repowiseRequirements
System and toolchain requirements for self-hosted repowise — Python, Git, disk, and an LLM provider key.
System
| Requirement | Notes |
|---|---|
| Python 3.11+ | 3.12 recommended. Verify with python --version. |
Git 2.30+ on PATH | Repowise reads commit history; older Git is missing flags it relies on. |
| ~2 GB free disk | For the index of a medium repo (3,000 files). Larger repos scale roughly linearly. |
| An LLM provider key | Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, or local Ollama. See Environment variables. |
Officially tested on macOS, Linux, and Windows (PowerShell). WSL2 works the same as native Linux.
Languages
You don't need the language toolchain installed for the language
you're indexing — repowise parses source statically with tree-sitter.
The one exception is TypeScript monorepos, where having tsc
available improves resolver accuracy for path-mapped imports.
See Language support for the full 14-language coverage matrix.
LLM provider
repowise init calls an LLM to generate the wiki. You bring the key.
- Anthropic — default.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... - OpenAI —
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...plus--provider openai - Gemini —
GEMINI_API_KEY=...plus--provider gemini - Ollama — fully offline.
--provider ollama, no key needed.
To skip the LLM entirely (graph + git + dead code only, no API
spend), pass --index-only to init. You still get hotspots,
ownership, and dead-code detection — just no generated wiki pages.
Optional but useful
uvfor an isolated install (uv tool install repowise).- A second machine for hosted indexing — if you'd rather not run Python at all, the hosted version manages all of this for you.