Standardoc — VSCode extension

AI-readable code documentation indexer for Rust and TypeScript projects, surfaced over LSP (writer daemon) and MCP (read-only daemon) via stdio.

Architecture

The extension spawns the bundled stdoc binary as two parallel daemons:

stdoc lsp <workspace> — primary writer (acquires the workspace fs lock, runs the indexer, serves LSP requests).
stdoc mcp <workspace> --readonly — read-only client over a separate SQLite connection, exposes MCP tools (get_context, find_symbol).

Settings

standardoc.binaryPath — absolute path override. When unset the extension falls back to the binary bundled under dist/bin/, then to a stdoc found on PATH.

Commands

Standardoc: Daemon: Restart / Daemon: Stop / Daemon: Start
Standardoc: Find symbol — InputBox + QuickPick over find_symbol, opens the selected symbol at its source location.
Standardoc: Get context for symbol at cursor — runs find_symbol on the word under the cursor, takes the top match, and renders get_context(fqdn, depth=1) into the Standardoc output channel.
Standardoc: Initialize for this workspace — manual override of the init prompt. Writes .mcp.json and .claude/skills/standardoc/SKILL.md, opts this workspace in, and starts the daemons.
Standardoc: Refresh .mcp.json paths — re-merge .mcp.json with current absolute paths (use after moving the workspace or rebuilding the binary elsewhere).
Standardoc: Regenerate AI agent skill — overwrite .claude/skills/standardoc/SKILL.md with the latest template.
Standardoc: Reset global init prompt — clear the "Never (any workspace)" global opt-out so the init prompt re-appears on workspaces with code.
Standardoc: Purge excluded paths — stop the daemon, run stdoc purge-excluded, restart.

AI agent skill (Claude Code)

When you opt in to initialization on a workspace, the extension generates a skill file at .claude/skills/standardoc/SKILL.md. Claude Code (CLI and IDE integrations) auto-loads skills from .claude/skills/ and uses the description / when_to_use frontmatter to decide when to invoke them.

The generated skill instructs the AI to use Standardoc as the first tool for any code-understanding task on this workspace, falling back to LSP / Go-to-Definition and then to raw Read/Grep/Glob only when Standardoc cannot answer. It also pre-approves the two MCP tools (mcp__standardoc__find_symbol, mcp__standardoc__get_context) so they run without per-call permission prompts.

If you edit the file by hand, re-running Standardoc: Regenerate AI agent skill will overwrite your changes. The init flow leaves an existing skill file untouched (only writes when absent or already matching the template).

Use Standardoc MCP from external chat clients

The extension contributes Standardoc as an MCP server provider for the editor's own chat surface (Copilot Chat, Claude Code in VSCode, …). On activation it registers under id standardoc.mcp and the editor picks up the find_symbol and get_context tools automatically — no extra config inside the editor.

To use Standardoc MCP from chat clients outside VSCode (Claude Desktop, Cursor, the standalone Claude Code CLI, …) add the following entry to the client's MCP config file. Replace <workspace> with the absolute path to your project root and <binary> with the absolute path to your stdoc build (or stdoc if it is on your PATH):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "standardoc": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "<binary>",
      "args": ["mcp", "<workspace>", "--readonly"]
    }
  }
}

If you collaborate via git, consider adding .mcp.json to your .gitignore — the file contains machine-absolute paths that are not portable across teammates.

Common file locations:

Claude Desktop — claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config)
Claude Code CLI — ~/.claude.json or per-project .mcp.json
Cursor — ~/.cursor/mcp.json or workspace .cursor/mcp.json

The --readonly flag lets multiple chat clients share the index concurrently with the LSP daemon owned by the VSCode extension.

Local development (dogfood)

bun install
# Point standardoc.binaryPath in VSCode settings to
# <repo>/standardoc/target/debug/stdoc(.exe), then:
bun run package
bun run dev:install
# Reload the VSCode window and exercise the extension live.

standardoc

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