Quickstart

jarvis gives your coding agent structural code intelligence — go-to-definition, find-references, call/type hierarchy, and search — computed locally from your own repositories, so it can ask who calls this? or where is this defined? instead of guessing from grep. Everything runs on your machine (macOS or Linux); nothing is uploaded.

Before you install, check your language is supported — navigation tools cover four language families, and every other language gets search only.

Choose your install path:

setup.sh installs the SCIP fork, Zoekt, and the language indexers into ~/.jarvis/bin:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index/main/setup.sh | sh

setup.sh is idempotent — re-running it skips whatever is already installed. Use --force to reinstall everything, or --only <name> to retry one dependency.

Install directly from your agent’s plugin marketplace:

# Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index
/plugin install jarvis@jarvis

# Codex CLI
codex plugin marketplace add jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index

For Cursor: open Settings → Plugins → search “jarvis” → Install.

uv tool install --python 3.13 jarvis-mcp

Requires uv on PATH. This is also the fix for the uvx cold-start timeout you’d otherwise hit in Step 4 — uv tool install builds and caches the wheel once.

Step 1: Install the external binaries

setup.sh installs the SCIP fork, Zoekt, and the language indexers into ~/.jarvis/bin:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index/main/setup.sh | sh

setup.sh is idempotent — re-running it skips whatever is already installed. Use --force to reinstall everything, or --only <name> to retry one dependency.

You’ll know it works when…

summary
  scip             ok
  zoekt            ok
  scip-swift       ok
  scip-typescript  ok
  scip-python      ok
  scip-java        ok

You’ll know it broke when…

summary
  scip             FAILED
  zoekt            ok
  scip-swift       ok
  scip-typescript  ok
  scip-python      ok
  scip-java        ok

Re-run just the failed dependency: sh ./setup.sh --only scip --force. If a binary installs but your shell still can’t find it, that’s a PATH issue — see PATH troubleshooting.

Step 2: Install the CLI and MCP server

uv tool install --python 3.13 jarvis-mcp

The --python 3.13 pin is deliberate: on a machine with no Python at all, uv tool install fetches its own interpreter and can resolve an older jarvis-mcp for it (observed: 0.5.1 on a fresh 3.12-only environment — below the >=0.6.0 registration floor). Pinning 3.13 always resolves the current release.

This puts jarvis and jarvis-server on PATH, and it’s also the fix for the uvx cold-start timeout you’d otherwise hit in Step 4 — uv tool install builds and caches the wheel once, so later uvx calls start in seconds.

See the Install guide for alternatives (pip, uvx ad-hoc).

You’ll know it works when…

$ jarvis --help
usage: jarvis [-h] {index,list,status,reindex,forget,watch} ...
$ command -v jarvis-server
/Users/you/.local/bin/jarvis-server

You’ll know it broke when…

$ jarvis --help
zsh: command not found: jarvis

~/.jarvis/binor uv's tool bin directory isn't onPATH` yet — see PATH troubleshooting.

Step 3: Index a repo

jarvis index /path/to/your/repo

The slug defaults to the directory name. Re-running jarvis index (or jarvis reindex <slug>) against the same repo always re-indexes and republishes atomically — safe to run again any time.

You’ll know it works when…

$ jarvis status <slug>
:indexed

You’ll know it broke when…

jarvis index: error: installed scip 0.8.3 is below the required 0.9.0 — refusing to publish
a zero-chunk index

Below scip 0.9.0, the converter silently writes a schema-valid database with zero chunks and zero mentions — see the scip version-gate entry.

Step 4: Register jarvis with your client

/plugin marketplace add jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index
/plugin install jarvis@jarvis

Full guide: Claude Code.

codex plugin marketplace add https://github.com/jarvis-intelligence/jarvis-index --ref main
codex plugin add jarvis

Full guide: Codex CLI.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jarvis": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "jarvis-mcp>=0.6.0", "jarvis-server"]
    }
  }
}

Full guide: Any stdio client.

Registering jarvis in several clients at once is safe — the stdio transport means each client launches its own jarvis-server process, so there’s no shared state to race on.

You’ll know it works when…

Your client lists the jarvis tools (9 tools) after connecting.

You’ll know it broke when…

The first connect times out. On a cold uv cache and a platform without a prebuilt wheel (macOS and common Linux glibc platforms have wheels — anything else builds jarvis-mcp’s Rust extension from source, 5+ minutes) — see the uvx cold-start entry (Step 2’s uv tool install is the fix).

Step 5: Make your first tool call

Ask your agent to call getIndexStatus:

{ "repo": "toy-repo" }

You’ll know it works when…

{
  "repo": "toy-repo",
  "indexed": true,
  "status": "indexed",
  "commit": "abc1234",
  "generated_at": "2026-07-08T12:00:00+00:00",
  "stale": false,
  "freshness": "fresh",
  "checked_at": "2026-07-08T12:00:05+00:00",
  "searchCoverage": { "expected": 120, "indexed": 120, "complete": true },
  "last_index_run": {
    "outcome": "indexed",
    "origin": "signature",
    "reason": null,
    "recovery": null
  },
  "capabilities": {
    "navigation": { "available": true, "reason": null, "recovery": null },
    "search": { "available": true, "reason": null },
    "semantic": { "available": false, "reason": "semantic index not built for this repo (requires the `semantic` extra)" }
  }
}

Then try a real navigation query — goToDefinition:

{ "repo": "toy-repo", "symbol": "Greeter" }

{
  "symbol": "Greeter",
  "resolvedSymbol": "scip-typescript npm @toy/pkg 0.0.1 src/`greeter.ts`/Greeter#",
  "definitions": [
    {
      "path": "toy/greeter.ts",
      "range": { "start": { "line": 0, "character": 6 }, "end": { "line": 0, "character": 13 } }
    }
  ],
  "commit": "abc1234",
  "generated_at": "2026-07-08T12:00:00+00:00",
  "stale": false,
  "freshness": "fresh",
  "checked_at": "2026-07-08T12:00:05+00:00"
}

You’ll know it broke when…

If symbol is ambiguous, you get a structured candidates list instead of a definition:

{
  "error": "'dup' is ambiguous in toy-repo (2 matches). Retry with a qualifier, e.g. 'a.C.dup'.",
  "candidates": [
    { "symbol": "sym-a", "dottedPath": "a.C.dup", "kind": "METHOD" },
    { "symbol": "sym-b", "dottedPath": "b.D.dup", "kind": "METHOD" }
  ],
  "candidateTotal": 2
}

Retry with a qualified name from candidates (e.g. a.C.dup). For anything else, work through the troubleshooting decision tree.

Watch the cold install

This is a real cold-install run recorded on a fresh, isolated environment (fresh HOME, prerequisites-only PATH), following exactly the steps above — setup.sh, the pinned uv tool install, indexing a tiny repo, and the first getIndexStatus tool call over stdio JSON-RPC. Timings are wall-clock, not edited.

Next steps

Tools — the 9 MCP tools
CLI — the jarvis indexer CLI
Install Channels — PyPI, plugins, and the MCP Registry compared
Concepts — how indexing and search actually work