Symbols MCP server

symbols

A fast, polyglot source code intelligence CLI. Extract symbols, parse imports, trace dependencies, and analyze impact — all from the command line.

No language server required. No build step for your projects. Just point it at your code.

Table of contents

• Why this exists
• How it saves context
• What it does
• Install
• Language support
• Usage
• Symbol extraction
• Import parsing
• Dependency queries
• Impact analysis
• Project graph summary
• JSON output

Why this exists

symbols is for the moments when you need to understand a codebase quickly without opening 30 files first.

Common pain points it targets:

• You are about to change a file and need to know blast radius immediately.
• You are onboarding to an unfamiliar repo and need a map, not a scavenger hunt.
• You are reviewing a PR and want concrete dependency and ownership signals.
• You are using AI coding tools and need reliable, structured project context on demand.

Instead of manually reconstructing context from editor tabs, grep output, and memory, symbols gives you the structural view in one step.

How it saves context

symbols saves context in two practical ways:

1. It externalizes code structure into fast, repeatable queries (list, deps, dependents, impact, graph, search) so you do not have to rebuild mental maps every session.
2. It exposes the same model through MCP (syms mcp) so agents and tools can fetch fresh project facts directly, rather than relying on stale chat history or guessed file relationships.

Net effect:

• less re-reading
• fewer "what will this break?" surprises
• faster onboarding and safer refactors
• more useful AI assistance because context is retrieved, not improvised
• lower cost from fewer exploratory engineering cycles and reduced AI token spend on repo re-discovery

What it does

syms list server.py           # functions, classes, constants, variables
syms imports server.py        # parsed import statements
syms deps server.py           # files this file imports from
syms dependents server.py     # files that import this file
syms impact server.py         # full impact analysis (direct + transitive)
syms graph .                  # project-wide dependency summary
syms search User              # find symbols by name across a project
syms mcp                      # run as MCP server for AI tools

Install

Option 1: Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Jordan-Horner/symbols.git
cd symbols
go build -o syms .
sudo mv syms /usr/local/bin/

Requirements: Go 1.26+

Option 2: Direct installation (Linux/macOS)

# Install directly to /usr/local/bin
curl -L https://github.com/Jordan-Horner/symbols/releases/latest/download/syms-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o /usr/local/bin/syms
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/syms

Option 3: Homebrew (macOS)

brew tap Jordan-Horner/tap
brew install syms

Verify installation

syms --version

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.