pgr

pgr is an experimental, stateless MCP server for code search, built as part of research into how coding agents search repositories.

It is a working prototype and public research artifact, not a polished product.

It wraps local code search with ranking and output shaping designed for agent workflows: surfacing likely implementation files earlier, de-prioritizing tests and low-value matches, and formatting results so a model can decide what to read next with less thrashing.

This repository also includes the public datasets, benchmark packages, and saved results used in the accompanying writeup on agentic code search.

• Quick Start
• Usage Documentation
• Public Benchmarks and Data
• Contributing guide
• Security policy
• License

Quick Start

1. Install pgr

Install pgr from this repository:

git clone https://github.com/entireio/pgr.git
cd pgr
cargo install --path .

2. Add it to your MCP client

Then add it to any MCP client that can launch a stdio server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pgr": {
      "command": "pgr",
      "cwd": "/absolute/path/to/repo"
    }
  }
}

3. Point it at the repo to search

Set cwd to the repository you want your agent to search. pgr searches the current working directory of the process that launches it.

4. Ask your agent to search

Once configured, ask your agent to search the repo. For example:

search for where checkpoint commits are written

find the code that handles MCP tool calls

If pgr is not yet on your shell PATH after install, use the binary directly at:

~/.cargo/bin/pgr

What pgr gives agents

pgr is not trying to replace ripgrep. It shells out to local rg for fast content search and file listing, then ranks and shapes the results for coding agents.

That means an agent is more likely to see implementation files before test noise, repeated references, or lower-signal matches.

At a high level it provides tools for:

• search_code
• read_code
• find_files
• list_dir

The search output profile is controlled with PGR_OUTPUT_PROFILE. If it is unset, the server defaults to the richer planner-oriented output profile used in the public results.

There is no index to build, no background daemon, and no separate storage layer. pgr starts, answers MCP tool calls over stdio, and exits when the client stops it.

Build from source

cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/pgr.

If you want the binary on your PATH, you can also install it locally with:

cargo install --path .

For most first-time users, this is the easiest way to try pgr.

Requirements

• Rust toolchain for building from source
• ripgrep installed and available as rg

pgr shells out to local rg for both content search and file listing. If rg is not installed, pgr will not be able to search.

Why we built it

pgr is built around a simple idea: faster search alone is not enough. What matters just as much is whether the search result helps the model choose a better next action.

In the public benchmarks in this repository, the strongest effects did not come from raw scan speed. They showed up in more local agent behavior:

• better first-query retrieval quality
• fewer redundant search loops before the first code read
• getting the agent into reading relevant files sooner

That is the problem pgr is designed to improve.

Usage Documentation

• docs/usage.md - MCP setup, direct stdio smoke test, tool arguments, and output profiles

Public benchmarks and data

The public artifacts referenced in the writeup live under public_release/.

Key packages:

• [`public_release/data/enti

... View full README on GitHub