cspace-search

Local-first semantic search for commits, code, and project context. A standalone port of the cspace search subcommand from cspace, rewritten in Rust for a single bundled binary with no Docker dependency on the core paths.

Status: early port, not yet functional. Subcommands parse but every run() returns an error directing you here. See PORTING.md for the phase list.

Why a rewrite

cspace's search was Go + four Docker services (llama-server, qdrant, reduce-api, hdbscan-api). Great for a devcontainer tool that already ran Docker; heavy for a search binary that should install via Homebrew. The rewrite collapses the core embed + vector store into the binary itself:

• Embedding: Candle runs the Jina v5 nano model natively on Metal / CPU. No llama.cpp C++ shipping, no Ollama dependency, no server process.
• Vector DB: sqlite-vec. Embedded. Data in ~/.cspace-search/<project-hash>.db.
• Corpus: commits via git2, code via ignore, context via local files, issues via gh api.
• MCP server: stdio via rmcp.

The one holdout is clusters, which still needs PaCMAP dim-reduction and HDBSCAN — neither has a production-quality Rust implementation. It's kept behind an optional external service (reduce-api, hdbscan-api) that users can run via a docker-compose.yml bundled in this repo if they want the feature, or skip.

Install

Not yet published. For now:

git clone https://github.com/elliottregan/cspace-search
cd cspace-search
cargo install --path .

Will ship via Homebrew tap once Phase C lands.

Usage

cspace-search init                    # build the index
cspace-search "authentication flow"   # semantic query
cspace-search status                  # staleness + size + model version
cspace-search mcp                     # stdio MCP server
cspace-search clusters                # (requires optional docker-compose)

Layout

src/
├── main.rs            # CLI dispatch
├── commands/          # one module per subcommand
├── config/            # search.yaml loading (parity with the Go version)
├── corpus/            # commit / code / context / issues walkers
├── embed/             # candle-based embedder
├── index/             # sqlite-vec storage + content-hash skip cache
├── query/             # search + ranking
└── mcp/               # MCP server

License

Same as cspace: PolyForm Perimeter 1.0.0.