Code intelligence for your AI assistant — semantic search, impact analysis, rename refactoring, wiki generation. Powered by the tachikoma knowledge graph.
What it does
This extension registers tachikoma as an MCP server via
contributes.mcpServers.
Copilot Chat (and any other MCP client that reads the VS Code registry)
picks up 27 tools at launch — without you editing mcp.json by hand.
The MCP transport is a stdio↔SSE bridge (tachikoma-mcp-server ≥ 1.2.0
on npm) spawned by VS Code. It reads your auth from the session file
written by the Tachikoma Collab
extension, so there are no tokens in your VS Code settings.
The 1.2.0 bridge reconnects forever with exponential backoff, re-reads the session file on token rotation (collab 4.4.0+ refreshes it every 10 min without manual reconnect), and re-pushes the active context list on every workspace change.
Quick start
- Click an install badge above (or search Tachikoma MCP Server in the VS Code Extensions panel).
- Install Tachikoma Collab as well — it's a hard dependency.
- On first activation, the extension prompts you to enable
chat.mcp.enabled(VS Code ignores MCP servers contributed by extensions until this setting is on). Click Enable → it sets the setting in user scope and offers to reload the window. Cmd+Shift+P→ Tachikoma: Connect to Computer.- Status bar shows
⚡ Tachikoma MCPwhen ready. The MCP panel lists 27 tools.
If you dismissed the prompt and the MCP panel is empty, run
Tachikoma MCP: Enable VS Code MCP support from the command palette, or
toggle chat.mcp.enabled in Settings yourself.
Status bar & commands
The right-side status bar item reflects session health:
| Icon | State | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
⚡ Tachikoma MCP |
connected | Session refreshed within the last 5 min |
⚠ Tachikoma MCP (yellow) |
stale | Session older than 5 min — click to reconnect |
🚫 Tachikoma MCP (red) |
offline | No session — Collab not connected |
Click → menu: Reconnect, Show Logs, Status.
Commands (all callable from the palette):
Tachikoma MCP: Reconnect— refresh the session token from CollabTachikoma MCP: Show Logs— open the OutputChannelTachikoma MCP: Show Menu— same as clicking the status bar
Tools
Code intelligence (indexing.*)
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
indexing.list_repos |
List indexed contexts |
indexing.query |
Search the knowledge graph |
indexing.context |
360° view of a symbol |
indexing.impact |
Blast-radius — what breaks if you change a symbol |
indexing.detect_changes |
Map git diff to indexed symbols |
indexing.rename |
Multi-file rename, call-graph aware |
indexing.wiki |
Generate Markdown + Mermaid docs |
indexing.processes |
Traced execution flows |
indexing.communities |
Functional areas (graph clustering) |
indexing.route_map |
HTTP routes + handlers + consumers |
indexing.shape_check |
Provider response vs consumer accesses |
indexing.api_impact |
Impact scoped to one HTTP route |
indexing.cypher |
Read-only Cypher (admin) |
indexing.tool_map |
MCP/RPC tool definitions in the codebase |
indexing.group_list |
Indexed context groups |
indexing.group_sync |
Match providers/consumers across contexts |
Workflow (workflow.*)
query_knowledge, transition_state, create_plan, create_task,
create_artifact, complete_work_item, run_query,
run_parallel_queries, queue_parallel_task, execute_queued_tasks,
get_ray_status — Ray-backed agent-loop primitives.
Active context = no context_path needed
When you open a workspace folder mapped to a tachikoma context, Collab adds
it to activeContexts. The bridge pushes that list to the server. For any
indexing.* call that omits context_path, the server fills it from the
first active context — your agent doesn't need to know context paths.
Manual install (without the extension)
If you don't want this extension, add to .vscode/mcp.json directly:
{
"servers": {
"tachikoma": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "tachikoma-mcp-server"]
}
}
}
You'll still need Tachikoma Collab for auth — or set
TACHIKOMA_TOKEN + TACHIKOMA_SSE_URL in the env.
Architecture
Copilot Chat / any MCP client
│ stdio JSON-RPC
▼
tachikoma-mcp-server (npx, auto-spawned)
│ SSE + POST (Bearer)
▼
tachikoma server (FastAPI, /api/mcp)
▲
│ reads ~/.tachikoma/mcp-session.json
│
Tachikoma Collab (this extension's hard dep)
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | What to check |
|---|---|
| MCP panel empty, status bar says connected | chat.mcp.enabled is off. Run Tachikoma MCP: Enable VS Code MCP support and reload. |
| Status bar says offline | Connect via Tachikoma Collab first. |
| Status bar says stale | Click → Reconnect. Or wait — Collab refreshes the session on every workspace change. |
| MCP panel shows 0 tools | Your token lacks ACL grants on the indexing channels. Log in as an admin or grant access. |
Tools error: missing context_path |
Open a workspace mapped to a tachikoma context, or pass context_path explicitly. |
| Bridge can't reach server | Show Logs to see retries. Check the server's process.xml reach= attribute and mise process:status tachikoma-api. |
Requirements
- VS Code 1.99+ (for
contributes.mcpServers) - Node 18+ (for the npm bridge that VS Code auto-runs)
- A running tachikoma server with indexed contexts
- The Tachikoma Collab extension installed and connected
License
MIT