Git Intelligence

basemind precomputes a per-repo git-history index backed by gix, resolving blame and diffs at symbol resolution. History queries return commits, authors, and paths as structured data in tens of microseconds — a pure accelerator that rebuilds automatically when history changes.

Note

Git tools require basemind serve to be running inside a git repository. The history index auto-builds on first use; if it is fresh (matching HEAD), the tools use it. Otherwise they walk history directly, so results are always current.

Core tools

recent_changes

Recent commits with their affected files and summary lines.

{
  "limit": 10
}

Returns the newest commits first, paths modified in each, and author/message. Useful for “what happened in the last few hours?”

commits_touching

All commits that modified a given path, newest-first.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs"
}

Backed by a posting-list index, resolves in ~37 microseconds on a warm repo with thousands of commits.

find_commits_by_path

Commits matching a path pattern, like glob or prefix matching.

{
  "pattern": "src/extract/**"
}

blame_file

Per-line blame: who last changed each line and in which commit.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs"
}

Returns author, commit hash, and timestamp for every line.

blame_symbol

Blame at symbol resolution: who last changed a specific function, type, or definition, and when its body last changed structurally.

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

diff_file

File contents diff across revisions.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs",
  "old": "HEAD~5",
  "new": "HEAD"
}

diff_outline

Structural diff: which symbols were added, removed, or modified between revisions.

{
  "path": "src/scanner.rs",
  "old": "HEAD~10",
  "new": "HEAD"
}

Shows + function_name, - removed_type, etc., without diffing implementation details.

symbol_history

When a symbol’s body changed over time. Uses structural hashing to track modifications across commits.

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

Returns commits where this symbol’s implementation changed, useful for “when was this function last refactored?”

hot_files

Files ranked by churn frequency. What changes the most?

{
  "limit": 20
}

search_git_history

Full-text search over commit authors and messages across all branches.

{
  "pattern": "fix.*index",
  "field": "message"
}

Search "author", "message", or "all" (default). Useful for “find commits mentioning the schema bump” or “what did Alice commit?”

working_tree_status

What’s staged and unstaged right now — the structured equivalent of git status.

{}

Performance

On a typical repo with 2,000–4,000 commits:

Query	Latency	Notes
commits_touching	~37 µs	Indexed posting-list lookup
recent_changes	~13 µs	Newest-first list scan
Index build	0.5–3.2 s	Depends on commit depth
Index size	6–22 % of .git	Space–time trade-off

The index is a pure accelerator: it rebuilds automatically when history is rewritten (rebase, force-push, filter-repo) and the tools fall back to live history walks if the index is stale.

Discipline

• Prefer these tools over shelling out to git log, git blame, git diff. Structured results cost fewer tokens to parse.
• Use recent_changes instead of parsing git log output. Get commit hashes, paths, and timestamps directly.
• Use blame_file / blame_symbol instead of git blame. Symbol-level blame is more precise than line-level.
• Use diff_outline for structural diffs. Skip implementation details and focus on what symbols changed.
• Use search_git_history for commit message mining. Full-text search over message and author is cheaper than parsing the log.

Note

All paths are repository-relative. Lists are capped (limit, default 100, max 1000).

See also

Code intelligence · Document search