Sourcebot MCP server for AI agents

Sourcebot is a self-hosted tool designed to help you understand your codebase through natural language questions, advanced code search, and navigation features. It allows you to search across repositories and branches while providing detailed answers to complex questions about your code with inline citations.

Installation

You can deploy Sourcebot quickly using the official Docker image. Here's how to get started:

Quick Setup

Create a configuration file:

touch config.json
echo '{
    "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot/main/schemas/v3/index.json",
    "connections": {
        // Comments are supported
        "starter-connection": {
            "type": "github",
            "repos": [
                "sourcebot-dev/sourcebot"
            ]
        }
    }
}' > config.json

Run the Docker container:

docker run \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  --pull=always \
  --rm \
  -v $(pwd):/data \
  -e CONFIG_PATH=/data/config.json \
  --name sourcebot \
  ghcr.io/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot:latest

Access Sourcebot by visiting http://localhost:3000 in your browser

What the Docker Command Does

Pulls and runs the latest Sourcebot Docker image
Mounts your current directory to allow Sourcebot to persist cache data
Clones the sourcebot repository
Indexes the content into a searchable format
Maps port 3000 between your machine and the Docker container
Starts the web server

Configuration

Basic Configuration

The basic config.json file specifies which repositories to index. You can modify this to include your own repositories:

{
    "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot/main/schemas/v3/index.json",
    "connections": {
        "my-connection": {
            "type": "github",
            "repos": [
                "your-username/your-repo"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Advanced Configuration

For advanced configuration options including:

Adding multiple repositories
Connecting to different code hosting platforms
Configuring LLM integrations

Visit the complete configuration documentation at Sourcebot Configuration Guide.

Usage

Ask Questions About Your Code

After installation, you can use Sourcebot to ask complex questions about your codebase. The tool will search your code, analyze it, and provide detailed answers with inline citations.

Search Features

Sourcebot offers powerful search capabilities:

Search across all repositories and branches
Support for regular expressions
Filter by repository or language
Boolean logic operators

Code Navigation

Navigate through your codebase with IDE-like features:

Go to definition
Find references
Explore code relationships

File Explorer

Browse all files across your repositories with:

Syntax highlighting
Organized file tree
Integrated code navigation

Telemetry

Sourcebot collects anonymous usage data by default. If you wish to disable telemetry, set the environment variable SOURCEBOT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED to true:

docker run \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  --pull=always \
  --rm \
  -v $(pwd):/data \
  -e CONFIG_PATH=/data/config.json \
  -e SOURCEBOT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=true \
  --name sourcebot \
  ghcr.io/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot:latest

For more information on telemetry, visit the telemetry documentation.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "sourcebot" '{"command":"docker","args":["run","-p","3000:3000","--pull=always","--rm","-v","${workspaceFolder}:/data","-e","CONFIG_PATH=/data/config.json","--name","sourcebot","ghcr.io/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot:latest"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "sourcebot": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-p",
                "3000:3000",
                "--pull=always",
                "--rm",
                "-v",
                "${workspaceFolder}:/data",
                "-e",
                "CONFIG_PATH=/data/config.json",
                "--name",
                "sourcebot",
                "ghcr.io/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot:latest"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "sourcebot": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-p",
                "3000:3000",
                "--pull=always",
                "--rm",
                "-v",
                "${workspaceFolder}:/data",
                "-e",
                "CONFIG_PATH=/data/config.json",
                "--name",
                "sourcebot",
                "ghcr.io/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot:latest"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect