Migrating from repowise¶

repobrain is a drop-in replacement for repowise. Migration takes under 5 minutes.

Step 1 — Install repobrain¶

pip install repobrain

You can keep repowise installed — they don't conflict.

repobrain index /path/to/your/repo

repobrain builds its own index (separate from repowise's). The first run takes 3–5 minutes for a 1,000-file repo.

Before (repowise):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "repowise": {
      "command": "repowise",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

After (repobrain):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "repobrain": {
      "command": "repobrain",
      "args": ["serve", "--mcp-only"]
    }
  }
}

In Claude Code, type:

List available MCP tools

You should see all 12 repobrain tools.

All repowise tool names work in repobrain. The 4 new tools are additive.

repowise tool	repobrain equivalent	Improvements
`explain_file`	`explain_file`	RAG-injected dependency context
`explain_symbol`	`explain_symbol`	Same
`get_hotspots`	`get_hotspots`	Temporal decay scoring
`get_ownership`	`get_ownership`	Temporal-weighted
`get_dependencies`	`get_dependencies`	Dynamic import edges
`get_architectural_decisions`	`get_architectural_decisions`	Same
`search_codebase`	`search_codebase`	Same
`get_cochange_patterns`	`get_cochange_patterns`	Temporal-weighted
(not in repowise)	`get_pr_impact`	NEW
(not in repowise)	`get_knowledge_map`	NEW
(not in repowise)	`get_test_gaps`	NEW
(not in repowise)	`get_security_hotspots`	NEW

repowise	repobrain	Notes
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Same
`REPOWISE_MAX_COMMITS`	`REPOMIND_MAX_COMMITS`	Default raised to 10,000
`REPOWISE_DATA_DIR`	`REPOMIND_DATA_DIR`	New location
(none)	`REPOMIND_DECAY_HALFLIFE_DAYS`	New: temporal decay
(none)	`REPOMIND_GENERATION_CONCURRENCY`	New: parallel generation

Yes. repobrain does not modify or delete repowise's data. Run both in parallel while evaluating.

rm -rf ~/.repowise/   # default repowise data dir

Only do this after confirming repobrain is working correctly.