DocOrbit Documentation

DocOrbit is the local-first documentation intelligence layer designed specifically for AI coding agents (Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Windsurf, Zed, Continue, and custom agent SDKs).

System Architecture

DocOrbit operates across 5 deterministic layers:

1. Layer 1: Recursive Tree Discovery — Probes llms.txt, sitemaps, and HTML navigation trees to discover authoritative doc roots and crawl documentation hierarchies.
2. Layer 2: Multi-Source Normalization — Ingests OpenAPI 3.x, Swagger 2.0, and Markdown, resolving circular $ref schemas into typed endpoints.
3. Layer 3: AST Slicing & Storage — Slices documentation along header boundaries while preserving atomic code fences inside embedded SQLite FTS5 (WAL mode).
4. Layer 4: Version Reconciliation & Lockfiles — Scans 8 ecosystems (npm, cargo, go, pypi, composer, rubygems, pub, maven) and writes bit-for-bit stable docs.lock files.
5. Layer 5: Closed-Loop AST Verification — Parses agent-generated code with AST extractors to verify methods, parameters, and modern API contracts before saving.

Quickstart (30 Seconds)

DocOrbit requires zero pre-installation. You can launch the MCP server directly using npx:

npx -y docorbit mcp

To initialize documentation for an existing codebase and generate a docs.lock file:

# Inside your project directory
npx -y docorbit init

# Inspect and index external library docs
npx -y docorbit add https://nextjs.org/docs
npx -y docorbit add https://docs.stripe.com

Harness Configuration

DocOrbit integrates with all major coding agents via the standard Model Context Protocol:

1. Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docorbit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "docorbit", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

2. Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docorbit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "docorbit", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

3. Claude Code CLI

Run directly in your terminal:

claude mcp add docorbit -- npx -y docorbit mcp

CLI Command Reference

DocOrbit provides 18 subcommands for managing project documentation, indexing APIs, verifying code, and launching the dashboard:

15 Agent-Native MCP Tools Reference

All 15 DocOrbit MCP tools deliver direct, clean GitHub-flavored Markdown by default in content[0].text, saving 50–60% token overhead compared to escaped JSON wrappers. Programmatic callers can pass format: "json" to receive structured JSON.

Supported Ecosystems & SemVer Laddering

DocOrbit scans and reconciles lockfiles across 8 major package managers:

Security & Threat Model

DocOrbit enforces strict security boundaries when crawling documentation domains:

• SSRF Protection: Blocks RFC 1918 private IP ranges, loopback addresses (127.0.0.1), and cloud provider metadata IPs (169.254.169.254).
• Untrusted Provenance: All documentation retrieved from third-party websites is tagged with untrusted: true metadata to prevent prompt injection attacks.
• Local Isolation: All SQLite storage lives inside the local .docorbit/ project directory. No code or telemetry leaves your machine.