Build an internal knowledge base
Use Helix Code Intelligence to index your codebase and give agents and humans a searchable, always-current understanding of your repositories.
Helix Code Intelligence (powered by Kodit) builds a structured index of your repositories. Agents use it automatically when working on spec tasks; you can also query it directly to understand your codebase.
What gets indexed
When you connect a repository to a project, Helix indexes it immediately:
- Code structure — functions, classes, types, imports, exports across all files
- Semantic embeddings — vector representations for semantic ("find code that validates email addresses") and keyword search
- Auto-generated wiki — a page per major component or module, updated on each push
The index stays current: every push to the repository triggers a re-index of changed files.
Searching the codebase
Open a project and click the Code Intelligence tab. From there you can:
- Semantic search — describe what you're looking for in plain language
"authentication middleware that validates JWT tokens"
- Keyword search — find specific identifiers, function names, or string literals
- File browser — list and browse files as the agent sees them
- Read a file — inspect any file exactly as the agent would read it
- Changelog — an automated commit-by-commit changelog for the repository
These are the same tools the agent uses via MCP — querying the search interface is a good way to verify what the agent can see before writing a spec task.
Adding external repositories
Code Intelligence works with both private repositories (connected to your project) and external public repositories. To index a public repository without adding it as a project repository:
- Go to Settings → Code Intelligence
- Click Add Repository
- Enter the repository URL
This is useful for indexing shared libraries, SDKs, or reference codebases that agents and developers need to understand but shouldn't commit to.
The automated wiki
For each indexed repository, Helix generates a wiki — a set of prose pages describing the major components, their relationships, and their purpose. The wiki is updated automatically on each push.
Access it from the Code Intelligence tab → Wiki.
The wiki is useful for:
- Onboarding new developers to an unfamiliar codebase
- Giving agents a higher-level understanding of architecture before they start reading files
- Understanding what changed in a recent push (the changelog integrates here)
For agents: how code intelligence improves output
Without code intelligence, agents re-read many files to build context, sometimes missing relevant code elsewhere in the codebase. With code intelligence, the agent can:
- Search for existing implementations before writing new ones (reduces duplication)
- Find all callers of a function before changing its signature (avoids breakage)
- Read the architectural context of a component before modifying it
In practice this reduces the rate of agents rewriting things that already exist and breaking things they didn't know were connected.
Connecting MCP to local IDEs
The Kodit MCP server is accessible externally, so you can connect your local IDE or Claude Desktop to the same index your agents use:
- Go to Settings → Code Intelligence → MCP Access
- Copy the MCP server URL and token
- Add it to your local MCP client configuration
This gives your local IDE the same semantic search, file browse, and wiki the agents use — a useful way to explore large or unfamiliar codebases.