ace index

ace index

Parses and indexes your codebase into ACECode’s semantic search engine.

Usage

ace index [options]

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-p, --project	Project slug to index	Auto-detected from .ace/config
--force	Force full re-index (ignore change detection)	false
--since <commit>	Only index files changed since this commit	—
--api-key <key>	Override API key	ACE_API_KEY env var
--api-url <url>	Override API URL	https://api.acecode.dev

Examples

# Index current project (auto-detect from .ace/config)
ace index

# Index a specific project
ace index -p my-backend

# Force full re-index
ace index --force

# Only index files changed since last commit
ace index --since HEAD~1

How it works

The ace index command:

1. Scans your project for source files
2. Parses each file using the TypeScript Compiler API (TS/JS) or tree-sitter (other languages)
3. Splits code into semantic chunks (functions, classes, blocks)
4. Sends chunks to the API for embedding and storage
5. Detects unchanged files via content hash — only re-indexes modified files

Incremental indexing

ACECode uses content hashes to avoid re-indexing unchanged files. On subsequent runs:

📁 Scanning 847 files...
⚡ 823 files unchanged (skipped)
⚡ Indexing 24 changed files...
✅ Done in 3.2s