Arbor

Arbor

Graph-native intelligence for codebases.

Know what breaks before you break it.

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Table of Contents

• [The Arbor Philosophy](#the-arbor-philosophy)
• [Why Arbor](#why-arbor)
• [What you get](#what-you-get)
• [Visual tour](#visual-tour)
• [Quickstart](#quickstart)
• [Installation options](#installation-options)
• [MCP integration](#mcp-integration)
• [Language support](#language-support)
• [Architecture and docs](#architecture-and-docs)
• [Git-aware CI workflows](#git-aware-ci-workflows)
• [Release channels](#release-channels)
• [Contributing](#contributing)
• [Contributors](#contributors)
• [Security](#security)
• [License](#license)

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The Arbor Philosophy

Arbor is rooted in three unwavering principles, listed in strict order of priority. Every architectural decision is measured against this hierarchy:

1. Consumer First: Tooling must be beautiful, intuitive, and instantly useful out of the box. The developer experience triumphs over all other metrics.
2. Accessibility Second: Deep AI intelligence and graph analysis should never be gatekept. Our tooling is built to work seamlessly across language ecosystems and run deterministically on any machine.
3. Affordability Next: We ruthlessly optimize for minimal computational overhead. From edge laptops to giant monoliths, graph exploration should have zero-friction adoption.

For comprehensive details on our approach, read our [PHILOSOPHY.md](PHILOSOPHY.md).

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Why Arbor

Most AI code tooling treats code as text retrieval.

Arbor builds a semantic dependency graph and answers execution-aware questions:

• If I change this symbol, what breaks?
• Who calls this function, directly and transitively?
• What is the shortest architectural path between these two nodes?

You get deterministic, explainable impact analysis instead of approximate keyword matches.

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What you get

• Blast radius analysis: See exactly which files and modules will be affected by a change (complete with depth confidence levels) before you ever press save.
• Graph-backed symbol resolution: Accurately tracks dependencies across files and entire language boundaries automatically.
• Agent-native MCP (v2.3.0): 15 MCP tools — surgical traversal, security auditing, and architectural explanation tools. Exposes graph resources (arbor://graph/stats, arbor://graph/entry-points, arbor://graph/hotspots) and standard spec compliance annotations for zero-reprompt agent chaining.
• Built-in Agent Workflows (arbor agent): Local autonomous agents for PR reviews, codebase onboarding guides, and architectural guardrail checks.
• Unified Tooling (CLI + GUI + MCP): Native desktop GUI, a blazing fast CLI, and Claude/AI Model Context Protocol integration all utilizing the exact same core analytical reasoning engine.
• Git-aware risk gating: Block pull-requests automatically in your CI/CD if a PR introduces a dangerously high architectural blast radius.
• Lightning fast incremental indexing: Sub-second background cache updates instantly tracking your code edits in real-time.

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Visual tour

For a full-screen recording of the workflow, see [media/recording-2026-01-13.mp4](media/recording-2026-01-13.mp4).

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Quickstart

# 1) Install the Arbor CLI globally via Cargo
cargo install arbor-graph-cli

# 2) Initialize Arbor and build the dependency graph for your codebase
cd your-project
arbor setup

# 3) See EVERYTHING a function touches before you break it
arbor refactor 

# 4) Run safety checks (Great for CI/CD or before committing)
arbor diff  # See what your uncommitted git changes impact
arbor check --max-blast-radius 30  # Fail the checks if your changes break more than 30 nodes

# 5) Run autonomous agent workflows
arbor agent review   # Analyze git changes for architecture and risk violations
arbor agent onboard  # Generate a codebase onboarding guide for new developers
arbor agent guard    # Real-time architectural safety gate

# 6) Launch the visual interface to intuitively explore your code's architecture
arbor gui

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Installation options

Use whichever channel fits your environment:

# Rust / Cargo
cargo install arbor-graph-cli

# Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew install Anandb71/tap/arbor

# Scoop (Windows)
scoop bucket add arbor https://github.com/Anandb71/arbor
scoop install arbor

# npm wrapper (cross-platform)
npx @anandb71/arbor-cli

# Docker
docker pull ghcr.io/anandb71/arbor:latest

No-Rust installers:

• macOS/Linux: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Anandb71/arbor/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
• Windows PowerShell: irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Anandb71/arbor/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

For pinned/versioned installs, see [docs/INSTALL.md](docs/INSTALL.md).

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MCP integration

Arbor includes a real MCP server via arbor bridge (stdio transport). v2.1.0 adds 10 tools — 6 surgical tools for precise graph traversal and 4 broad tools for architectural analysis.

Claude Code quick install

claude mcp add --transport stdio --scope project arbor -- arbor bridge
claude mcp list

Available tools

Surgical (v2.1.0): list_entry_points · get_callers · get_callees · search_symbols · get_file_graph · get_node_detail

Broad: get_logic_path · analyze_impact · find_path · get_knowledge_path

All tools return a standard envelope with suggested_next_tool + suggested_next_args so agents can chain calls without re-prompting.

Multi-client setup

• Full guide: [docs/MCPINTEGRATION.md](docs/MCPINTEGRATION.md)
• Ready templates: [templates/mcp/](templates/mcp/)
• Bootstrap scripts:
• scripts/setup-mcp.sh
• scripts/setup-mcp.ps1

Registry verification (authoritative)

• Registry name: io.github.Anandb71/arbor
• Official API lookup: https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0.1/servers?search=io.github.Anandb71/arbor

> [!NOTE] > github.com/mcp search UI may lag indexing. Use the official registry API lookup above as source of truth.

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Language support

Arbor supports production parsing and graph analysis across major ecosystems:

• Rust
• TypeScript / JavaScript
• Python
• Go
• Java
• C / C++
• C# (Native Tree-sitter)
• Dart
• Kotlin (fallback parser)
• Swift (fallback parser)
• Ruby (fallback parser)
• PHP (fallback parser)
• Shell (fallback parser)

Detailed parser notes and expansion guidance:

• [docs/ADDINGLANGUAGES.md](docs/ADDINGLANGUAGES.md)
• [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md)

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Architecture and docs

Start here when you need deeper internals:

• [docs/QUICKSTART.md](docs/QUICKSTART.md)
• [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md)
• [docs/GRAPHSCHEMA.md](docs/GRAPHSCHEMA.md)
• [docs/PROTOCOL.md](docs/PROTOCOL.md)
• [docs/MCPINTEGRATION.md](docs/MCPINTEGRATION.md)
• [docs/ROADMAP.md](docs/ROADMAP.md)

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Git-aware CI workflows

Arbor supports pre-merge risk checks and change gating:

arbor diff --markdown
arbor check --max-blast-radius 30 --markdown
arbor summary

Use the repository GitHub Action for CI integration:

name: Arbor Check
on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  arbor:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # needed for full diff comparison
      
      - uses: Anandb71/arbor@v2.3.0
        with:
          command: check . --max-blast-radius 30 --markdown
          comment-on-pr: true # posts/updates report directly on the PR
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

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Release channels

Automated release distribution includes:

• GitHub Releases (platform binaries)
• crates.io
• GHCR container images
• npm wrapper package
• VS Code Marketplace / Open VSX extension channels
• Homebrew + Scoop

Runbook: [docs/RELEASING.md](docs/RELEASING.md)

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome.

• Start with: [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md)
• Code of conduct: [CODEOFCONDUCT.md](CODEOFCONDUCT.md)
• Security policy: [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md)
• Good first tasks: [docs/GOODFIRSTISSUES.md](docs/GOODFIRSTISSUES.md)

For local development:

cargo build --workspace
cargo test --workspace

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Contributors

7 contributors | View all

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Security

Arbor is local-first by design:

• No mandatory data exfiltration
• Offline-capable workflows
• Open-source code paths

Report vulnerabilities via [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md).

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License

MIT — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: Anandb71
• Source: Anandb71/arbor
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://getarbor.dev/

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.