HTTP & Socket API

lci server starts a long-running, per-project index daemon (IndexServer) that speaks HTTP/JSON. lci CLI subcommands and the MCP server talk to it as a client; you can also reach it directly.

Transport

Note

The listener is per-user and per-project — two users, or the same user against two different project roots, get distinct sockets/ports so they never collide.

• Linux / macOS: a Unix domain socket at <tmp>/lci-<uid>.sock (no project root given) or <tmp>/lci-<uid>-<hash>.sock (hash of the absolute project root).
• Windows: no Unix sockets, so the server binds a loopback TCP port — 127.0.0.1:<port> — derived deterministically from the user id (and project-root hash, when set) so repeated runs land on the same port.

Endpoints

All endpoints accept POST with a JSON body; ping, status, and stats additionally accept GET with no body. Responses are application/json.

| Endpoint | Purpose | |----------|---------| | POST /ping | Liveness check | | POST /status | Server status | | POST /search | Content search (same engine as lci search) | | POST /symbol | Symbol lookup | | POST /fileinfo | File info | | POST /shutdown | Shut the server down | | POST /reindex | Trigger a re-index of the project root | | POST /stats | Runtime metrics | | POST /definition | Symbol definition (lci def) | | POST /references | Symbol references (lci refs) | | POST /tree | Function call hierarchy (lci tree) | | POST /git-analyze | Git change analysis (lci git-analyze) | | POST /list-symbols | Enumerate + filter symbols | | POST /inspect-symbol | Deep inspect one symbol | | POST /browse-file | Symbol outline for a file | | GET /ping | Liveness check, no body | | GET /status | Server status, no body | | GET /stats | Runtime metrics, no body |

Talking to it directly

Over a Unix socket, with curl’s --unix-socket flag:

curl --unix-socket /tmp/lci-$(id -u).sock \
  -X POST http://localhost/search \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"pattern": "myFunction"}'

On Windows, the same request goes over the loopback TCP port instead of --unix-socket.

Lifecycle

• lci server / lci server --daemon starts the daemon; --foreground forces it to stay attached to the terminal (for debugging).
• lci status (-v/--verbose for runtime metrics) queries a running server without going through the CLI’s own indexing path. POST /stats exposes the same runtime metrics directly over HTTP; there is no separate lci stats subcommand.
• lci shutdown [--force] stops it; /shutdown does the same over HTTP.
• CLI subcommands that need index state (search, def, refs, tree, …) start the server on demand if one isn’t already running for that project root, then reuse it for subsequent calls.

Indexing is in-memory only — there is no disk persistence today, so the index is rebuilt on every server start (or via POST /reindex).