Code Intelligence

basemind pre-indexes your codebase using tree-sitter, mapping symbols, calls, and imports across 300+ languages. Structural queries resolve in milliseconds and return paths, line numbers, and signatures — not file bodies — so they cost a fraction of the tokens of reading source.

Core tools

outline

Get a file’s complete structure: symbols, signatures, line numbers, and doc comments. Add l2: true to include call sites and embedded documentation.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs",
  "l2": true
}

Returns a table of contents you can scan in seconds instead of reading a thousand-line file. Once you have the exact span, read only that range.

search_symbols

Find symbols by substring across all indexed files. Optionally filter by kind (function, class, type, etc.).

{
  "needle": "process_file",
  "kind": "function"
}

Returns path:line:column and signature for each match. No scope resolution — a substring match is exact.

find_references

Find all call sites of any callee whose identifier matches name. No scope resolution — Foo::bar() and bar() both match name="bar".

{
  "name": "spawn",
  "limit": 50
}

Backed by an indexed call-site table, returns tens of thousands of hits capped by limit (default 100, max 1000).

find_callers

Find callers of a specific definition (path + name + optional kind). First resolves the definition, then returns all callers of that exact symbol.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs",
  "name": "process_file",
  "kind": "function"
}

Combines definition resolution with the same name-based scan as find_references, so results are disambiguated by location.

goto_definition

Resolve a path:line:column reference to its actual definition. Intra-file resolution via tree-sitter locals across 80+ languages; JavaScript/TypeScript additionally get cross-file resolution via oxc scope analysis with --features code-intel-js.

{
  "path": "src/main.rs",
  "line": 42,
  "column": 10
}

call_graph

Walk the call chain up or down from a function, bounded by max_depth and max_nodes. BFS traversal over the indexed call edges.

{
  "name": "query_symbol",
  "direction": "down",
  "max_depth": 3
}

find_implementations

Types that implement or inherit from a given name. Rust impl blocks, Python class inheritance, TypeScript/JavaScript class declarations.

{
  "name": "Iterator"
}

workspace_grep

Pattern search (regex) over file contents, backed by the in-RAM index. Returns capped, structured hits with path, line, and matching text.

{
  "pattern": "TODO:.*urgent",
  "language": "rust",
  "path_contains": "src"
}

Faster than shelling out to ripgrep when you already have the index in memory.

Supporting tools

expand

Fetch a symbol’s raw source body (the inverse of an outline entry). Use this after an outline tells you the exact function to fetch.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs",
  "name": "process_file"
}

list_files

Enumerate all indexed files. Filter by language or path_contains.

{
  "language": "rust",
  "path_contains": "src/extract"
}

dependents

What imports or references a given module. Heuristic reverse-lookup via import statements.

{
  "module": "src/store"
}

status / repo_info

Overview of the indexed repo: file count by language, current branch, HEAD commit, origin URL, on-disk cache size, and index build time.

Discipline

• outline a file before you open it. A 1000-line file becomes a 30-line table of contents. Then read only the exact span you need.
• search_symbols instead of grep for a definition. Returns indexed symbol names and positions, skipping comment/string noise.
• find_references / find_callers instead of grepping call sites. Indexed call edges, not text matches.
• workspace_grep instead of shelling out to ripgrep when you genuinely need regex — it runs over the in-RAM index and returns capped, structured results.
• Do not re-read a file basemind already mapped. If the outline answered the question, stop.
• rescan after you edit code, not a server reconnect. Pass paths: [...] to limit it.

Note

Lists are capped (limit, default 100, max 1000). Index scanners use scan_cap = limit * 8 to bound work on common names.

See also

Git intelligence · Code search · Document search