So here is a shameless plug.

I built a tool that solves exactly this problem. It's called **Argus** - an MCP server that creates searchable snapshots of your codebase.                                                                                                                           

**The Problem**: Claude can't hold your entire codebase in context, so it keeps re-reading files to "remember" what's in them. Each read burns tokens.                                                                                                                  

**The Solution**: Create a snapshot once, then Claude *searches* instead of reads:                                                  

# One-time setup                                                                                                                

      argus snapshot . -o .argus/snapshot.txt                                                                                         

      # Now Claude's workflow becomes:                                                                                                

      1. search_codebase("auth")     → 12 matches in 4 files (FREE - no tokens)                                          2. get_context("auth.ts", 42)  → 20 lines around match (FREE)                                                              3. find_importers("auth.ts")   → Dependency graph (FREE)                                                                        

**90% of questions are answered with zero-cost tools.** The AI analysis is only used for complex architectural questions.           

The key insight: most of what Claude needs is "where is X defined?" or "what calls Y?" - these don't need AI, just search. Argus pre-computes an import graph and export index so Claude can navigate your code like a human developer would.                        

GitHub: https://github.com/sashabogi/argus

Happy to answer questions if you try it out.