Miru

Miru (見る)

Hybrid code search for AI coding agents. Find code by meaning, not grep.

Your AI agent finds the code it needs with up to 50% fewer tokens.

Miru returns the best chunks (path, lines, snippet) for questions like "where is auth middleware configured?" — plugged directly into Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, and 9+ other agents via MCP.

How it fits into your agent's workflow

Miru replaces the grep/glob-style search agents fall back on today. Install once, and every connected agent gets search and find_related MCP tools automatically.

Install via a plugin marketplace

Prefer this when your IDE has a plugin marketplace — no bun add -g step, and updates go through the IDE's own plugin flow. Run miru setup first if you have not authenticated yet (see Set up credentials).

Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add takara-ai/miru-code
/plugin install miru

Restart Claude Code (or reload plugins) when prompted. Update: /plugin marketplace update miru then reinstall. Remove: /plugin uninstall miru.

Cursor:

1. Dashboard → Plugins → Team Marketplaces → Add Marketplace → Import from Repo → takara-ai/miru-code
2. Customize (sidebar) → find miru → Install → choose project or user scope

Any other IDE, or if marketplace install isn't available: use the CLI install below.

What you get from a plugin install vs the CLI

Plugin installs don't carry full CLI parity — what each one gives you depends on the IDE's own plugin capabilities, not just Miru's packaging:

— means the IDE's plugin schema has no equivalent mechanism to port these to (not a packaging gap we can close): Codex's and Cursor's plugin manifests have no agents or userConfig fields, so the dedicated sub-agent and the benchmark toggle are Claude-Code-only.

Credentials are plugin-scoped, not shared with your CLI install. Claude Code and Codex plugins each store auth in their own IDE-managed data directory (survives plugin updates, removed on uninstall). This means miru setup done via the CLI does not carry over to a plugin install, or vice versa — each authenticates independently on first use (interactive device-code login bootstraps automatically). If you use both the CLI and a plugin, you'll sign in twice.

Install (CLI)

bun add -g @takara-ai/miru-code

Set up credentials

miru setup

Interactive miru setup defaults to device-code login and saves the resulting credentials locally. Manual bearer-token entry is still available with --key. If credentials are missing, the interactive MCP/plugin path can bootstrap the same device flow automatically on first use.

miru setup --device           # explicit device-code login
miru setup --key YOUR_TOKEN   # store a bearer token directly
miru setup --clear            # remove stored credentials

Miru stores versioned credentials in credentials.json and automatically loads or refreshes them for MCP and CLI use. TAKARA_API_KEY still overrides stored credentials when set explicitly.

Add to your IDE

miru install

Interactive TUI — ↑↓ move, space toggle, a all, enter confirm. Pick agents and integrations:

Restart the IDE when done.

miru uninstall   # remove miru config

Supported: Cursor · Claude Code · Gemini CLI · Kiro · OpenCode · GitHub Copilot · Codex · VS Code · Visual Studio (Windows) · Windsurf / Devin Desktop

Plugin packaging

• Codex: .codex-plugin/plugin.json, .agents/plugins/marketplace.json, shares the root mcp.json
• Claude Code: .claude-plugin/plugin.json, .claude-plugin/marketplace.json, its own .claude-plugin/mcp.json (needed for the userConfig benchmark toggle — see What you get from a plugin install vs the CLI)
• Cursor: plugin.json and .cursor/rules/miru-code-search.mdc

Current limitation:

• these plugin manifests launch the published Miru runtime through bunx @takara-ai/miru-code@latest mcp
• that means local source edits do not affect plugin behavior until a package version is published
• and a fully self-contained “no Bun required” plugin install is still future work

On-demand skills

Sub-agent files are also written where supported (see miru install plan). Windsurf hooks only (experimental) — no MCP entry yet. Caveman is an on-demand Agent Skill (default off): invoke with /caveman or “talk like caveman”; stop with “normal mode”. Invocation UI varies by IDE (/caveman, $caveman, @caveman, etc.). Most IDEs share ~/.agents/skills/caveman/SKILL.md (including Copilot / VS Code / Visual Studio); Claude Code and Kiro keep vendor-native skill dirs. Ownership is tracked on the shared path so uninstalling one IDE keeps the skill while another still owns it; selecting all owners removes it once. STE is an on-demand Agent Skill (default off): invoke with /ste or “de-slop this”; keep articles and complete sentences. Most IDEs share ~/.agents/skills/ste/ the same way (ownership via miru-owners.json); Claude Code and Kiro keep vendor-native STE dirs.

STE helps write clear technical English for docs, runbooks, errors, and release notes (pragmatic ASD-STE100-inspired rules). Invoke with /ste or “de-slop this”. Keep articles and complete sentences — not telegraph-style omission.

Not ASD-certified. Full dictionary compliance needs the official standard at asd-ste100.org. Miru does not ship the copyrighted ASD dictionary.

Not for marketing or brand copy. Off by default; enable STE in the installer for any supported IDE. Restart the IDE (or reload skills) after install. For Codex, install also sets [features] skills = true in ~/.codex/config.toml (same as Caveman).

Caveman compresses live chat replies (less filler, max meaning). Intensities: /caveman lite|full|ultra (default full). Persisted artifacts (commits, PRs, customer docs) stay normal prose unless you ask otherwise.

Security / destructive warnings use clear normal prose (auto-clarity) — brevity never hides risk. Session token savings vary; the skill itself costs input tokens. No guaranteed %.

Off by default at install time. Enable Caveman in the installer for any supported IDE. Restart the IDE (or reload skills) after install. For Codex, the installer also sets [features] skills = true in ~/.codex/config.toml (required for Codex to load skills).

Team sub-agent in a repo (optional):

miru init --agent claude --force

Try it

Meaning-based questions → search. Exact strings (env vars, symbols, error codes) → locate.

miru search "auth middleware" ./src
miru locate REDIS_HOST ./src
miru expand src/auth.ts 42 ./src
miru find-related src/auth.ts 42 ./src

Terminal output is human-readable; use --json for scripts. One-off without installing:

bunx @takara-ai/miru-code@latest search "auth middleware" ./src

MCP tools

When wired via miru install, the MCP server exposes search, locate, expand, and find_related. read_benchmark appears only in benchmark mode. repo is optional: it defaults to the server's startup directory. Set it for another repo, or if your MCP client starts elsewhere. The index is built on the first call and cached for the session.

Workflow

1. search with query — returns compact snippets (~±15 lines) and relevance scores.
2. If a hit has truncated: true, its header names the symbol and its exact lines (path:start-end Symbol) plus anchor_line. Read just those lines with a ranged Read (offset/limit) — not another search or a full-file read.
3. If that range lacks context, call expand with file_path and anchor_line for neighbouring chunks. To trace similar patterns elsewhere, call find_related with the same file_path and anchor_line.
4. Use your editor's Read on absolute_path only for a hit's line range, to see a truncated body or edit it.

Keep repo on follow-up calls when set.

Prefer these tools over Grep, Glob, or SemanticSearch when Miru MCP is connected — hooks and instructions enforce that when enabled.

Local repo hits include absolute_path for one-click navigation. Parameter reference is below under MCP parameters.

How it works

Hybrid search: Takara embeddings + BM25 + fusion + reranking. Index code, docs, config, or all with --content.

MCP watches local files and updates the index incrementally. Package upgrades invalidate stale caches via the version epoch.

Chunking & languages

Miru chunks source in tiers: AST (tree-sitter, default) → structural heuristics → line splits.

AST chunking — 26 languages (syntax-aware boundaries via vendored web-tree-sitter grammars):

Structural fallback (brace/indent heuristics when AST is unavailable): python, go, typescript, javascript, cpp, c.

Line fallback: everything else that gets indexed (kotlin, swift, etc.) — still searchable, coarser chunks.

Set MIRU_AST_CHUNKING=0 to disable AST and use structural → lines only.

CLI reference

Run miru in a terminal or miru -h for the command list, or miru <command> -h for details.

CLI uses hyphens (find-related); MCP tool names use underscores (find_related).

Library

bun add @takara-ai/miru-code

import { MiruIndex } from "@takara-ai/miru-code";

const index = await MiruIndex.fromPath("./src");
const results = await index.search({ query: "BM25 tokenize" });

Environment

See .env.example for more.

Privacy and API usage

Miru sends file contents to the Takara inference API when building an index and when embedding search queries. Chunks from your repo are transmitted over HTTPS to generate embeddings. API usage may incur cost depending on your Takara plan.

If you index proprietary code, make sure that sending snippets to Takara's endpoint fits your security and compliance requirements. MIRU_WORKSPACE_ROOT is an opt-in boundary for MCP local repo paths only, and restricts indexing to a single workspace directory when set.

Enterprise self-hosted embeddings (no Takara egress): see docs/self-hosted-sagemaker.md, including the Claude Code plugin settings.

Benchmark mode

Optional measurement of how many tokens Miru saves versus a simple Grep workflow (ripgrep + reading the top matched file). Useful when evaluating Miru; leave it off day-to-day. Only local repo paths are compared — git URL repos skip the comparison and return benchmark_skipped: "local_repo_only".

miru benchmark on       # add --benchmark to installed MCP configs
miru benchmark status
miru benchmark off      # prefer off when finished measuring
miru benchmark clear    # delete the global report

Restart agents after changing mode. miru install keeps --benchmark if it was already enabled.

While on, each search / locate response includes a compact benchmark block (save_pct, miru_tok, grep_tok, saved_tok, rank1). Call read_benchmark for a cumulative rollup (or ask the agent when you want totals).

History is global (not per-repo) under Miru's state directory:

Override with MIRU_BENCHMARK_HISTORY_PATH. Append-only JSONL of compact token deltas (no query text); read_benchmark returns cumulative totals. Stored in plaintext — miru benchmark clear or uninstall on shared machines.

MCP parameters

**search**

**locate**

**expand**

**find_related**

**read_benchmark** (benchmark mode only)

Manual MCP (skip miru install)

{
  "miru": {
    "command": "miru",
    "args": ["mcp"]
  }
}

For benchmark mode, set "args": ["mcp", "--benchmark"] (or append the flag). Prefer miru benchmark on after a normal install — it updates every agent config.

Run miru setup once so the server can load credentials from credentials.json. If the MCP server starts in an interactive terminal without stored credentials, it will start device login automatically.

Use bunx + @takara-ai/miru-code@latest if miru is not global. The installer uses this command so each new MCP server launch can pick up a published version without a global update. A running server keeps its current version until restarted. Wrapper key varies by IDE (mcpServers, servers, or mcp).

Older headless MCP configs that launch miru without a subcommand, with or without MCP flags, continue to work. Run miru install again to update managed entries to the explicit mcp subcommand, then restart your coding agent. For manual MCP configs, add mcp after the executable or package name.

Developing

git clone https://github.com/takara-ai/miru-code.git && cd miru-code
bun install && cp .env.example .env.local
bun test && bun run typecheck

See CONTRIBUTING.md for pre-commit hooks, commit message conventions, and the PR process.

Local MCP: "command": "bun", "args": ["/path/to/miru-code/src/cli.ts"]

miru -h / setup print a framed wordmark on color terminals (MIRU_QUIET=1 for subtitle only). Crane art lives in src/brand-banner.ts; regenerate with bun run scripts/render-crane-art.ts (ImageMagick). The crane is a registered mark of Takara.ai Ltd.

Credits

Miru uses work by MinishLab. Thank you to its authors.

• semble (MIT). Miru ports parts of semble. These parts include the file walker, the index layout, the BM25 tokenizer, the hybrid search pipeline, and the ranking signals.
• potion-code and Model2Vec (MIT). The WordPiece tokenizer in tokenizer/tokenizer.json comes from potion-code.

See NOTICE for the licence text and the Model2Vec citation.

License

MIT