Bifrost

Quickstart · Documentation · Ten-minute evaluation · Discord

Why Bifrost?

bifrost is Brokk's Rust-based static analysis toolbox for AI coding harnesses, editors, and large repositories.

Bifrost gives every supported language a shared intermediate representation, so the same structural query and navigation workflows work across a mixed-language repository instead of stopping at language boundaries.

• One multi-language IR. Parse unbuilt or partially broken workspaces and normalize their source structure for cross-language analysis.
• A real query language. Use JSON CodeQuery or the Rune Query Language (RQL) to find language-neutral code shapes and traverse indexed declarations, references, calls, imports, and type relationships.
• Built for agents and editors. Expose structured MCP tools to coding agents, LSP features to editors, and the same analyzer through the CLI, Python, and Rust.
• Designed for active repositories. Snapshot isolation, incremental updates, content-based caching, and git/worktree awareness keep analysis responsive as a repository changes.

See Choose Bifrost for the right interface for your workflow, and the Language and Analysis Capabilities matrix for language-by-language support, precision tiers, and current analysis boundaries.

Run Your First Query

Install the released CLI, clone the small verified evaluation fixture, and run its saved RQL query:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BrokkAi/bifrost/refs/heads/master/install.sh | bash
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BrokkAi/bifrost.git
cd bifrost/docs/fixtures/ten-minute-evaluation
bifrost --root . --query-file queries/find-audit.rql

Users with uv or pipx can instead run uv tool install brokk-bifrost or pipx install brokk-bifrost; both install the same native bifrost command from a platform wheel in an isolated environment. uvx brokk-bifrost --version runs it without a persistent install.

Node users can run npm install -g @brokkai/bifrost or use npx -y @brokkai/bifrost --version. The npm package installs the same released native command for the current platform.

The installer downloads the checksum-verified release binary into ~/.local/bin on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), glibc 2.28+ Linux (x86-64 and ARM64), WSL, and Android under Termux. Homebrew users on macOS and glibc Linux can run brew install brokkai/tap/bifrost instead. On Windows, use the published archive or build from source. Musl distributions such as Alpine have no supported prebuilt release; users can attempt a source build with cargo install brokk-bifrost --locked. See Install Bifrost for the full platform table.

The result identifies the normalized Python call and its exact source location:

{
  "isError": false,
  "structuredContent": {
    "results": [
      {
        "enclosing_symbol": "src.app.handle",
        "end_line": 5,
        "kind": "call",
        "language": "python",
        "path": "src/app.py",
        "result_type": "structural_match",
        "start_line": 5,
        "text": "audit(value)"
      }
    ],
    "truncated": false
  }
}

Continue with the ten-minute evaluation to run the same query through the CLI, an MCP-connected coding agent, and VS Code.

See Bifrost in Action

Turn Source into a Query in VS Code

Select a source construct and run Bifrost: Show Rune IR to inspect its language-neutral .rune form and get a conservative starter RQL query. Run that query from the editor, browse typed results grouped by file, and jump to the exact source range. The extension also provides definitions, references, hover, rename, symbols, hierarchy, diagnostics, completion, and other LSP features.

Use the Same Analyzer from the CLI

Run saved RQL or JSON queries directly, or call the same named tools exposed over MCP for shell scripts and reproducible analysis workflows.

Language Coverage

Bifrost includes analyzers for C, C++, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Kotlin, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala, and TypeScript. See the capability matrix for the supported analysis and precision boundaries in each language.

Documentation

The public documentation site lives in docs/ and is published at bifrost.brokk.ai.

Useful starting points:

• Choose the right Bifrost interface
• Third-party notices
• Install Bifrost
• Evaluate Bifrost in ten minutes
• MCP server and toolsets
• LSP server
• CLI usage
• Code querying

Run the docs site locally with:

cd docs
npm install
npm run dev

GitHub Pages publication is handled by .github/workflows/docs.yml. Release tag builds publish both the latest docs site and a versioned snapshot under versions/<tag>/.

Repository Layout

The repository is organized around the public product surfaces:

• Core analysis: crates/ contains the Rust workspace crates; src/ provides the top-level facade and CLI; schemas/ holds shared data contracts.
• Integrations and distribution: the VS Code extension and the Zed extension scaffold are maintained in BrokkAi/bifrost-lsp. plugins/ contains coding-agent plugins; npm/, packaging/, and bifrost_searchtools/ expose or package the analyzer.
• Documentation and examples: docs/ is the documentation site; examples/ contains runnable examples.
• Open analysis content: BrokkAi/bifrost-packs is the home for open semantic packs and policy rules, including contributions, generation, and independently versioned releases. The v0.13 engine ships without product rules; LSP/MCP and other hosts acquire compatible releases through the verified cache flow. Parser assets and separate semantic-model packs remain engine inputs. The engine retains pack tooling and regression fixtures; .bifrost/ contains project-level analysis defaults.
• Development support: benchmark/ covers reproducible measurements; scripts/ and tools/ hold maintenance and release helpers. Root manifests plus .github/, .cargo/, and .config/ define builds, checks, and automation.

License and Commercial Use

Bifrost's public open core is licensed under Apache-2.0 and may be used in research, internal systems, hosted services, and commercial products. Read the License page for the project terms and Third-Party Notices for the additional terms that apply to official binaries and semantic packs.

Contributing

Project contributors  

_{The public repository is projected from Bifrost's open-core source, so its GitHub contributor graph does not reflect everyone who helped build the project.}

For local development, test commands, repository-local Python workflow, and release tagging, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Contribute open semantic models and policies to Bifrost-packs. Engine, parser, catalog, and policy-evaluation improvements belong here.