codebase

name	codebase
description	Use when ingesting, cognifying, or querying a codebase with Cognee CLI from Codex.

Cognee CLI Codebase Workflows

Use this skill when the user asks Codex to build a Cognee memory of a repository, index code, query implementation details, or create a code-aware knowledge graph.

Rules

• Use uv run cognee-cli ...; do not use MCP.
• Start by defining the codebase scope and dataset name.
• Never ingest .env, private keys, credentials, local database files, virtualenvs, dependency caches, or generated build output.
• Prefer focused ingestion over sending an entire large repository at once.
• Use rg --files first to inspect candidate paths.

Scope

Create a dataset name that is stable and readable, such as:

codebase-cognee
codebase-frontend
codebase-api

Inspect candidate files:

rg --files

Common exclusions include:

.git/
.venv/
node_modules/
dist/
build/
.next/
coverage/
.env
*.sqlite
*.db
*.key
*.pem

Ingest

For a focused set of source paths:

uv run cognee-cli add <path-1> <path-2> <path-3> -d <dataset-name>
uv run cognee-cli cognify -d <dataset-name> --background

For small docs or architectural notes:

uv run cognee-cli remember <path-or-note> -d <dataset-name>

If command length becomes unwieldy, ingest in batches by directory or feature area, then run cognify once for the dataset.

Query

For code-specific questions:

uv run cognee-cli search "<implementation question>" -d <dataset-name> -t CODE -k 10 -f pretty

For architecture and reasoning questions:

uv run cognee-cli recall "<architecture question>" -d <dataset-name> -t GRAPH_COMPLETION -f pretty

For citation-like output:

uv run cognee-cli search "<specific symbol or behavior>" -d <dataset-name> -t CHUNKS -k 10 -f json

Use results as supporting context. Verify important claims against the actual files before editing code.

The server is the source of truth. cognee-cli can print empty stdout even when content exists, so never conclude "not found" from an empty CLI run — confirm against the server directly (authoritative), and omit -d <dataset> to search all datasets:

curl -s -X POST "${COGNEE_BASE_URL:-http://localhost:8011}/api/v1/recall" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: ${COGNEE_API_KEY:-}" \
  -d '{"query": "<question>", "top_k": 10, "only_context": true, "scope": ["graph"]}'