Context Tools

Context tools retrieve ranked, token-budgeted information from the knowledge graph. They are the primary entry point for understanding code and notes before reading source files.

code_context

Code-only Personalized PageRank. It does not return notes, tags, or wikilinks. Use it for the symbols around a function or class. brain_context is the code-plus-notes walk.

A seed may be a symbol name, a sym: UID, or a repo-relative file path. The engine expands a path to the symbols in that file. A question belongs on investigate.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
seeds	string[]	Yes	Symbol names, sym: UIDs, or one repo-relative file path.
limit	integer	No	Maximum connected symbols to return. Default 500. Maximum 5000. The response reports when it truncates.
intent	string	No	find-definition, understand-architecture, analyze-impact, general-context, or project-context, plus their short aliases. Omit for the standard damping.

brain_context

Retrieve PPR-ranked structural context from the knowledge graph, seeded by symbol names, note titles, or keywords. Returns mixed-kind results (Symbol, Note, Section, Tag, Heading) within a token budget.

Use brain_context as the primary entry point for understanding a topic. Seed with specific names (e.g. AuthService.validate), not broad terms. Filter with repos, tags, path_prefix, and kinds for precision.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
seeds	string[]	Yes	One or more seed strings to anchor the PPR walk. Accepts note titles, tag names (with or without #), symbol names, free-text terms, or UIDs (sym:, note:, head:, sec:, tag:).
token_budget	integer	No	Approximate cap on the connected list (chars / 4). Default 2000.
response_format	string	No	"concise" returns names and relationships only; "detailed" (default) adds file paths, relevance scores, and UIDs.
repos	string[]	No	Filter to specific repo UIDs or names (post-PPR).
vaults	string[]	No	Filter to specific vault UIDs or names (post-PPR).
kinds	string[]	No	Include only nodes with these kind prefixes (e.g. Symbol, Note, Section). Case-insensitive prefix match.
path_prefix	string	No	Include only nodes whose file path starts with this prefix.
tags	string[]	No	Include only notes and sections with these tags. Symbol nodes have no tags and are dropped.
exclude_tags	string[]	No	Exclude nodes tagged with any of these tags.
weight_ppr	number	No	PPR ranking weight. Omitted calls use 0.40.
weight_bm25	number	No	BM25 weight. Omitted calls use 0.25.
weight_semantic	number	No	Semantic weight. The stored default is 0.35. The semantic leg is skipped until nestweaver embed has written vectors.
since	string	No	ISO 8601 timestamp. Only return Note/Section nodes modified after this time. Symbol nodes always kept.
recency_weight	number	No	Multiplier for age-decay boost. 0 = disabled (default). 1.0 = same-day node ranks ~2x a year-old node.
recency_half_life_days	number	No	Half-life for age-decay in days. Default 30.
intent	string	No	Query intent hint: "find-definition", "understand-architecture", "analyze-impact", or "general-context". Adjusts ranking strategy.
include_seeds	boolean	No	When true, include the full seeds array in the response. Default false.
include_bodies	boolean	No	When true, embed high-relevance result source bodies inline under inline_body. Only results clearing the relevance threshold (default 0.75) get a body. Default false.
root	string	No	Filesystem root for resolving source spans for inline bodies. Only relevant with include_bodies=true.
prf	boolean	No	When true, run pseudo-relevance-feedback query expansion on the BM25 leg. Improves recall on natural-language seeds. Default false.
rerank	boolean	No	When true, rerank top-N candidates before truncation. Default false.

Token efficiency

Filter aggressively with repos, tags, path_prefix, and kinds to reduce noise. Use response_format: "concise" when scanning results, and switch to "detailed" only when you need UIDs for follow-up queries.

brain_search

Find notes, headings, sections, tags, and code symbols by keyword or phrase using BM25 full-text search.

Use brain_search for keyword or phrase lookup. For structural context (“what’s connected to X”), use brain_context instead.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
query	string	Yes	Free-text query. Natural language works. Example: "database migration" or "AuthService".
limit	integer	No	Maximum results to return. Default 20.
response_format	string	No	"concise" returns note titles and kinds only; "detailed" (default) adds section text excerpts, BM25 scores, and vault UIDs.
include_bodies	boolean	No	When true (detailed mode only), embed high-relevance hit source bodies inline. Default false.
root	string	No	Filesystem root for reading source spans. Only relevant with include_bodies=true.
prf	boolean	No	When true, run pseudo-relevance-feedback query expansion. Default false.
rerank	boolean	No	When true (detailed mode only), rerank top-N hits before truncation. Default false.

project_context

Retrieve all context for a named project: notes, symbols, and sections ranked by PPR within the project’s subgraph, bounded by token budget.

Use when you know the project name. For ad-hoc topics, use brain_context with seeds instead.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
project	string	Yes	Project name (e.g. "AuthService"), alias, or UID.
token_budget	integer	No	Approximate token cap. Omitted calls follow response_format: about 1000 for concise (the default) and about 3000 for detailed.
kinds	string[]	No	Filter result kinds: "Symbol" for code, "Note" for documents. Case-insensitive prefix match.
include_components	boolean	No	For composite projects, include content from component sub-projects. Default true.
since	string	No	ISO 8601 timestamp. Only return Note/Section nodes modified after this time.
recency_weight	number	No	Multiplier for age-decay boost. Default 0.0 (disabled).
recency_half_life_days	number	No	Half-life for age-decay in days. Default 30.
include_seeds	boolean	No	When true, include the full seeds array in the response. Default false.
intent	string	No	Query intent hint: "find-definition", "understand-architecture" (default for project_context), "analyze-impact", or "general-context".

get_summary

Generate deterministic architectural summaries at three granularity levels: symbol, file, or cluster. Derived from graph data without an LLM.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
level	string	No	Summary granularity: "symbol" (per-function/class), "file" (per-file exports, default), or "cluster" (per-community architecture).
target	string	No	Filter by file path, symbol name, or cluster name substring. Only matching summaries are returned.
token_budget	integer	No	Approximate token cap. Default unlimited.

brain_status

Show what knowledge sources are indexed: vault/repo counts, note/tag/wikilink totals, staleness warnings, and search engine availability.

No parameters required. Call at session start to verify expected vaults and repos are loaded.

brain_guide

Generate a comprehensive orientation guide covering all indexed repos, vaults, cross-repo relationships, and available tools.

No parameters required. Call at session start for a read-once overview before issuing specific queries. Can be expensive on large graphs; prefer brain_status for lightweight session initialization.

brain_diff

Show what changed since the graph was last indexed: files added, modified, or deleted, plus affected symbols. Works with locally-indexed repos only.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
repo	string	Yes	Repo name or substring of its URL (e.g. "nestweaver"). Matched against indexed repos.
since_sha	string	No	Git SHA to compare against. Defaults to the repo’s indexed SHA.
limit	integer	No	Max affected symbols to return (default 50). Total count is always reported.