SocratiCode

Quick Start

Only Docker (running) required.

One-click install — Claude Code, VS Code and Cursor:

All MCP hosts — add the following to your mcpServers (Claude Desktop, Windsurf, Cline, Roo Code) or servers (VS Code project-local .vscode/mcp.json) config:

"socraticode": {
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "socraticode"]
}

Claude Code — install the plugin (recommended, includes workflow skills for best results):

From your shell:

claude plugin marketplace add giancarloerra/socraticode
claude plugin install socraticode@socraticode

Or from within Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add giancarloerra/socraticode
/plugin install socraticode@socraticode

Auto-updates: After installing, enable automatic updates by opening /plugin → Marketplaces → select socraticode → Enable auto-update.

Or as MCP only (without skills):

claude mcp add socraticode -- npx -y socraticode

Updating: npx caches the package after the first run. To get the latest version, clear the cache and restart your MCP host: rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx && claude mcp restart socraticode. Alternatively, use npx -y socraticode@latest in your config to always check for updates on startup (slightly slower).

OpenCode — add to your opencode.json (or opencode.jsonc):

{
  "mcp": {
    "socraticode": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "-y", "socraticode"],
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

OpenAI Codex CLI — add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.socraticode]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "socraticode"]

Restart your host. On first use SocratiCode automatically pulls Docker images, starts its own Qdrant and Ollama containers, and downloads the embedding model — one-time setup, ~5 minutes depending on your connection. After that, it starts in seconds.

First time on a project — ask your AI: "Index this codebase". Indexing runs in the background; ask "What is the codebase index status?" to monitor progress. Depending on codebase size and whether you're using GPU-accelerated Ollama or cloud embeddings, first-time indexing can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes (it takes under 10 minutes to first-index +3 million lines of code on a Macbook Pro M4). Once complete it doesn't need to be run again, you can search, explore the dependency graph, and query context artifacts.

Every time after that — just use the tools (search, graph, etc.). On server startup SocratiCode automatically detects previously indexed projects, restarts the file watcher, and runs an incremental update to catch any changes made while the server was down. If indexing was interrupted, it resumes automatically from the last checkpoint. You can also explicitly start or restart the watcher with codebase_watch { action: "start" }.

macOS / Windows on large codebases: Docker containers can't use the GPU. For medium-to-large repos, install native Ollama (auto-detected, no config change needed) for Metal/CUDA acceleration, or use OpenAI embeddings for speed without a local install. Full details.

Recommended: For best results, add the Agent Instructions to your AI assistant's system prompt or project instructions file (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, etc.). The key principle — search before reading — helps your AI use SocratiCode's tools effectively and avoid unnecessary file reads.

Claude Code users: If you installed the SocratiCode plugin, the Agent Instructions are included automatically as skills — no need to add them to your CLAUDE.md. The plugin also bundles the MCP server, so you don't need a separate claude mcp add.

Advanced: cloud embeddings (OpenAI / Google), external Qdrant, remote Ollama, native Ollama, and dozens of tuning optio