Ridge

An MCP server that reverse-engineers architecture from a directory tree. Point it at code (Go, TypeScript, Python) and it returns services, packages, databases, queues, endpoints, and their relationships as a structured graph. Point it at markdown (Obsidian vaults, doc trees) and wiki-links plus relative .md links become dependency edges in the same graph model. Generate diagrams in 9 formats including a self-contained D3 force-directed page for hub-spoke graphs. Detect drift between any two branches, tags, or commits. Validate architecture rules. Track how the system evolves over time.

No configuration files, no manual diagramming. Static analysis builds the architecture model directly from the source tree.

Why

Architecture diagrams go stale the day you commit them. When AI generates code faster than teams can comprehend the changes, the gap between system complexity and shared understanding grows. This is cognitive debt, and it compounds silently.

Most teams know they should review architecture regularly, check for circular dependencies, and catch structural drift between branches. In practice, these tasks are manual enough that they don't happen.

• Generates architecture from the source tree (code or markdown), so diagrams are always current. No one has to maintain them.
• arch_validate turns "check for circular dependencies" from a retro action item into a one-prompt task.
• arch_drift compares architecture between any two git refs. It catches structural changes that code review misses: a new database dependency, a service that quietly became a monolith, an endpoint that bypasses the API gateway.
• arch_drift_explain wraps that diff in a 2-5 sentence narrative you can paste straight into a PR description, standup channel, or release note. No LLM call; pure templating from the structured diff.

The killer use case: onboarding onto code you don't own

The single highest-value moment for Ridge is the one every engineer hits weekly: you have to change a codebase your team didn't build. The old kickoff for that work was reading the source, tracing dependencies, and building a mental model in your head. When an agent writes the code, that step disappears, and with it the understanding. So agents change systems nobody on the calling team actually comprehends, and architecture decisions get made by whoever (or whatever) writes the first line.

Ridge replaces the missing step. Point it at the unfamiliar tree and arch_scan + arch_generate produce a current architecture model — services, packages, infra, endpoints, and their edges — that an engineer can read in minutes instead of reverse-engineering by hand. The owning team can react to that, rather than to a Slack thread or a finished PR, so alignment happens before code exists instead of after.

This isn't hypothetical. Miro demoed the identical pattern at Canvas 26 ("Give Your Agentic Coding Tools the Full Picture," June 2026): a feature team needed to add tools to an MCP server another team owned, used an agent to read that codebase and generate an architecture board, and used it to onboard themselves and align with the owning team — without waiting on a backlog. Same problem, same shape, independently arrived at. Ridge makes that the default workflow rather than a one-off prompt.

What it does

Parses source files with language-specific analyzers (Go via go/ast, TypeScript and Python via tree-sitter, markdown via regex-based link extraction) and builds an architecture graph of nodes and edges.

Nodes represent components: services, modules, packages, databases, message queues, caches, external APIs, HTTP endpoints, and notes (markdown files).

Edges represent relationships with confidence scores: dependencies (0.9), endpoint registrations (0.85), infrastructure links (0.8), HTTP client calls (0.7). Confidence lets consumers filter by reliability; direct AST-resolved imports score higher than heuristic matches.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets AI assistants call external tools. This server gives your AI assistant 19 architecture analysis tools.

What you get

Run arch_scan on a Go project and get back a structured architecture graph:

{
  "topology": "monorepo",
  "nodes": [
    {"id": "pkg:api/server", "name": "server", "type": "package", "language": "go"},
    {"id": "pkg:worker/processor", "name": "processor", "type": "package", "language": "go"},
    {"id": "infra:postgresql", "name": "PostgreSQL", "type": "database"},
    {"id": "infra:redis", "name": "Redis", "type": "cache"},
    {"id": "infra:nats", "name": "NATS", "type": "queue"}
  ],
  "edges": [
    {"source": "pkg:api/server", "target": "infra:postgresql", "type": "read_write", "confidence": 0.8},
    {"source": "pkg:api/server", "target": "infra:redis", "type": "read_write", "confidence": 0.8},
    {"source": "pkg:worker/processor", "target": "infra:nats", "type": "subscribe", "confidence": 0.8}
  ],
  "stats": {"files_analyzed": 47, "files_cached": 38, "files_changed": 9, "nodes_found": 12, "edges_found": 23, "duration_ms": 340}
}

Then ask arch_generate for a Mermaid diagram, arch_validate to check for circular dependencies, or arch_dataflow for structured traces showing how requests flow from endpoints to databases. Infrastructure (databases, queues, caches) is detected automatically from import paths.

Why not X

Four projects share parts of this space. None cover it the same way.

CodeFlow (2.0k stars, MIT) is a single-file React + D3 page that parses JS, TypeScript, and Python in the browser. It reads from GitHub's API, renders a file-level dependency graph, and adds panels for blast radius, security scans, and PR impact. Browser-native, file-granular. No Go support; requires CDN access; no agent interface.

CodeGraphContext (1.2k stars, alpha) is a Python MCP server that indexes code into KuzuDB, FalkorDB, or Neo4j via tree-sitter. 14-language support, dual CLI/MCP mode. Same agent surface as ridge, without endpoint detection, infrastructure classification, drift narratives, or cross-substrate scanning (code-only, no markdown).

Graphify (35k stars, MIT) is a multi-harness skill that turns any folder into a queryable knowledge graph: 25 code languages plus markdown, images, and video transcription. Persistent graph.json, SHA256 incremental cache, merge-graphs for cross-repo composition. Skill-scope, not MCP. No drift detection, no architecture-specific node types, no infrastructure inference.

CocoIndex (9.7k stars, Apache-2.0) is a Python-front, Rust-core incremental indexing framework that turns codebases, meeting notes, inboxes, Slack, PDFs, and videos into vector-searchable chunks for RAG. Code is one substrate of many. Different problem class: cocoindex answers "find me code semantically similar to query Q"; ridge answers "show me the structural graph and what changed architecturally between two refs." Use cocoindex when you want semantic chunk search across heterogeneous substrates. Use ridge when you want a typed architecture model with drift detection.

What ridge focuses on. Agent-facing MCP transport across all 19 tools. Go-native via go/ast. Drift narratives: arch_drift_explain returns a paste-ready PR paragraph in one call, no LLM round-trip. Cross-substrate: code and markdown share the same graph model, so arch_blast_radius answers "if I change internal/scanner, what else needs review?" across both. Infrastructure-aware (databases, queues, caches as typed nodes with confidence scores).

What ridge doesn't do. No browser-native UI. No multimodal ingest (images, video, audio). No semantic chunk search for RAG. If you want a file-level visualizer for JS/TS/Python with a UI, use CodeFlow. If you want a multimodal knowledge graph at skill scope, use Graphify. If you want incremental vector indexing across heterogeneous corpora, use CocoIndex.

Usage examples

Once configured, ask your LLM:

• "Scan the architecture of ~/Projects/my-app"
• "Generate a C4 diagram of this project"
• "Are there any circular dependencies or layering violations?"
• "Grandfather our existing violations, then fail only on new ones" (uses arch_validate baseline mode)
• "Do our tsconfig path aliases and go.mod replace targets actually exist?"
• "Compare architecture between the v1.0 tag and main branch"
• "How has the architecture changed since last month?"
• "What databases does this service connect to?"
• "Export the architecture as Excalidraw"
• "Explain the architecture decisions in this codebase"
• "How should I improve this architecture?"
• "What's the coupling and instability like?"
• "Show me data flow traces from API endpoints to databases"
• "Save this architecture as our v2.0 baseline"
• "Scan this monorepo but limit to 500 files and skip test files"
• "Scan an Obsidian vault and find orphan notes"
• "Render the docs/ directory as a force-directed graph showing hubs at degree>=10"
• "If I change internal/scanner what else needs review?" (uses arch_blast_radius)

Tools

Key tools

Tool	What it does
arch_scan	Scan a codebase or markdown directory and return the full architecture graph with confidence-scored edges
arch_generate	Generate a diagram (Mermaid, PlantUML, C4, Structurizr, JSON, draw.io, Excalidraw, HTML, forcegraph)
arch_blast_radius	Find every node that transitively depends on a target — answers "if I change X, what else needs review?"
arch_drift	Compare architecture between two branches, tags, or commits
arch_drift_explain	Compare two refs and return a 2-5 sentence narrative summary plus the structured diff — paste-ready for PR descriptions
arch_dataflow	Trace data flow from endpoints to data stores with structured process traces
arch_validate	Check for circular dependencies, orphan nodes, layering violations, and environment inconsistencies — with a baseline mode that grandfathers existing violations and fails only on new ones
arch_recommend	Produce prioritized architecture improvement recommendations, each carrying the triggering metric evidence (value + threshold + node) and a confidence grade

All 19 tools

Tool	Category	What it does
arch_scan	analysis	Scan a codebase or markdown directory and return the full architecture graph
arch_focus	analysis	Scan a specific subdirectory or service
arch_dependencies	analysis	Map internal, external, and infrastructure dependencies
arch_blast_radius	analysis	Find the transitive set of nodes that depend on a target file or package
arch_dataflow	analysis	Trace data flow with entry-to-terminal process traces and confidence scores
arch_boundaries	analysis	Detect service boundaries and topology (monolith, monorepo, microservices), with the signals behind the verdict, the reason it fired, and an ambiguity flag for borderline calls
arch_explain	analysis	Explain topology, patterns, key decisions, and risks with code evidence
arch_generate	diagram	Generate a diagram in 9 formats
arch_diff	drift	Compare current architecture against a saved baseline
arch_drift	drift	Compare architecture between two git refs
arch_drift_explain	drift	Narrative summary of drift between two git refs (paste-ready prose)
arch_validate	validation	Check circular dependencies, orphans, layering, and environment inconsistencies; baseline mode ratchets legacy codebases
arch_metrics	validation	Compute coupling, instability, and dependency depth scores
arch_recommend	validation	Prioritized improvement recommendations from metrics + violations + patterns, with per-rec evidence + confidence
arch_history	history	Show how architecture evolved over git history
arch_snapshot	export	Save current architecture as a baseline for drift detection
arch_registry_add	registry	Register a repo by alias for reuse across tool calls
arch_registry_list	registry	List all registered repos
arch_registry_remove	registry	Remove a registered repo alias

Known-violations baseline (ratchet)

Adopting arch_validate on a legacy codebase usually means a wall of pre-existing violations and a permanently red check. The baseline mode fixes the incentive: grandfather what exists, fail only on what's new.

• baseline="write" saves the current violations to .arch-known-violations.json at the repo root. Commit the file so the whole team shares the ratchet.
• baseline="check" validates as usual, but valid reflects only violations absent from the baseline. New ones land in new_violations; the grandfathered count is reported alongside.

The full violation list stays in violations either way — a baseline changes the verdict, never hides findings. Matching keys on rule + subject, so a ridge upgrade that rewords violation details won't invalidate a committed baseline. Override the file location with baseline_file (contained to the scanned repo).

Environment inconsistency checks

arch_validate also cross-checks declared module resolution against the filesystem, catching config drift that breaks builds without ever showing up in the import graph:

Rule	Severity	What it catches
go_mod_replace_target_missing	high	go.mod replace directive pointing at a local path that doesn't exist
tsconfig_baseurl_missing	high	tsconfig baseUrl directory missing — every path alias resolves against it
tsconfig_path_target_missing	medium	tsconfig paths alias mapping to a location that doesn't exist

tsconfig parsing tolerates JSONC (comments and trailing commas), and the walk honors the scanner's skip list (node_modules, vendor, ...).

Supported languages

Language	Analyzer	Detection
Go	go/ast (stdlib)	Packages, imports, HTTP handlers, infrastructure
TypeScript/TSX	tree-sitter	Modules, imports, Express/Fastify/Koa routes, infrastructure
Python	tree-sitter	Modules, imports, Flask/FastAPI routes, infrastructure
Markdown	regex link extraction	Notes, Obsidian wiki-links [[note]], relative [text](./file.md) links

Infrastructure detection

Analyzers recognize common infrastructure packages and classify them automatically:

Category	Go	TypeScript	Python
Database	database/sql, gorm, pgx, sqlx	pg, prisma, typeorm, mongoose, sequelize, drizzle-orm	sqlalchemy, django.db, pymongo, psycopg2, peewee, tortoise
Queue	amqp, kafka, nats	kafkajs, bullmq, amqplib, nats	celery, kombu, pika, kafka, rq
Cache	redis, memcache	ioredis, redis, keyv	redis, pymemcache, aiocache
HTTP client	net/http (client)	axios, node-fetch, got, undici	requests, httpx, aiohttp, urllib3

Output formats

Format	Description
Mermaid	Flowchart syntax, renders in GitHub, Notion, most markdown viewers
PlantUML	Component diagrams with UML notation
C4	C4-PlantUML container diagrams with !include <C4/C4_Container>
Structurizr DSL	Workspace model for Structurizr tooling
JSON	Structured data with nodes, edges, topology metadata
draw.io	XML format, open directly in diagrams.net
Excalidraw	JSON format, open directly in Excalidraw
HTML	Self-contained page with the Mermaid runtime embedded inline (~900 KB output, no network requests)
forcegraph	Self-contained D3-driven force-directed page (~290 KB) with drag, zoom, pan; color = connected component; node size scales with degree. Use for hub-spoke graphs (knowledge vaults, dense dependency networks) where Mermaid's hierarchical layout produces a long horizontal stripe. Pair with min_degree=10 to keep only hubs

Setup

Prerequisites

• Go 1.24+
• C compiler (for tree-sitter CGo bindings; standard on macOS and Linux)

Install

go install github.com/olgasafonova/ridge/cmd/ridge@latest

The binary lands in $GOPATH/bin (typically ~/go/bin/ridge).

Or build from source

git clone https://github.com/olgasafonova/ridge.git
cd ridge
make build

Configure in Claude Code

Add to your ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ridge": {
      "command": "/path/to/ridge",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

Or run from source:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ridge": {
      "command": "go",
      "args": ["run", "./cmd/ridge"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/ridge"
    }
  }
}

Optional: install the bundled Claude Code skill

skills/ridge/SKILL.md teaches an agent which of the 19 ridge tools to call for a given question (blast radius vs scan vs drift vs validate). Drop it into your Claude Code skills directory once and the model stops guessing.

cp -r skills/ridge ~/.claude/skills/

The skill is plain markdown with a tool-decision matrix and worked examples. Read it directly if you want the same map in your head.

Scan control

All scan tools accept optional parameters for handling large codebases:

Parameter	What it does
max_files	Stop after analyzing N files (returns partial result)
max_nodes	Stop after discovering N architecture nodes
timeout_secs	Cancel scan after N seconds
workers	Parallel analysis workers (default: CPU count, max 8)
skip_dirs	Additional directories to skip (beyond defaults like node_modules, .git, vendor)
skip_globs	File patterns to skip (e.g. *_test.go, *.spec.ts)

Partial results include a truncated: true flag so you know the graph is incomplete. Sequential tool calls on the same path are cached for 30 seconds.

Incremental scanning

Repeat scans on the same codebase are fast. The server tracks file modification times and content hashes in ~/.mcp-context/ridge/. On subsequent scans, only files that actually changed get re-analyzed; unchanged files reuse cached analysis results.

The stats in the response show what happened:

• files_analyzed — total files in the codebase
• files_cached — files skipped (unchanged since last scan)
• files_changed — files re-analyzed (new, modified, or deleted)

First scan of a 500-file project takes a few seconds. Follow-up scans after editing 3 files take milliseconds.

Development

make check       # fmt-check + vet + tests (with race detector)
make build       # Build binary
make test        # Tests only

Integration tests

Run against real codebases:

go test -tags integration -race -v ./tests/

Or use the smoke test script:

bash scripts/smoke-test.sh

Architecture

cmd/ridge/          Entry point (stdio MCP transport)
internal/
  model/                   ArchGraph, Node, Edge, Diff types
  scanner/                 File walker, incremental change detection, analyzer orchestration
  analyzer/golang/         Go static analysis (go/ast)
  analyzer/typescript/     TypeScript analysis (tree-sitter)
  analyzer/python/         Python analysis (tree-sitter)
  analyzer/markdown/       Markdown link extraction (wiki-links, relative .md links)
  detector/                Boundary detection, topology, validation, metrics, recommendations, process traces
  drift/                   Snapshot comparison, git ref diffing, history
  render/                  Mermaid, PlantUML, C4, Structurizr, JSON, draw.io, Excalidraw, HTML, forcegraph
  infra/                   Cache, persistent state (~/.mcp-context/)
tools/                     MCP tool definitions and handlers

License

MIT