ctxpkg

A package manager for AI agent context — manage, sync, and distribute documentation collections for AI-assisted development.

The Vision: Imagine an AI assistant that knows your context — your team's commit style, your company's security policies, your preferred patterns — without you explaining it every session. Read the story: Context Stacking: How Sarah Automated Her Team's Brain

What is ctxpkg?

Just as npm manages code dependencies, ctxpkg manages context dependencies.

Stack documentation layers — from personal notes to team guidelines to project docs — into a unified knowledge base. Your AI agents search this indexed context instead of relying on stale training data or manual copy-paste.

Key capabilities:

• Context Stacking — Layer documentation from multiple sources (personal, team, project, global)
• Semantic Search — Local vector + keyword search finds relevant content without dumping everything into prompts
• MCP Integration — AI editors like Cursor and Claude Desktop can query your context directly
• Git-Native Distribution — Index docs directly from any git repo (public or private) — no publishing required
• Bundle Any Source — Export docs from Confluence, Notion, or any system to markdown, then package into distributable .tar.gz archives

Design Philosophy

Zero-friction adoption. You probably already have documentation worth indexing — a folder of markdown notes, an Obsidian vault, your company's engineering wiki, or a repo full of ADRs and guides. ctxpkg works with what you have. Point it at existing files and start searching. No migration, no reformatting, no custom schemas required.

Low-risk investment. Even if you decide ctxpkg isn't for you, any documentation you create remains useful. It's just markdown files with a simple manifest — humans can read it, other tools can consume it, and nothing is locked into a proprietary format. The worst case scenario is you end up with better-organized documentation.

Installation

npm i -g ctxpkg or run command with npx prefix (npx ctxpkg col init)

Quick Start

Get your AI agents access to your documentation in minutes:

# Initialize project config
ctxpkg col init

# Add your docs folder (requires manifest.json)
ctxpkg col add docs ./docs/manifest.json

# Index the documents
ctxpkg col sync

Now configure your AI editor to use the ctxpkg MCP server:

🔧 Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ctxpkg": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "ctxpkg", "mcp", "documents"]
    }
  }
}

🤖 Claude Code

Run this command:

claude mcp add ctxpkg -- npx -y ctxpkg mcp documents

⚡ Opencode

Add to your Opencode configuration:

{
  "mcp": {
    "ctxpkg": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "-y", "ctxpkg", "mcp", "documents"],
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

See more AI editor setups • Full tutorial: Getting Started

Documentation

Guide	Description
AI Editor Setup	Configure Cursor, Claude Code, Opencode, and more
Getting Started	First-time setup tutorial
CLI Reference	Complete command documentation
Configuration	Project config, global config, manifests
How It Works	Indexing pipeline, search algorithms
MCP Server	AI editor integration and tools
AI Chat & Agent Mode	Chat with docs, reduced-token MCP mode
Agent Testing	Validate agent performance with test suites
Publishing Packages	Distribute docs via GitHub Releases

CLI Management Tools

The CLI is primarily for managing your context collections. Most users will interact with ctxpkg through their AI editor via MCP.

# Collections — manage context packages
ctxpkg col init                    # Initialize project
ctxpkg col add <alias> <url>       # Add a collection
ctxpkg col add -g <alias> <url>    # Add global collection
ctxpkg col sync                    # Index documents
ctxpkg col list                    # Show collections

# MCP — AI editor integration (main use case)
ctxpkg mcp docs                    # Start MCP server (tools mode)
ctxpkg mcp agent                   # Start MCP server (agent mode)

# Additional tools
ctxpkg docs search "query"         # Direct search (testing)
ctxpkg chat "question"             # AI-powered Q&A
ctxpkg agent test tests.yaml       # Test agent performance
ctxpkg daemon start                # Background service

See CLI Reference for complete documentation.

Example: Context Stacking

Layer context from multiple sources:

{
  "collections": {
    "project-docs": {
      "url": "file://./docs/manifest.json"
    },
    "team-standards": {
      "url": "git+https://github.com/myorg/standards#main?manifest=manifest.json"
    },
    "react": {
      "url": "git+https://github.com/facebook/react#v18.2.0?manifest=docs/manifest.json"
    }
  }
}

Git repositories are the easiest way to share documentation — no publishing step required. Just point to a repo with a manifest.json:

# Add docs from any git repo (HTTPS or SSH)
ctxpkg col add team-docs "git+https://github.com/myorg/docs#main?manifest=manifest.json"
ctxpkg col add private-docs "git+ssh://git@github.com/myorg/private#main?manifest=manifest.json"

Add personal/global context available across all projects:

ctxpkg col add -g my-notes file:///Users/me/notes/manifest.json

MCP Integration

ctxpkg's primary purpose is giving AI agents access to your documentation through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Once configured, your AI assistant gains access to 8 document tools:

• search - Semantic search across all your documentation
• search_batch - Multiple queries in one call
• get_document - Retrieve full document content
• get_section - Get specific document sections
• get_outline - Get document structure/outline
• find_related - Find related documents
• list_collections - List all indexed collections
• list_documents - List all documents in collections

Agent Mode (Recommended for Chat)

For reduced token costs in long conversations, use Agent Mode:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ctxpkg-agent": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "ctxpkg", "mcp", "agent"]
    }
  }
}

This exposes a single ask_documents tool that uses an internal AI agent to search and synthesize answers. The calling agent sees only the final result, not intermediate search calls — reducing context overhead.

See MCP Server Documentation for complete details.

AI Chat & Agent Mode

Chat with your documentation directly from the terminal, or use Agent Mode for reduced token costs in AI assistants.

# Configure your LLM
ctxpkg config set llm.apiKey sk-...

# One-shot question
ctxpkg chat "How do I implement caching?" --use-case "Optimizing API performance"

# Interactive session
ctxpkg chat -i

Agent Mode MCP exposes a single ask_documents tool that uses an internal AI agent to search and synthesize answers. The calling agent sees only the final result, not intermediate search calls — reducing context overhead in long conversations.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ctxpkg-agent": {
      "command": "ctxpkg",
      "args": ["mcp", "agent"]
    }
  }
}

See AI Chat & Agent Mode for details.

Distributing Internal Documentation

ctxpkg can package documentation from any source — Confluence, Notion, SharePoint, or internal wikis — into distributable bundles that teams can share via internal systems.

Workflow:

1. Export your docs as Markdown — Use your platform's export tools or APIs to extract documentation

2. Add a manifest — Create a manifest.json describing the collection:

   {
     "name": "company-knowledge-base",
     "sources": [{ "pattern": "**/*.md" }]
   }
   

3. Create a bundle — Package everything into a distributable archive:

   ctxpkg col pack --output knowledge-base-v1.tar.gz
   

4. Distribute internally — Host the bundle on internal file servers, S3, or artifact storage

Teams can then add the bundle:

ctxpkg col add kb https://internal.example.com/bundles/knowledge-base-v1.tar.gz

This enables organizations to centralize and distribute institutional knowledge to AI agents across all teams, without requiring git repositories or public hosting.

See Publishing Packages for automated publishing with GitHub Actions.

Development

pnpm run test:lint   # Linting
pnpm run test:unit   # Unit tests
pnpm run build       # Build TypeScript

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)