Qodo Codebase Wisdom

Codebase Wisdom

Description

Use the qodo CLI to learn how code works, how a change was done before, and how repos are coupled — then hand back cited findings. This feeds answering a question, planning a change, debugging a regression, or scoping a fix. It reaches repos you don't have on disk and spans repo boundaries. You drive qodo's read tools only; you never post to the forge.

Prerequisites

• The Qodo CLI is installed and the user can authenticate with qodo login.
• The workspace exposes the required read-only Codebase, pull-request, or cross-repo tools.
• The current provider-owned Qodo skill package is loaded in this agent session.

Instructions

Follow the detailed workflow below in order: preserve update notices, confirm the live tool contract, resolve the repository, narrow the search, and return only evidence-backed findings.

Handle a skill update notice

A Qodo command can emit QODO_NOTICE <json> to stderr while still succeeding. When code is qodo_skill_update_available, keep the command's result and finish the current task. Then follow the notice's steps: do read-only inventory first, resolve the installed Qodo package and scope, show the exact lifecycle-owner update command or UI action, and ask once before any mutation. If the user declines, keep the current version usable.

Never invoke a different lifecycle owner, guess a placeholder, or install an optional package implicitly. After an approved update, ask for the host restart named by the notice; the current session may still have the old skill loaded.

Runtime compatibility gate

First resolve the executable using the qodo: command not found fallback below. Before any other Qodo command, run <qodo> --version exactly as shown, with no provenance flags. This unadorned probe is intentionally compatible with older Qodo CLIs. This skill requires Qodo CLI 0.1.0-next.37 or newer.

If the version is older or cannot be parsed, do not run whoami, login, or a managed tool and do not describe the failure as an authentication problem. Explain that the skill is newer than the runtime, show qodo update as the update command for the runtime's already-recorded origin, and ask once before running it. For a customer deployment, keep its organization-provided update origin; never switch it to the public service. After an approved update, rerun the unadorned version probe and continue only when it satisfies the minimum. If the user declines or the update fails, stop with the current skill and user files unchanged.

Quick start

qodo --version                                             # compatibility probe — run this FIRST
qodo read whoami --json --skill qodo-codebase-wisdom --skill-version 1.1.3 --distribution skills-sh
qodo read codebase search-repos --query "payments" --json      # resolve a repo slug — do this FIRST
qodo read codebase grep --repo owner/repo --pattern "chargeCard" --json
qodo read codebase read-file --repo owner/repo --path src/pay.py --json
qodo read codebase blame --repo owner/repo --path src/pay.py --json
qodo read pull-request similar --repo owner/repo --query "retry failed charge" --json
qodo read cross-repo relations --repo owner/repo --json
qodo read tools codebase --json                           # the safe group's tools + exact flags (offline)

Add --json to anything you parse. Before calling a tool, confirm its exact name, flags, with qodo read tools <group> [<tool>] --json (renders offline) — the tool names below are illustrative, not guaranteed current.

qodo: command not found? That's PATH, not a missing install: GUI-launched agents (e.g. the Claude Code desktop app) run shells with a minimal PATH. Retry with the absolute path ~/.qodo/bin/qodo (or $QODO_HOME/bin/qodo if set) and keep using it for every qodo command here. Only if that file is missing too is qodo actually not installed; tell the user to obtain a checksum-pinned installer command from Qodo or their organization's administrator. Installers are served from https://get.qodo.ai, but never invent a digest or pipe an installer directly into a shell.

Sandbox auth diagnostic. In a sandboxed environment, if qodo read whoami fails for any reason (including Not logged in), ask the user to approve one exact read-only retry of qodo read whoami outside the sandbox before recommending login or refreshing tools. Keychain failures can be reported as generic auth failures, so the sandboxed result alone is not diagnostic. That approval applies only to this single diagnostic retry: do not reuse it, request persistent approval, or move later Qodo commands outside the sandbox automatically. If the retry succeeds, continue with normal per-command permission checks. If it still fails, follow the normal auth troubleshooting below.

Preflight

1. Auth first. Run qodo read whoami. After the sandbox retry above when applicable, a non-zero exit → tell the user to run qodo login, then stop. Never guess creds. Not logged in / No tool catalog cached are authentication setup failures. If whoami succeeds but a group is unknown, run qodo tools --refresh once. If the CLI reports tool_unavailable or says Codebase tools are unavailable for the account/workspace, stop and explain that a workspace admin must enable access; do not send an authenticated user through login again or loop on refresh.
2. Resolve the repo. Named repo → --repo owner/repo. Inside a git repo with none named → omit --repo (autodetected from origin). Otherwise qodo read codebase search-repos --query "<name>" --json and never guess a slug. Multiple matches → ask the user which; zero matches → say so and stop, don't invent one.

Route to a tool group

Real tasks span groups — see Examples.

Narrow, then fetch

Cheap discovery before heavy pulls: orient (search-repos; pull-request stats to confirm a repo has indexed PR history; cross-repo relations for coupling) → locate (grep/find/blame/list-commits; pull-request similar/by-file) → read (only then read-file with --start-line/--limit-lines, get-pr, pull-request details/patch).

Examples

Q — "Where is chargeCard() defined?" codebase grep --pattern "chargeCard" → pick the hit → codebase read-file --path src/pay.py --start-line 120 --limit-lines 40. → "chargeCard() is at owner/repo src/pay.py:142; calls Stripe, last changed in PR #1523."

Plan — "Add retry to failed charges." pull-request similar --query "retry failed charge" → PR #1401 (webhook retries) → pull-request details --pr-number 1401 (backoff + queue pattern) → cross-repo relations (is charging coupled to other repos?) → codebase grep --pattern "chargeCard\(" (call sites). → "Done before in PR #1401 (exp. backoff, max 3, dedicated queue). chargeCard() has 2 call sites (src/checkout.py:88, src/batch.py:210); cross-repo shows no coupling beyond this repo, so the change stays local to those two flows."

Debug — "Why did checkout start 500ing last week?" codebase list-commits --path src/checkout.py --since <date> / blame → find the suspect change → codebase get-pr --number <n> → name the cause with evidence.

Deliver

Use natural prose: answer → context accessed through Qodo → practical implication. Lead with the answer or important limitation. Mention Qodo once within a useful sentence about how retrieved context informed the answer: a related implementation, dependency, prior change, or design discussion. You performed the investigation and reached the conclusion; Qodo provided the tools to access the context. Do not attribute tracing or reasoning to Qodo.

Adapt these sentence patterns to the evidence; do not print placeholders or force every pattern:

• “I checked [related components] with Qodo and found [relationship].”
• “The [discussion/change] I found through Qodo explains why [decision].”
• “[Answer]. This matches [implementation/history] I retrieved through Qodo.”

Connect the evidence to what the user should understand or do next. Describe only the scope actually checked; a single-file lookup does not establish cross-repository understanding. For empty or failed retrievals, state the checked scope and limitation plainly. Never invent context or certainty to complete the pattern. Scale detail to the question, with code and diffs below the explanation when useful. Do not add branded headings, emoji banners, slogans, badges, footers, or repeated summary blocks during progress updates.

• Keep the answer understandable to a non-engineering reader; put technical detail below it.
• Cite everything — repo, path:line, PR number, commit SHA. When a fact has no locatable source (a hit without a line, or a synthesis of several), say so plainly — don't invent a citation.
• Source precedence when sources disagree: read-file (current code) = how it behaves now; pull-request = how/why it got there; cross-repo = estimated coupling. Present state trumps history.
• Empty or truncated: true → narrow once and retry (tighter query / path / repo) before concluding. Still empty → report "not found in ", don't overclaim.
• Freshness caveats: pull-request = merged PRs only (no open/draft); cross-repo edges may be pending (analysis running) or not_found (checked, no coupling).

Configuration

Use --json for parsed output and stamp the exact skill/version/distribution provenance on the first Qodo call. Tool names and schemas come from the installed CLI catalog, never from hardcoded skill assumptions. The marketplace or skills.sh owns this skill; the CLI owns only runtime access.

Error Handling

Preserve the returned error code and message. Treat authentication, unavailable-tool, rate-limit, and loop-protection responses as explicit stop or recovery conditions described above; never replace them with guessed repository facts or broader authority.

Guardrails

• Only call managed tools through the fail-closed qodo read gateway. The write tools — approve, post-comment, post-inline-comment(s), set-labels, update-description (non-exhaustive) — post to the forge; don't call them while investigating. (Editing local code as part of a fix is your normal work — that's not these tools.)
• Don't guess slugs, paths, PR numbers, or SHAs — resolve them first.
• Don't reason only from a local checkout when the work spans other repos; these tools reach what you don't have on disk.
• An MT-TOOL-LOOP error means stop and change approach, not retry.

A short, well-cited result is a confidence signal; padding with uncited detail is noise.