Retrieval

Retrieval is the read path: a client or agent asks a question, the daemon answers it from the warm graph. Every front door funnels through one operation handler.

Query execution

cgraph-client ─┐
               ├─ JSON op ─> graphd operation handler ─> warm graph ─> JSON result
cgraph-mcp   ─┘

The thin client sends an operation and a JSON payload to the daemon:

cgraph-client --root /path/to/project query '{"q":"Parser"}'

MCP tool calls route through the same daemon operation handler as the thin client, so an agent and a shell get identical semantics.

The operations

• query — find nodes matching a query.
• explain — explain a node and its role.
• impact — the transitive blast radius of a change.
• path — the shortest path between two symbols.
• context — a packed neighborhood for an agent (see Context Packing).
• update / status / shutdown — maintenance and introspection.

Responses

Responses are JSON. A status response, for example, reports daemon process metadata, graph node and edge counts, cache hit rate, and semantic enrichment state — enough to tell whether the graph is ready and how warm the cache is.