← All use cases

Onboard an existing repo

Goal

You join a project you do not know yet. You want a map of the code, a place for notes, and a way to ask questions, without anyone's code changing.

The result

Three commands later, your project has a code map (.guild/indexes/codebase-map.json), a wiki with your note in it, and /guild:wiki query "retry backoff" finds that note and names its source. Your code and tests are untouched. Here is how.

Commands

In Claude Code, in the project folder:

/guild:init
/guild:wiki ingest NOTES.md
/guild:wiki query "retry backoff"

NOTES.md is any document you want Guild Stack to remember. The test project uses one line:

Decision: fixture retries use exponential backoff capped at 30s because the upstream rate-limits bursts.

Guild Stack asks you to approve the note before it lands in the wiki. Approve it.

What Guild Stack produced

After /guild:init:

  • .guild/indexes/codebase-map.json, with the import links between files. In the test project it records that src/index.js imports src/sum.js.
  • .guild/wiki/index.md and .guild/wiki/concepts/architecture-map.md.
  • .guild/settings.json, which passes Guild Stack's own settings check.
  • .guild/init/<project>.md and a run record in .guild/runs/.
  • No change to the code or tests. The tests still pass.

After the ingest and query:

  • A wiki page that mentions backoff and names NOTES.md as its source.
  • A copy of the source under .guild/knowledge/sources/.
  • The query for "retry backoff" finds the new page under .guild/wiki/sources/.
  • NOTES.md itself is unchanged.

Going deeper

/guild:learn map rebuilds the code map on demand. Known issue in v3.0.0: a file that only does module.exports = require('./b') gets no import link (issue #218, scenario learn-map). A fix is tracked on that issue and lands through the beta (next) channel first, like every change.

Time and cost

The test suite gives /guild:init up to 15 minutes and the ingest-and-query run up to 20 minutes on a tiny project. Real projects take longer. Token cost is not measured by these scenarios; it depends on your host plan and project size.

New to Guild Stack? Install it first.