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Graphify with Claude Code: the 5 setup steps and how to check it works

Checked against the Graphify README (v8 branch) and docs.graphify.com on 27 October 2026. The commands can change between releases, so run `graphify --help` if one doesn't work.

Hi, it's Ivo. Every new Claude Code session starts with an empty context window (Anthropic says so in its own docs). Claude doesn't remember your project from yesterday, so it searches and opens files again to find its way. Each file it opens uses part of your limit.

Graphify is a free, open-source tool (Apache 2.0) that maps your code once, on your computer, and tells Claude to ask the map before it opens files one by one. Here is how to set it up.

Before you start

You need Python 3.10 or newer, uv (on a Mac: brew install uv), Claude Code, and a project folder with code in it.

The package is called graphifyy, with two y's. The README says other graphify packages on PyPI aren't theirs. The command you type is still graphify.

The 5 setup steps

  1. Install the tool. In your terminal:

bash uv tool install graphifyy graphify --version

If the terminal says graphify isn't found, run uv tool update-shell and open a new terminal.

  1. Register the skill in Claude Code.

bash graphify install

With no extra flags, this sets up Claude Code. After this, Claude Code has a /graphify command.

  1. Build the map. Pick one of the two ways.

In Claude Code, open your project and type this in the chat (it's a chat command, not a terminal command):

text /graphify .

Or build a code-only map in the terminal, from the project folder:

bash graphify extract . --code-only

Code is parsed on your computer with tree-sitter. No AI model reads it and nothing leaves your machine. Docs, PDFs and images are different: inside Claude Code, /graphify . sends those to your Claude model, so that part of the first build uses your limit. The --code-only command skips them and needs no API key. For terminal runs, GRAPHIFY_BACKEND=none turns off every AI backend and keeps the map code-only.

Either way you get a folder called graphify-out/ with three files: graph.html (the map you can click), GRAPH_REPORT.md (a short summary) and graph.json (the full map that queries use).

  1. Tell Claude Code to use the map. From the project folder:

bash graphify claude install

This does two things. It adds a section called ## graphify to the CLAUDE.md file in your project, which Claude reads at the start of every session. And it adds two hooks to .claude/settings.json. One fires before Claude searches your files, the other before it opens them one by one. The hook points Claude to the map first.

  1. Keep the map fresh. The map shows your code as it was when you built it. After you change things, run:

bash graphify update .

Or let git do it for you:

bash graphify hook install

Those git hooks rebuild the map after each commit and branch switch. After a git pull, still run graphify update . yourself.

How to check it works

  1. Open the map. Open graphify-out/graph.html in your browser. You should see your files, functions and classes as dots, with lines between the ones that connect. Click a dot to see what it touches.

  2. Ask the map a question yourself. In the terminal, from the project folder:

bash graphify query "how does the login reach the database?"

Use a question about your own project. The answer is a small part of the map, with the file each piece comes from.

  1. Look at the two files it changed. Open CLAUDE.md and find the ## graphify section. Open .claude/settings.json and find two hooks that run graphify hook-guard.

  2. Watch Claude use it. Start a new Claude Code session and ask a question about your code. Before it opens files one by one, it should run a graphify query. Every query is also written to ~/.cache/graphify-queries.log, so after a session you can open that file and see whether the map was used.

The honest limits

How to remove it

bash graphify uninstall

Add --purge to also delete the graphify-out/ folder.

Sources (checked 27 October 2026)