How Ix works

Mapping

ix map parses your repository with tree-sitter, extracts symbols, calls and imports, and writes them to the graph as nodes and edges: what calls, contains and imports what. The parser covers 27 languages.

Mapping is incremental. Re-running ix map refreshes the graph. ix watch re-maps on every file change, and the editor plugins re-ingest a file shortly after you edit it.

The local backend

The graph is stored in a backend that runs in Docker on your machine:

Service	Port	Role
Ix Memory Layer	127.0.0.1:8090	The HTTP API every client talks to
ArangoDB 3.12	none (Compose network only)	The graph database behind it

The memory layer binds to localhost only and ArangoDB publishes no port at all, so with the default local backend your code and graph stay on your machine. The backend ships as a released Docker image (ghcr.io/ix-infrastructure/ix-memory-layer). Start it with ix docker start and check it with ix status.

Three clients, one graph

Client	Who uses it	Start it with
ix CLI	You, and agents that run shell commands	ix <command>
ix mcp	AI clients that speak the Model Context Protocol	ix mcp install registers it
Compass	You, in a browser	ix view

All three share the same HTTP API. The graph is the same whichever client reads it: an answer your agent gets through MCP matches what ix explain prints in your terminal.

Workspaces

Every repository you map is its own workspace in the shared backend. Commands run from inside a repository answer from that repository’s graph. ix view --all shows every mapped workspace together.

ix reset affects every workspace

ix reset and ix reset --code clear the graph of every workspace in the backend, not only the current one. Re-run ix map in each repository afterwards.

Bounded answers

Query commands return bounded answers. They cap result counts, walk depth and output size, and they report what they cut:

• ix depends and ix trace stop at depth 3 and 100 nodes. truncated=true means the node cap dropped nodes, and depth_limited=true means the walk stopped descending.
• ix read <file> stops at 400 lines and tells you the range of the next page.
• ix context budgets its evidence in tokens (3,000 by default).

Every limit can be raised with a flag. See the flag reference.