Codebase Memory

Codebase Memory

Follow reminder.md for the standing discovery policy; it is the one authored policy shared by this skill, the profile pointer, and the installed SessionStart hook.

When ensure reports unavailable, use its cbm-onboard diagnostic and bounded retry sequence rather than guessing at a project or treating every failure as a sandbox denial. The reminder owns the details.

Activate discovery guidance in Claude Code

After the standard skills installer copies this directory, run:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/codebase-memory/scripts/install.py

For a non-default Claude home:

python3 <installed-skill>/scripts/install.py --claude-home PATH

The installer owns three files under the selected Claude home's hooks/ directory and merges the skill's registrations into settings.json. It preserves unrelated settings and hook registrations. Malformed settings, conflicting registrations, symlinks, and unowned managed-path files are no-write failures. Its scope is the bundled files and registrations.

To merge the registrations into a settings file kept outside the Claude home, for example one versioned in a dotfiles checkout:

python3 <installed-skill>/scripts/install.py --claude-home PATH \
  --settings-file PATH/TO/settings.json

--settings-file moves only the settings file. The three hook files, and the paths rendered into the registrations, still follow --claude-home. The named target must be a regular non-symlink file, and its parent directory must already exist, be a directory, and be writable and searchable; a symlinked target or an unusable parent is a no-write failure. A parent reached through a symlinked directory is fine, which is how a versioned checkout is usually wired.

For a consumer that manages its own settings.json hook registrations, add --skip-settings:

python3 <installed-skill>/scripts/install.py --claude-home PATH --skip-settings

This installs the three managed hook files and stops there: it does not read, parse, validate, merge, or write settings.json at all. The consumer owns registering the installed hooks in its own settings. All the other guards still run: source ownership, the hooks-directory symlink check, and the unowned-managed-file check. --skip-settings and --settings-file name two different settings targets, so the installer refuses both together at the command-line level rather than picking one.

The external tool codebase-memory-mcp installs its own hooks at two of the same names (cbm-code-discovery-gate, cbm-session-reminder). Activation does not reclaim a name another tool already owns; it stops and names the likely owner and the repair (move the foreign files out of hooks/, remove that tool's registrations from settings.json, then rerun).

Graph-query vocabulary

• list_projects and index_status report indexed-project inventory and health.
• get_architecture summarizes repository structure and architectural relationships.
• search_graph locates symbols by name, label, or qualified-name pattern.
• trace_path follows callers, callees, data flow, and cross-service paths.
• get_code_snippet returns exact source for a resolved symbol.
• query_graph handles complex multi-hop graph questions.
• search_code searches literal source text.
• detect_changes maps a Git diff to its structural impact.
• index_repository creates or refreshes a repository graph.