Getting Started

Install CtxE, sign in, build a searchable codebase index, and explore it in the local dashboard.

Prerequisites

• macOS, Linux, or Windows with PowerShell
• A codebase you want to index
• A Google or GitHub account for CTXE Server authentication

Install CtxE

Run the installer for your platform:

curl -fsSL https://storage.tlelabs.com/ctxe/latest/install.sh | sh

irm https://storage.tlelabs.com/ctxe/latest/install.ps1 | iex

Verify the installation:

ctxe --version
ctxe --help
ctxe daemon status

The current release reports ctxe 0.3.6. On a fresh installation, daemon status should show the service definition present while autostart is disabled and the process is stopped.

Sign in

Indexing and Ask use the CTXE Server. Authenticate once through the browser-based OAuth flow:

ctxe login

Choose Google or GitHub in the browser. Use ctxe whoami to verify the active identity.

Index your workspace

From the project root, inspect the local plan and then create the index with durable background-watch intent:

cd ~/projects/my-app
ctxe index . --dry-run
ctxe index . --watch

The dry run parses the workspace and reports planned changes without writing an index, recording watch intent, or calling the server. The real command stores code-aware chunks locally, obtains embeddings and optional enrichment outside the database write transaction, and records watch intent only after a durable index report activates the workspace catalog.

--watch does not enable or start the daemon. For a one-shot, catalog-only index, run ctxe index . instead. After a durable report, running ctxe index . followed by ctxe daemon watch . records the same watch intent as choosing the flag.

Indexing is incremental. Later runs process changed files and pending work instead of rebuilding everything.

Check index health

Status is read-only and reports index state, counts, and capability health:

ctxe status .
ctxe status . --format json

Open the dashboard

Launch the local web dashboard to monitor workspace health and indexing progress, ask questions, browse query history and indexed content, and manage global settings:

ctxe dashboard

CtxE opens the dashboard in your browser and serves it on localhost. Press Ctrl+C to stop it. See CLI Reference for port and browser options.

Ask your first question

Ask a concrete question or investigation objective:

ctxe ask "How does user authentication work?"
ctxe ask "What calls UserService.create()?" --effort high

Ask combines semantic retrieval, indexed text search, graph expansion, and evidence synthesis. The default effort comes from [ask_v4].effort; the built-in default is min.

Enable background indexing (optional)

Fresh installs leave the supervised daemon disabled and stopped. The workspace indexing command requested durable watch intent, so enable the worker when you want background indexing to begin:

ctxe daemon enable --now
ctxe daemon status
ctxe daemon list

The workspace index establishes accepted catalog membership and separately records durable watch intent. Enabling the service is the explicit step that allows the daemon to act on that intent. The standalone ctxe daemon watch . command remains safe to repeat when adding intent after a plain index. Use ctxe daemon unwatch . to stop watching while preserving source files, catalog membership, and index data.

Use ctxe daemon stop for a temporary stop, or ctxe daemon disable --now to stop and disable autostart.

Use with MCP

The installer offers to configure CtxE for Claude Code and Codex when those clients are detected. Restart the selected client after installation.

For Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, or manual setup, see MCP Integration.

Next steps

• CLI Reference — the complete public command surface
• Tools Reference — all 16 public MCP tools
• Configuration — config layers, commands, and common sections
• How It Works — indexing, retrieval, and evidence synthesis