Indexing: init, update, reindex

repowise init#

Generate the wiki for a codebase. Runs full AST parsing, graph analysis, git history indexing, dead-code detection, and page generation.

init never requires an API key. With a provider resolvable it writes the wiki with a model; without one it renders the whole wiki from the parsed structure and exits 0. See Deterministic wiki.

repowise init [PATH] [OPTIONS]

repowise init                                     # current dir
repowise init /path/to/repo --provider anthropic
repowise init -x vendor/ -x 'src/generated/**'    # multiple excludes
repowise init --yes                               # non-interactive; no key needed
repowise init --yes --no-prose                    # guarantee no spend
repowise init --prose --provider anthropic        # write the subsystem pages as prose
repowise init --mode fast                         # very large repos, no wiki
repowise init --test-run                          # 10 files, smoke test

Cost gate. Before any tokens are spent, init shows the estimate and asks. It never prompts when stdin is not a terminal: it auto-declines, keeps the index it already built, and renders the wiki from structure instead. The default answer is Yes up to $25 and flips to No above that, because Enter-through approving a bill that size is a footgun.

Unanswerable prompts do not end the run. If the first interactive prompt reads EOF, which is what happens when an agent pipes stdin, init prints a notice and continues with defaults rather than aborting.

repowise update#

Incremental update for files changed since the last sync. Detects changed files via git diff, re-parses them, rebuilds the affected slice of the dependency graph, and regenerates the affected pages.

repowise update [PATH] [OPTIONS]

repowise update                          # incremental from current HEAD
repowise update --since main             # diff against main
repowise update --workspace              # all stale repos
repowise update --repo backend           # one workspace repo
repowise update --dry-run                # see what would regenerate
repowise update --full --provider anthropic   # upgrade a fast index to full

A typical single-commit update touches 3 to 10 pages in under 30 seconds.

--full is also the wholesale way to write the subsystem prose across a wiki that was indexed without a key. For a slice at a time, use repowise generate below.

repowise generate#

Write the subsystem (concept) pages with a model, on demand. This is the upgrade path for a repo indexed without a key: it fills the subsystem stubs with model prose, one page, one directory, or the whole concept layer at a time, each behind a cost estimate, and rewrites already-written pages. It writes only the model-written pages (the concept tree and the overview); naming a structural page such as a file page is an error, since those refresh on repowise update.

It reuses the persisted index. The graph and git metadata are rehydrated from SQL, so only the per-file parse and the generation for the pages you selected run. A provider is required here, and a missing one is an actionable error naming the key-setup path.

repowise generate [PATH] [OPTIONS]

repowise generate                     # every unwritten subsystem page, one cost estimate
repowise generate --path src/api      # just the subsystem pages under one directory
repowise generate --all               # rewrite the prose on every subsystem page

Selection names which subsystem pages to write, combined as a union: --unwritten / --all / --stale / --path / --page.

Run repowise generate with no selection flag on a terminal and it prints the wiki's state and writes every unwritten subsystem page behind a single cost estimate, asking about cascade only when it changes which pages get written. Piped runs, --yes, and flagged runs stay non-interactive with the same --unwritten default.

Cascade. Rewriting a subsystem page makes the pages that summarize it drift: its layer page, plus the repo overview, architecture and onboarding pages. --cascade none marks them stale, dependents (the default) also regenerates the overview and layer pages that summarize it, and full leaves nothing stale. The cost estimate includes the cascade fallout, so it does not under-quote.

repowise reindex#

Rebuild the vector search index from existing wiki pages. No LLM calls, only embedding API calls. Fast and cheap. Use when you switch embedders or suspect FTS/vector drift.

repowise reindex [PATH] [OPTIONS]

repowise reindex
repowise reindex --embedder openai --batch-size 50