maven-indexer-cli

A command-line tool for querying your local Maven/Gradle artifact index directly from the terminal — no MCP client required.

It shares the same SQLite index as maven-indexer-mcp, so if you already use the MCP server, the index is already warm.

Key Use Case: When AI tools in the terminal (claude, gemini-cli, kiro-cli, codex, etc.) need to look up Java classes, method signatures, or source code from your local dependencies, they can call maven-indexer-cli directly instead of requiring an MCP server.

Installation

npm install -g maven-indexer-cli

Skills

# Install the CLI
npm install -g maven-indexer-cli

# Install the skill
npx skills add tangcent/maven-indexer-cli -g -y

The skill guides AI tools to call maven-indexer-cli when they need to look up Java classes, artifacts, or source code from your local Maven/Gradle dependencies.

Quick Start

# Build the index first (quick scan — one version per artifact)
maven-indexer-cli refresh-index

# Search for a class
maven-indexer-cli search-classes StringUtils

# Get method signatures
maven-indexer-cli get-class com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList

Commands

search-classes <query>

Search for Java classes by name or keyword.

maven-indexer-cli search-classes StringUtils
maven-indexer-cli search-classes com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList --limit 10
maven-indexer-cli search-classes guava --json

Options:

• --limit <n> — maximum number of results
• --json — output as JSON

search-artifacts <query>

Search for artifacts by groupId, artifactId, or keyword.

maven-indexer-cli search-artifacts guava
maven-indexer-cli search-artifacts com.google.guava --limit 5

search-implementations <className>

Find all implementations of an interface or subclasses of a base class.

maven-indexer-cli search-implementations java.util.List
maven-indexer-cli search-implementations org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener

search-resources <pattern>

Search for non-class resources (proto files, XML configs, etc.) inside JARs.

maven-indexer-cli search-resources .proto
maven-indexer-cli search-resources log4j.xml

get-class <className>

Retrieve method signatures, Javadocs, or full source code for a class.

# Signatures (default)
maven-indexer-cli get-class com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList

# Javadocs
maven-indexer-cli get-class com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList --type docs

# Full source
maven-indexer-cli get-class com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList --type source

# From a specific artifact
maven-indexer-cli get-class com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList --coordinate com.google.guava:guava:32.1.2-jre

Options:

• --type <signatures|docs|source> — detail level (default: signatures)
• --coordinate <groupId:artifactId:version> — resolve from a specific artifact

refresh-index

Rebuild the artifact index.

# Quick scan (default) — one best version per artifact, fast
maven-indexer-cli refresh-index

# Full scan — all versions of all artifacts
maven-indexer-cli refresh-index --full

Note: Query commands may trigger a targeted scan via the smart resolver when given an unqualified class name; for fully-qualified names they never index. If the index is empty, query commands exit immediately with a hint to run refresh-index. This keeps query latency predictable for the common case.

Configuration

The CLI uses ~/.maven-indexer-mcp/maven-index.sqlite by default — the same database as the MCP server. Both can run concurrently; the database uses WAL mode for safe concurrent access.

Override the database path with the DB_FILE environment variable:

DB_FILE=/custom/path/maven-index.sqlite maven-indexer-cli search-classes Foo

Other environment variables:

Variable	Description	Default
MAVEN_REPO	Path to local Maven repository	~/.m2/repository
GRADLE_REPO_PATH	Path to Gradle cache	~/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1
INCLUDED_PACKAGES	Comma-separated package patterns to index	* (all)
MAVEN_INDEXER_CFR_PATH	Path to CFR decompiler JAR	bundled
VERSION_RESOLUTION_STRATEGY	semver, latest-published, or latest-used	semver

Smart Class Resolution

When you pass an unqualified class name (e.g., MyService instead of com.example.MyService), the CLI will:

1. Search your current project directory for *.java / *.kt files matching that name
2. Extract the package declaration to construct the fully qualified name
3. Trigger a targeted scan of artifacts matching that package prefix
4. Return the result as if you had provided the full name

This works best when run from your project root.

Development

git clone git@github.com:tangcent/maven-indexer-cli.git
cd maven-indexer-cli
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Release

./scripts/release.sh

Publish

./scripts/publish.sh [npm|github|all]

License

ISC