claw-ideas/ideas/ai-knowledge/codebase-qa-agent.md

Codebase Q&A Agent

Provide accurate, source-grounded answers about your repositories using retrieval-augmented generation over code, docs, and architecture notes.

Problem

Developers lose time searching across files and tribal knowledge to answer implementation questions that should be discoverable.

Core capabilities

• Index source code, READMEs, ADRs, and API specs.
• Retrieve relevant snippets with file and line citations.
• Answer natural-language questions like ownership, flow, and integration points.
• Maintain freshness through incremental indexing on push.

MVP scope

• Start with one repository and language-aware chunking.
• Chat interface with citation-first responses.
• Permission-aware retrieval for private code.

Success criteria

• Faster onboarding and reduced interrupt load on senior engineers.
• Higher answer trust due to verifiable citations.

Stretch ideas

• Generate architecture maps from indexed call graphs.
• Detect stale docs by comparing docs against current code behavior.