zoekt-mcp

An MCP server that exposes Sourcegraph Zoekt code search to any MCP-capable AI agent — Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, MCP Inspector, etc. — so the agent can run fast, indexed, regex/symbol-aware code search over your repositories regardless of the language you're working in.

• MCP server: Python, built on FastMCP, runs over stdio so clients can spawn it as a subprocess. Published to PyPI, ghcr.io, and listed in the official MCP Registry, so no clone is required to use it.
• Backend: a zoekt-webserver you run yourself via the Docker Compose file attached to every GitHub release — or point the MCP server at any existing zoekt-webserver you have lying around.
• Tools exposed: search_code, list_repos, get_file.

Architecture

flowchart LR
    subgraph Client["MCP client"]
        CC["Claude Code<br/>Claude Desktop<br/>Cursor, etc."]
    end

    subgraph Server["zoekt-mcp (Python)"]
        Tools["search_code<br/>list_repos<br/>get_file"]
    end

    subgraph Backend["Docker: zoekt backend"]
        Web["zoekt-webserver"]
        Idx[("zoekt index<br/>named volume")]
        Indexer["zoekt-indexer<br/>(one-shot)"]
    end

    Code[("Your code<br/>bind mount")]

    CC <-->|"stdio<br/>MCP protocol"| Tools
    Tools <-->|"HTTP JSON<br/>/api/search<br/>/api/list<br/>/print"| Web
    Web --> Idx
    Code --> Indexer
    Indexer --> Idx

How a single search flows through the system

sequenceDiagram
    actor You
    participant Claude as Claude Code
    participant MCP as zoekt-mcp
    participant Web as zoekt-webserver
    participant Idx as zoekt index

    You->>Claude: "where is getVideoId defined?"
    Claude->>MCP: search_code("sym:getVideoId")
    MCP->>Web: POST /api/search
    Web->>Idx: scan shards
    Idx-->>Web: matches + ctags symbols
    Web-->>MCP: raw JSON result
    Note over MCP: trim to {repo, file,<br/>line, text, symbols}
    MCP-->>Claude: shaped result
    Claude-->>You: "src/index.js:17 (function)"

Quickstart

Getting from "nothing installed" to "Claude can search my code" is three steps: install the MCP server, run the backend, wire it into your client. No git clone required in any of them.

Prerequisites

You need exactly one of these to run the MCP server, plus Docker for the backend:

• uv on your PATH — for the uvx zoekt-mcp install path. MCP clients spawn the server via uvx, so which uv must resolve in whatever shell your client launches processes in. Install once per machine:

  # Official installer (macOS / Linux)
  curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
  
  # Homebrew
  brew install uv
  
  # pipx
  pipx install uv
  

  The installer drops uv and uvx into ~/.local/bin/ (Linux/macOS) or %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin\ (Windows). Verify with uv --version.

• …or Docker — for the docker run ghcr.io/radiovisual/zoekt-mcp install path. Any recent Docker Desktop or engine works. You need Docker anyway for the backend, so this path saves you from installing uv if you don't already have it.

And for the backend:

• Docker with Compose v2 — runs zoekt-webserver and the one-shot indexer via the compose file attached to every release.

1. Start the backend (once per machine)

The zoekt backend is a regular Docker Compose stack you run yourself — zoekt-mcp does not lifecycle-manage it. Grab the compose file and helper script from the latest GitHub release and bring them up against whatever directory holds your code:

# Fetch the two files you need from the latest release.
mkdir -p ~/.zoekt-mcp && cd ~/.zoekt-mcp
curl -LO https://github.com/radiovisual/zoekt-mcp/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
curl -LO https://github.com/radiovisual/zoekt-mcp/releases/latest/download/index.sh
chmod +x index.sh

# Point the indexer at any parent directory on your machine.
# Every top-level subdirectory becomes one searchable repo.
echo "ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR=/home/you/code" > .env

# Bring up zoekt-webserver + the one-shot indexer.
docker compose up -d

So if /home/you/code looks like this:

~/code/
├── project-a/       → indexed as zoekt repo "project-a"
├── project-b/       → indexed as zoekt repo "project-b"
└── scratch-notes/   → indexed as zoekt repo "scratch-notes"

…zoekt indexes all three repos in one pass and you can scope any query with repo:project-a — or leave repo: off to search across everything at once. See Indexing multiple codebases below for more on the one-server-many-repos model.

Sanity check:

curl -s -XPOST -d '{"Q":"repo:."}' http://localhost:6070/api/list \
  | python3 -m json.tool | head -20

You should see each subdirectory of ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR listed as a zoekt repo.

On macOS / Windows Docker Desktop, the path you pick must be under an allowed file-sharing root (check Docker Desktop → Settings → Resources → File Sharing). On Linux there's no such restriction.

Just want to try it without touching your real code directory? Clone the repo and use the in-tree test fixture: ./tests/fixtures/up.sh — see Development at the bottom of this file.

2. Wire the MCP server into your client

Two install paths — pick whichever matches your existing tooling. Both end up running the same versioned server binary; the only difference is how it's launched.

Path A — uvx (recommended if you already have uv)

uvx downloads the latest zoekt-mcp from PyPI on first invocation, caches it, and spawns it. No permanent install, no venv to manage.

Claude Code (~/.claude.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zoekt": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["zoekt-mcp"],
      "env": { "ZOEKT_URL": "http://localhost:6070" }
    }
  }
}

Or via the claude CLI:

claude mcp add zoekt \
    --env ZOEKT_URL=http://localhost:6070 \
    -- uvx zoekt-mcp

Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zoekt": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["zoekt-mcp"],
      "env": { "ZOEKT_URL": "http://localhost:6070" }
    }
  }
}

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json in a project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zoekt": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["zoekt-mcp"],
      "env": { "ZOEKT_URL": "http://localhost:6070" }
    }
  }
}

To pin a specific version instead of always using the latest:

"args": ["zoekt-mcp==0.1.0"]

Path B — Docker image (no Python tooling required)

If you already have Docker running for the backend and would rather not install uv, use the container image instead. MCP clients spawn it over stdio exactly like the uvx path.

Claude Code / Claude Desktop / Cursor:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zoekt": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "--network=host",
        "-e", "ZOEKT_URL=http://localhost:6070",
        "ghcr.io/radiovisual/zoekt-mcp:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

On Docker Desktop (macOS/Windows) the host isn't reachable via localhost from inside a container. Drop --network=host and use host.docker.internal instead:

"args": [
  "run", "-i", "--rm",
  "-e", "ZOEKT_URL=http://host.docker.internal:6070",
  "ghcr.io/radiovisual/zoekt-mcp:latest"
]

To pin a specific version, replace :latest with the semver tag (e.g. :0.1.0). The image is multi-arch (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64), so it works on Apple Silicon and ARM Linux hosts without extra flags.

3. Restart the client

Restart Claude Code / Claude Desktop / Cursor and the three tools (search_code, list_repos, get_file) should appear. Try something like "where is getVideoId defined?" and watch it call search_code("sym:getVideoId").

Indexing multiple codebases

One zoekt-mcp server handles as many repos as you want — that's the default. Every top-level subdirectory of ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR becomes a separate searchable repo in one shared index. The search_code tool can scope to a subset with repo:NAME (regex matched against repo names) or leave repo: off to search across everything.

If your projects live under different parent directories (e.g. ~/work/ and ~/personal/), the simplest fix is to create a single "index root" directory with symlinks pointing at each project and set ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR to that index root. One server, one config, all repos searchable.

mkdir -p ~/.zoekt-root
ln -s ~/work/project-a       ~/.zoekt-root/project-a
ln -s ~/personal/side-thing  ~/.zoekt-root/side-thing

cd ~/.zoekt-mcp
echo "ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR=$HOME/.zoekt-root" > .env
docker compose up -d

Docker has to follow the symlinks when it resolves the bind mount, which works on Linux but is hit-or-miss on Docker Desktop. If the linked directories don't show up inside the container, fall back to putting real directories (or clones) under ~/.zoekt-root instead of symlinks.

When you actually need two servers

A second zoekt-mcp instance is only worth the setup cost when you want fully isolated index pools — for example, keeping work code and personal code in completely separate search namespaces, or running two different backends (e.g. different zoekt versions) side by side. It is not needed just to index more code; one server with many subdirectories is the right tool for that.

If you genuinely want two instances:

1. Copy ~/.zoekt-mcp/docker-compose.yml to a second file, e.g. ~/.zoekt-mcp/docker-compose.personal.yml.

2. In the copy, change:

   • the compose project name: (e.g. zoekt-mcp-personal)
   • the host port mapping (e.g. 6071:6070)
   • the named volume (e.g. zoekt-mcp-personal-index)
   • the container names (e.g. zoekt-mcp-personal-webserver)

3. Give the second stack its own env file, e.g. ~/.zoekt-mcp/.env.personal, pointing ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR at a different directory.

4. Bring each stack up with its own compose file and env file:

   cd ~/.zoekt-mcp
   docker compose up -d
   docker compose -f docker-compose.personal.yml \
     --env-file .env.personal up -d
   

5. Wire both into your MCP client as distinct servers — same zoekt-mcp binary, different ZOEKT_URL values:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "zoekt-work": {
         "command": "uvx",
         "args": ["zoekt-mcp"],
         "env": { "ZOEKT_URL": "http://localhost:6070" }
       },
       "zoekt-personal": {
         "command": "uvx",
         "args": ["zoekt-mcp"],
         "env": { "ZOEKT_URL": "http://localhost:6071" }
       }
     }
   }
   

Claude Code sees two independent sets of tools (search_code / list_repos / get_file from each namespace) and decides which to call based on the question.

For most users, one server with a well-populated ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR is all you need. Don't reach for multi-server unless you have a concrete reason to isolate.

Advanced: staging code under a dedicated repos directory

As an alternative to pointing ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR at your real code, you can create a dedicated staging directory and drop clones or directories into it. Useful when you can't expose your real code directory to Docker (e.g. corporate file-sharing restrictions on Docker Desktop), or for one-off experiments with a repo you don't have locally:

mkdir -p ~/.zoekt-mcp/repos
git clone https://github.com/myorg/myrepo ~/.zoekt-mcp/repos/myrepo

cd ~/.zoekt-mcp
echo "ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR=$HOME/.zoekt-mcp/repos" > .env
docker compose up -d

The trade-off is a freshness trap: you now have two copies of every project — the one you actually edit, and the staged copy. Re-running the indexer re-reads the staged copy, so you'd need to git pull (or cp -r your edits) inside ~/.zoekt-mcp/repos/myrepo/ before each re-index. Prefer pointing ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR at your live code directory unless you have a specific reason not to.

Tool surface

Query language

Zoekt's query DSL (full reference):

Keeping the index fresh

Zoekt searches a pre-built index, not your files directly. When you edit code, the index doesn't auto-update — your next search can return stale line numbers, miss newly-added symbols, or point Claude at functions that have moved or been renamed. Stale search is the main thing that burns tokens, because Claude falls back to reading whole files with get_file when search_code returns nothing useful.

Here's what happens every time the indexer runs:

flowchart LR
    Src["Your code<br/>(live files)"]
    Mount["/src<br/>(read-only<br/>bind mount)"]
    Scratch["/tmp/{repo}<br/>(ephemeral<br/>copy)"]
    Git["throwaway<br/>git repo<br/>+ snapshot commit"]
    Shard[("index shard<br/>/data/*.zoekt")]

    Src -->|bind mount| Mount
    Mount -->|cp -r| Scratch
    Scratch -->|"git init; git add -A;<br/>git commit"| Git
    Git -->|zoekt-git-index| Shard

The copy to /tmp/ is ephemeral — it happens fresh on every indexer run and never touches your real files. Each refresh always reads whatever is currently in the mounted source directory.

Fortunately, re-indexing is fast (seconds, even for large repos), runs entirely in Docker, involves no LLM calls, and costs zero tokens. You just need to decide how you want to trigger it.

Because the main quickstart already points ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR at your live code directory, every re-index automatically reflects your latest edits — no copy step to keep in sync. (If you're on the advanced staging workflow instead, update the clones under ~/.zoekt-mcp/repos/ before you trigger a re-index, otherwise zoekt just re-reads the stale copies.)

Recipes for triggering the re-index

All four recipes run out-of-band — no Claude, no tokens, no context window involvement. Pick whichever matches how you work.

1. Manual re-index

Run ~/.zoekt-mcp/index.sh whenever you know you've made significant changes. The script runs just the indexer container against the current ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR without bouncing the webserver, so search stays available throughout.

~/.zoekt-mcp/index.sh

Good when: you only use Claude for occasional sessions and don't mind typing one command before you start. Zero background cost.

2. Cron (scheduled re-index)

Background re-index on a schedule. No manual step, slightly stale between ticks.

# Re-index every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * * cd ~/.zoekt-mcp && ./index.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

Good when: you work on code most days and want fresh-ish search any time you open Claude. Once an hour is fine for most users.

3. Filesystem watcher

React to file changes in near-real-time via inotifywait (Linux) or fswatch (macOS). Catches every edit, idle otherwise.

# Linux: one-liner, run it in a tmux pane or as a systemd --user service
while inotifywait -r -e modify,create,delete,move \
    --exclude '\.git/|node_modules/|__pycache__/' \
    /path/to/your/code 2>/dev/null; do
  ~/.zoekt-mcp/index.sh
done

# macOS equivalent with fswatch (brew install fswatch)
fswatch -o /Users/you/code | xargs -n1 -I{} ~/.zoekt-mcp/index.sh

Good when: you want "search is always current, no matter when I ask." Caveat: on projects with noisy tooling (compilers writing to build dirs, IDE lockfiles), the excludes list is important — without them you'll re-index constantly.

4. Claude Code SessionStart hook

Re-index every time you launch a new Claude Code session, so the first search of every session is guaranteed fresh. This is probably the best default for most users: no background process, no cron entry, and freshness is tied exactly to when you'd actually notice staleness.

// ~/.claude.json
{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      {
        "command": "$HOME/.zoekt-mcp/index.sh"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Good when: you want zero ongoing processes and guaranteed fresh search at the moment you actually use Claude. The session start is blocked on the re-index, but that's a few seconds at most.

Which one should I pick?

None of these recipes are exclusive — e.g. running cron and the SessionStart hook is fine if you want both ambient freshness and a guarantee at session start.

Manual testing with MCP Inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx --from . zoekt-mcp

The Inspector opens a browser UI on http://localhost:6274. Under Tools → search_code, try:

• lang:python def hello — expect a match in flask-app/app.py
• lang:javascript USERS — expect a match in express-app/index.js
• sym:users — expect matches in both examples

Under Tools → list_repos, an empty filter should return both flask-app and express-app.

Development

This section is for hacking on zoekt-mcp itself. If you just want to use it, the Quickstart above covers everything — no clone required. Only come here if you want to change the Python server, run the full test suite, or cut a release.

Setup

Clone the repo and let uv manage the venv for you:

git clone https://github.com/radiovisual/zoekt-mcp
cd zoekt-mcp
uv sync

uv sync creates .venv/, resolves everything against uv.lock, and installs all runtime + dev dependencies. The dev group (pytest, pytest-asyncio, respx, ruff, pre-commit, pymarkdownlnt) is installed by default; pass uv sync --no-dev for a runtime-only install.

Common dev commands:

uv run pytest                    # run the full test suite
uv run zoekt-mcp --help          # run the CLI from source
uv add <package>                 # add a new runtime dep
uv add --dev <package>           # add a new dev dep
uv lock --upgrade                # refresh uv.lock

To run zoekt-mcp from your local clone against a running backend (e.g. while iterating on the server code):

uv run zoekt-mcp --zoekt-url http://localhost:6070

Releasing

Releases are fully automated — a tag push triggers the pipeline that publishes to PyPI and ghcr.io and cuts a GitHub release with the compose file attached. See RELEASING.md for the cut-a-release flow (helper script + manual paths) and the one-time PyPI/GHCR setup required before the first tag.

Commit routine

Linting and tests are wired into the git flow via a pre-commit hook so you never have to remember to run them by hand. After uv sync, install both hook types once per clone:

uv run pre-commit install --hook-type pre-commit --hook-type pre-push

From then on, every git commit runs:

• ruff (ruff check + ruff format --check) against staged Python files — config lives under [tool.ruff] in pyproject.toml.
• pymarkdownlnt (pymarkdown scan) against staged Markdown files — config lives under [tool.pymarkdown] in pyproject.toml. We disable MD013 (line length) and MD046 (code block style) because they fight readable prose and wide tables, and MD033 so the troubleshooting <details> blocks are allowed.

And every git push runs the offline pytest suites (tests/test_client_unit.py and tests/test_server_shaping.py) before the push leaves the machine, so a broken test can never hit the remote. Tests are scoped to pre-push rather than pre-commit to keep local commits snappy; the integration suite is excluded because it needs a running zoekt-webserver.

The hooks shell out to uv run, so the tool versions pinned in uv.lock are what runs locally and in CI — no drift between environments. The same linters and the same unit tests run on every push to main and every pull request via .github/workflows/ci.yml.

To run everything manually (e.g. before opening a PR):

uv run pre-commit run --all-files

To fix Python formatting in place rather than just checking it:

uv run ruff format
uv run ruff check --fix

Automated tests

# Unit tests (no Docker required)
uv run pytest tests/test_client_unit.py tests/test_server_shaping.py -v

# Integration tests: bring the stack up against the examples/ corpus,
# then run the live assertions.
./tests/fixtures/up.sh
uv run pytest tests/test_integration.py -v
./tests/fixtures/down.sh

tests/fixtures/up.sh sets ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR=../examples and invokes the same deploy/docker-compose.yml, so the test fixtures don't leak into the production deploy path. The integration tests skip automatically when ZOEKT_URL is unreachable, so a plain uv run pytest in a fresh checkout without Docker still passes.

Configuration

The env var and the flag are equivalent — pick whichever fits your MCP client's config shape better. Most clients set environment variables via an "env" block in their JSON config, which is why the uvx and Docker snippets above use ZOEKT_URL rather than --zoekt-url.

Repo layout

zoekt-mcp/
├── src/zoekt_mcp/         # the Python MCP server
├── tests/
│   ├── test_client_unit.py     # offline unit tests
│   ├── test_integration.py     # live tests (skip when backend down)
│   └── fixtures/               # test-only helpers (up.sh / down.sh)
├── deploy/
│   ├── docker-compose.yml      # generic zoekt backend (env-driven)
│   └── repos/                  # user-populated source mount (gitignored)
└── examples/
    ├── flask-app/              # Flask verification corpus
    └── express-app/            # Express verification corpus

Troubleshooting

Common indexing pitfalls, in Q&A form. Click any question to expand the answer.

cd ~/.zoekt-mcp
echo "ZOEKT_REPOS_DIR=$HOME/code" > .env
docker compose up -d

License

MIT — see LICENSE.