| name | basemind-git-history |
| description | Explore git history without shelling out to git — recent commits, commits touching a path, per-line and per-symbol blame, structural diffs across revisions, churn ranking, and a symbol's history over time. Reach for it whenever the user asks "what changed recently", "who last touched this", "when did this symbol change", "what's the diff between these revs", or "where's the churn". |
basemind-git-history — git intelligence over the index
basemind indexes git history and resolves blame and diffs at symbol resolution, backed by a
gix history index. History queries return commits, authors, paths, and line/symbol attributions —
structured and capped — for a fraction of the cost of parsing git log / git blame output.
basemind first, naked git fallback. Prefer these tools over shelling out to git log,
git blame, or git diff. Drop to raw git only when no tool covers the question (e.g. staging,
rebasing, anything that mutates history).
Tool routing
| Question | MCP tool | CLI |
|---|
| "What changed recently?" | recent_changes | basemind git recent-changes [--limit N] |
| "Which commits touched path P?" | commits_touching | basemind git commits-touching P |
| "Path-filtered commit log?" | find_commits_by_path | basemind git find-commits-by-path P |
| "When did symbol X last change?" | symbol_history (cross-commit structural hash) | basemind git symbol-history F name |
| "Who wrote this line?" | blame_file | basemind git blame-file F |
| "Who wrote this symbol / when did its body change?" | blame_symbol | basemind git blame-symbol F name |
| "Diff a file between revs?" | diff_file | basemind git diff-file F old new |
| "What symbols did a branch add/remove?" | diff_outline | basemind git diff-outline F old new |
| "Where's the churn?" | hot_files (churn-ranked) | basemind git hot-files [--limit N] |
| "What's dirty in the working tree?" | working_tree_status (staged/unstaged) | basemind git working-tree-status |
| "What's HEAD / branch / origin?" | repo_info | basemind query repo-info |
| "Full-text search commit messages + authors?" | search_git_history | (MCP only) |
Examples
recent_changes { limit: 5 }
→ 612df7e chore(release): v0.15.0
1779b99 fix(git-history,serve): address code-review findings
...
blame_symbol { path: "src/scanner.rs", name: "process_file" }
→ last touched by <author> in <commit> — body hash changed at HEAD~7
diff_outline { path: "src/mcp/tools.rs", old: "HEAD~5", new: "HEAD" }
→ + search_git_history (function) - old_helper (function)
Notes
- Git tools require
basemind serve to be running inside a git repository. Outside a git repo
they return a clear error.
- History queries are indexed:
commits_touching and friends resolve in tens of microseconds vs a
live walk. The index auto-builds on first use and is a fraction of the size of .git.
- All paths are repository-relative with forward-slash separators. Lists are capped
(
limit, default 100, max 1000).
For code structure see basemind-code-search; for document RAG and semantic search see
basemind-documents; for agent coordination see basemind-comms.
