,302, using 15 calls versus 78 for the equivalent command chain, with 37/37 gated checks passing after the disclosed fixes. See the post-fix observation and limitations. These are output bytes, not tokens, and the baseline is Girder's separate commands.

Install

A prebuilt binary, no Rust toolchain needed:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dhishwasher/Girder/main/install.sh | sh
girder --version

Or from source:

cargo install --path crates/aether-app
girder --help

This builds the default headless profile and installs the girder binary to ~/.cargo/bin (make sure it's on your PATH). No GPU, display, network, or API key is required — the default AI provider is an offline MockProvider. The GUI and live AI providers are opt-in Cargo features not included in a plain install; see The GUI and Local-first AI below.

Windows installer

Each Windows release also includes Girder--setup.exe. It installs for the current user under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Girder, adds Girder to the user PATH, creates a Start Menu shortcut, and does not request administrator access. Open a new terminal after installation so it sees the updated PATH. The installer includes the desktop GUI, and its Start Menu shortcut opens it. The archives and npm installation continue to provide the headless CLI.

The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen will warn on first run. After downloading the installer from the GitHub release, double-click it, choose More info on the “Windows protected your PC” dialog, verify that the app is Girder and the publisher is shown as unknown, then choose Run anyway. If those details do not match, cancel instead.

Search accuracy

Exact-symbol lookup is Girder's strongest search path. Natural-language intent search is experimental: it reached 41.9% top-1 and 77.4% top-5 accuracy on the committed 31-item corpus, below the precommitted 75% and 90% thresholds. See the observation and policy.

Use it from an AI coding agent

girder mcp serves the read-only graph commands over the Model Context Protocol, so an agent can ask about your codebase instead of reading files into its context window.

Preview the changes, then configure detected agents:

npx -y girder-mcp setup --dry-run
npx -y girder-mcp setup

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.