Start the Local Context Server with vg serve

vg serve starts Vibgrate AI Context: the local, offline MCP server that serves your code map, drift, and version-correct library docs to any AI assistant. No account, nothing uploaded. This guide covers how to start it and what to expect.

It is for developers setting up grounded AI context for a repository for the first time.

Prerequisites

Run from inside a project. Vibgrate AI Context serves what it can resolve locally — your code map (built by Vibgrate Graph), your drift, and version-correct docs from the Free Dev Docs Library. If you have not built a code map yet, you can build it first:

vg build

Start the server

vg serve

The server starts and exposes MCP tools that an AI assistant can call. It runs locally and uploads nothing. On the first run, a small local model is downloaded once for semantic search; after that the server is fully offline.

What it serves

• Code map — symbols, callers, callees, and structure.
• Drift — how far behind your dependencies are, as a DriftScore.
• Version-correct library docs — the Free Dev Docs Library, pinned to your lockfile.

Connecting an assistant

Starting the server is half the job; your assistant needs to know it exists. The simplest path is to let Vibgrate write the configuration:

vg install

This adds MCP wiring and an advisory nudge for supported assistants including Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Codex, and Gemini. You can also configure a client manually using the MCP standard if your tool is not on that list.

Troubleshooting

• First run is slow. The one-time local model download for semantic search runs on first use; subsequent starts are fast and offline. You can precompute the semantic index ahead of time with vg embed.
• Assistant does not see the tools. Confirm the MCP configuration points at the running server; re-running vg install rewrites it idempotently.
• Stale answers. Rebuild the code map with vg build so the served context reflects your current working tree; check freshness with vg status.

Related

• What Is Vibgrate AI Context?
• Connecting Vibgrate AI Context to your AI assistant
• Serving the code map and drift to AI