FAQ
What is Sieve?
Section titled “What is Sieve?”Sieve is a code-intelligence tool for coding agents. It indexes a repo into
a symbol graph with call edges. It answers ask, grep, callers, blast,
map, skeleton and why queries. It also runs an MCP server.
Does Sieve need an API key?
Section titled “Does Sieve need an API key?”No. The build and every query run with no key and no LLM.
Does Sieve send my code anywhere?
Section titled “Does Sieve send my code anywhere?”No. Sieve makes no network call and sends no telemetry. See Privacy.
Does it work on Windows?
Section titled “Does it work on Windows?”There is no Windows build in 0.1.0. See Install.
Which agents does it support?
Section titled “Which agents does it support?”Claude Code has the full setup: hooks, status line and MCP. Other agents get instruction files and an MCP entry. See Claude Code.
Which languages does it support?
Section titled “Which languages does it support?”See Languages.
Are the links exact?
Section titled “Are the links exact?”Only for named relative imports in TypeScript and JavaScript. On vite 10033218, all 1,232 exact cross-file calls match the TypeScript compiler by name. 621 calls stay Inferred.
How many tokens does it save?
Section titled “How many tokens does it save?”Sieve prints an estimate after a query and sieve stats totals it. The
estimate is the size of the whole files the answer names, minus the answer.
It is not a measured saving in an agent session. See
Benchmarks for the measured numbers.
Should I commit sieve/?
Section titled “Should I commit sieve/?”No. build adds it to .gitignore. A teammate runs sieve build.
How do I undo sieve init?
Section titled “How do I undo sieve init?”Run sieve uninstall --yes. Without --yes, it only lists what it would remove.
What does sieve why read?
Section titled “What does sieve why read?”Decision records in your repo: docs/decisions/, docs/adr/, adr/, and
LEDGER.md. See Commands.
Which version is this guide for?
Section titled “Which version is this guide for?”Version 0.1.0.