Architect

Stop pasting your file tree into Claude. Give any AI assistant real architectural understanding of a codebase — local, private, zero‑config.

PyPI License: MIT Python 3.10+ MCP

AI coding assistants are great at files but blind to architecture. Every session you re‑explain the structure, paste the file tree, and hope it guesses your module boundaries right. mcp-architect is an MCP server that hands your assistant a structured map of any codebase — tech stack, dependency graph, hotspots, and module summaries — computed 100% locally with no API keys and no model required.

It works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, or any MCP client.

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Why

Without mcp-architect	With mcp-architect
"Here's my file tree, please figure out the structure…"	architecture_overview → stack, entry points, structure in one call
AI guesses how modules relate	dependency_graph → real import graph + circular‑dependency detection
"Which files matter?"	hotspots → largest, most complex, most‑changed, highest‑risk
Re‑explaining a package every time	explain → classes, functions, and deps of any folder

Everything runs on your machine. Your code never leaves it.

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Quickstart

Install

pip install mcp-architect

…or skip the install entirely and let your MCP client fetch it on demand with uvx (shown below).

1. Add it to your MCP client

Claude Desktop — edit claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "architect": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-architect"]
    }
  }
}

Prefer pip? pip install mcp-architect. Or run the latest straight from source:

{ "mcpServers": { "architect": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/kannajune/mcp-architect", "mcp-architect"]
} } }

Restart your client. That's it — no keys, no model download.

2. Ask your assistant

"Use the architect tools to give me an overview of ~/code/my-app, then show me its dependency graph and the highest‑risk files."

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What you get

# Architecture Overview — my-app

**151 files · 17,368 lines of code**

## Languages
- **Python** — 93 files, 13,683 LOC
- **TypeScript** — 23 files, 3,120 LOC

## Frameworks / key libraries
- FastAPI
- React
- Tailwind CSS

## Entry points
- main.py

# Dependency Graph — my-app

**118 modules · 172 internal import edges**

## Most depended-upon (architectural hubs)
- `app.signals.signal_parser` — imported by 12 modules
- `app.core.integrations_registry` — imported by 11 modules

## Circular dependencies
✅ no circular dependencies found

Tools

Tool	What it tells the AI
architecture_overview	Languages, frameworks, ecosystems, size, top‑level structure, entry points
dependency_graph	Internal import graph, architectural hubs, circular dependencies
impact_analysis	What breaks if you change X — direct importers + transitive blast radius, hub risk
hotspots	Largest / most complex / most‑changed (git) / highest‑risk files
explain	Deep‑dive a folder or file: classes, functions, external deps

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Design principles

• Zero heavy dependencies. Pure Python standard library for all analysis (ast, os, re). The only runtime dep is the MCP SDK itself. Installs in seconds.
• Local & private. No network calls, no telemetry, no LLM. Your source never leaves your machine.
• Language‑aware. Full AST parsing for Python; import parsing for JavaScript/TypeScript; file/LOC stats for 25+ languages.
• Decoupled core. The analysis layer (mcp_architect.analysis) is importable and testable on its own — use it as a plain Python library too.

from mcp_architect.analysis import get_overview, get_dependency_graph
print(get_overview("~/code/my-app")["frameworks"])

The dependency and complexity analysis is heuristic — designed to give an AI useful, fast situational awareness, not to replace a full static analyzer.

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Pin to one project (optional)

Set MCP_ARCHITECT_ROOT so tools default to a fixed repo and you can omit paths:

{ "mcpServers": { "architect": {
    "command": "uvx", "args": ["mcp-architect"],
    "env": { "MCP_ARCHITECT_ROOT": "/Users/you/code/my-app" }
} } }

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How it compares

mcp-architect isn't a semantic search engine or a context packer — it's a structural lens any AI assistant can call on demand. It's designed to complement the tools below, not replace them:

Tool / approach	Great at	What mcp-architect adds
Cursor codebase indexing	Semantic snippet retrieval, inside Cursor	Works in any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cline, Windsurf, Cursor…), 100% local (no cloud embeddings), and returns architecture — dependency graph, cycles, hotspots — not just relevant snippets
Serena (LSP-based code agent)	Precise symbol-level navigation & edits	Zero-config, zero heavy deps (stdlib — no language servers to install) and a high-level architectural map instead of symbol-by-symbol operations
RepoPrompt (context packing)	Hand-picking files into a prompt	The assistant pulls structured architecture on demand via tools — no manual file selection, no token-budget juggling

In one line: Cursor and Serena help the AI read your code; mcp-architect helps it understand the architecture — locally, in any client. They stack well together.

Roadmap

• Layered‑architecture / boundary‑violation detection
• Go, Rust & Java import graphs
• Optional local‑LLM (Ollama) narrative summaries
• compare tool for before/after architecture diffs

Contributions welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.

Contributing

PRs and issues welcome! Run the tests with:

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

License

MIT © Kannan Dharmalingam