Install Indexed

Install the indexed-sh package and run the indexed CLI.

uv tool install indexed-sh

indexed --help

pip install indexed-sh
indexed --help

uvx indexed-sh --help

git clone https://github.com/LennardZuendorf/indexed.git
cd indexed
uv sync
uv run indexed --help

docker build -t indexed .
docker run indexed --help

Initialize Your Workspace

Two different commands run at different times:

indexed config init creates the layout in your current working directory. For a personal default under ~/.indexed/, run it from your home directory:

cd ~
indexed config init

Collections are stored under ~/.indexed/data/collections/<name>/ unless you pass --local on indexed index create (then they live under ./.indexed/ in that project). See the Configuration Guide for layout, credentials, and tuning.

Then download embedding models and finish setup:

indexed init

From source, prefix both: uv run indexed config init and uv run indexed init. See indexed init --help for --skip-model and --model options.

Index a Folder

Point Indexed at any folder with documents — your project's docs/ directory, a folder of Markdown files, or a directory with a few READMEs.

indexed index create files -c my-docs -p ./docs

Indexing collection 'my-docs'...
  Parsed 12 documents
  Created 47 chunks
  Generated embeddings
✓ Collection 'my-docs' created (47 chunks, 3.2 MB)

Search It

indexed index search "authentication guide"

Results for 'authentication guide' (top 5):

1. [my-docs] auth-setup.md (chunk 2/4)
   Score: 0.82
   ...To configure SSO authentication, first set up your identity
   provider with the following SAML settings...

2. [my-docs] onboarding.md (chunk 5/8)
   Score: 0.74
   ...New team members should request access through the auth
   portal at auth.internal.company.com...

Notice how the search found documents about "SSO authentication" and "access through the auth portal" — even though we searched for "authentication guide." That's semantic search at work: embeddings capture meaning rather than matching keywords. The phrase "SSO refresh" matched "auth token rotation" in the example above because both describe the same concept; the model understands that conceptual similarity, not just string overlap.

Connect to Claude Desktop

Minimal MCP wiring (stdio): add Indexed to mcpServers with command indexed and args mcp, run. Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "indexed": {
      "command": "indexed",
      "args": ["mcp", "run"]
    }
  }
}

Full paths (macOS, Linux, Windows), local storage, JSON examples, PATH checks (which / where), and troubleshooting are in Claude Plugin Integration. For Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Codex, and other agents, see MCP Setup.

indexed --help
indexed index inspect
indexed mcp inspect
indexed index search "test query"

Update Your Collection

When your documents change, re-fetch and re-embed only what's new:

indexed index update my-docs

Updating collection 'my-docs'...
  Before: 12 documents, 47 chunks
  After:  14 documents, 53 chunks
✓ Collection 'my-docs' updated

Indexed detects which files changed since the last index and re-processes only those. For git repos, it uses git diff automatically; for non-git folders it falls back to content hashing.