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Why cssgraph?

When an AI agent needs to understand CSS — where is .btn-primary defined, what properties does it have, which selectors cascade over it, which JSX components reference it — it discovers style the slow way: grep, glob, and Read, one file at a time, reconstructing the cascade by hand.

cssgraph hands the agent the exact style context it needs in one call. It's a pre-built knowledge graph of every className, CSS property, variable, and at-rule in your stylesheets — so instead of crawling files, the agent asks one question and gets back the properties, overrides, specificity, callers, and file-level impact in full.

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Installation

For Humans

Copy and paste this prompt to your LLM agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, etc.):

Install and configure cssgraph by following the instructions here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mack-peng/cssgraph/main/docs/guide/installation.md

Or read the Installation Guide, but seriously, let an agent do it. Humans fat-finger configs.

For LLM Agents

Fetch the installation guide and follow it:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mack-peng/cssgraph/main/docs/guide/installation.md

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Quick Start

1. Initialize

npm i -g cssgraph
cd your-project
cssgraph init --workers 8

Indexes all style files (CSS, SCSS, Less, Sass), JSX/TSX className references, CSS-in-JS, CSS Modules, and view templates (ERB/Haml/HTML) — enabling every MCP tool.

Pass --workers <n> to control parallel parse threads (default: cpu cores - 1).

Requires Node.js >= 22.5.0 (for node:sqlite).

2. Wire up your agent

cssgraph install

Auto-detects and configures opencode, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Hermes Agent, Antigravity IDE, and Kiro.

Or add to any MCP agent manually:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cssgraph": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "cssgraph",
      "args": ["serve", "--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

3. No more syncing

Auto-sync is enabled by default. The MCP server watches your project and updates the graph on every file change — while your agent edits code, or you add/modify/delete CSS files. The index is never stale.

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How It Works

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      AI Agent                              │
│                                                           │
│  "What code files use .btn-primary?"                      │
│      calls cssgraph_rule — one tool call                  │
│                             │                             │
└─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  cssgraph MCP Server                       │
│                                                           │
│ rule · O(1) exact selector lookup · loose/strict impact   │
│ explore · properties + overrides + specificity + callers  │
│                             │                             │
│                             ▼                             │
│               SQLite knowledge graph                      │
│     classNames · properties · variables · at-rules        │
│            edges · FTS5 full-text search                  │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

1. Extraction — PostCSS parses CSS/SCSS/Less/Sass into ASTs. CSS-in-JS (styled.div), JSX className references, and template class attributes extracted from .jsx/.tsx/.erb/.haml files.
2. Storage — Everything goes into a local SQLite database (.cssgraph/cssgraph.db) with FTS5 full-text search. WAL-mode + batch commits for write performance. FTS triggers and unique indexes are deferred during bulk load for speed.
3. Graph — Edges connect related nodes: contains (selector→property), nests (parent→child selector), overrides (higher specificity selector overrides lower), imports (file→imported file), references (JSX/view file→className, property→CSS variable).
4. Git-first scanning — git ls-files for instant file discovery. Falls back to filesystem walk on non-git projects.
5. Parallel parsing — Files dispatched in batches to worker threads via Promise.all. Parses complete concurrently; results flushed in file order for correctness.
6. Auto-Sync — Native OS file events, debounced, incrementally synced.

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CLI Reference

cssgraph init [path] [-w, --workers <n>]  # Initialize + build graph
cssgraph index [path] [-w, --workers <n>]  # Rebuild from scratch
cssgraph query <className>                 # Search for className selectors
cssgraph explore <query...>                # Full style context for a className
cssgraph details <selector>                # O(1) exact selector → file:line lookup
cssgraph rule <selector> [--strict]        # Selector impact: exact + loose/strict files
cssgraph impact-selector <selector>       # Code files affected by a selector
cssgraph impact <className>                # Blast radius of changing a className
cssgraph unused                            # Find unreferenced class selectors
cssgraph cascade <className>               # Visualize cascade path
cssgraph property <query...>               # Search by CSS property value
cssgraph files [path]                      # Project style file tree
cssgraph status [path]                     # Index statistics
cssgraph sync [path]                       # Incremental update
cssgraph serve --mcp                       # Start MCP server
cssgraph install                           # Auto-wire to your AI agent
cssgraph uninstall                         # Remove from your AI agent
cssgraph version                           # Print installed version

JSX and View File Scanning (default)

cssgraph always scans:

• JSX/TSX/JS/TS/ES6 — className references, CSS-in-JS, CSS Modules
• View templates — .erb, .haml, .html files for class="..." attributes and Haml .classname shorthand

This enables cssgraph_impact, cssgraph_callers, and cssgraph_rule to track both component files AND template files that reference each className.

Project	Total files	First index	Nodes	Edges
Small	~50	~15s	~16K	~50K
Production monorepo	~11K	~3-5m	~780K	~22M

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MCP Tools

Tool	Purpose
cssgraph_explore	PRIMARY: Full style context for a className — properties, overrides, specificity, callers
cssgraph_search	Search for className selectors by name
cssgraph_callers	Find JSX components referencing a className
cssgraph_impact	Blast radius of changing a className
cssgraph_rule	Blast radius of a full CSS selector (exact match + loose/strict file impact)
cssgraph_impact_selector	Find code files (JS/TS/JSX/TSX) affected by a CSS selector
cssgraph_details	O(1) exact selector lookup (no edges, lightweight)
cssgraph_unused	Find class selectors with no incoming references
cssgraph_cascade	Visualize the cascade path for a className
cssgraph_property	Search selectors by CSS property value
cssgraph_files	Indexed style file tree
cssgraph_status	Index health check

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Supported Languages

Language	Extension	Extraction
CSS	.css	PostCSS standard
SCSS	.scss	postcss-scss plugin
Less	.less	postcss-less plugin
Sass (indented)	.sass	Compile → PostCSS
PostCSS custom	.pcss	PostCSS standard
JSX / TSX	.jsx .tsx	className + CSS-in-JS
JavaScript / TypeScript	.js .ts .es6	className + CSS Modules
ERB (Rails)	.erb	class="..." extraction
Haml (Rails)	.haml	.classname + {:class =>} extraction
HTML	.html	class="..." extraction
CSS Modules	.module.css .module.scss .module.less	Dynamic import resolution
Tailwind	tailwind.config.js + CSS @theme	v3 JS config + v4 CSS config

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Production Scale

Project	Total files	First index	Nodes	Edges
Small	~50	~15s	~16K	~50K
Production monorepo	~11K	~3-5m	~780K	~22M

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Project Configuration

Zero-config by default. Optional .cssgraph.json at your project root:

{
  "exclude": ["static/vendor/", "**/legacy/**"],
  "extensions": {
    ".pcss": "css"
  }
}

Built-in default excludes (always applied): **/*.test.*, **/*.stories.*, **/*.spec.*, **/*.min.*, **/__tests__/**, **/__snapshots__/**, **/__mocks__/**, **/generated/**, **/spec/**, **/vendor/**.

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Supported Platforms

Platform	Architectures	Install
macOS	x64, arm64	npm
Linux	x64, arm64	npm
Windows	x64, arm64	npm

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License

MIT