Open Source · MIT License

Pathfinder
Agentic docs retrieval for AI agents

Your AI already knows find, grep, and cat. Give it a virtual filesystem over your docs — plus semantic search when it needs meaning, not just matches. Self-hosted. Open source. Zero lock-in.

$ git clone https://github.com/CopilotKit/pathfinder && cd pathfinder

pathfinder.yaml

server:
  name: my-project-docs

sources:
  - name: docs
    type: markdown
    repo: github.com/you/project
    path: docs/

tools:
  - name: search-docs
    type: search
    source: docs

  - name: explore-docs
    type: bash
    sources: [docs]
    bash:
      session_state: true
      grep_strategy: hybrid

Agent exploring your docs

Two retrieval paradigms, one server

Agents choose the right tool for each sub-task — no other MCP server does both

🔍

Semantic Search (RAG)

pgvector embeddings with cosine similarity. Ask conceptual questions: "how do I configure auth?"

📁

Filesystem Exploration

find, grep, cat, ls, head — agents explore docs like a developer would. Sandboxed via just-bash.

🧭

Session State

cd persists across commands. Agents navigate naturally: cd docs/guides && ls && cat auth.mdx

⚡

Vector Grep

3-pass search: semantic embeddings + ILIKE text + dedup. Falls back gracefully when infra is down.

🔗

Cross-Paradigm Hints

`related /path` finds similar files across sources. Grep misses suggest companion search tools.

🚀

Zero-Infra Mode

Bash-only tools work with no database, no API keys. Add RAG when you're ready — it's just config.

Pathfinder vs ChromaFS

Mintlify replaced RAG with a filesystem. We compose both.

Capability	Pathfinder	ChromaFS
Semantic search	✓ pgvector RAG	✓ Via Chroma
File exploration	✓ find/grep/cat/ls	✓ find/grep/cat/ls
Both paradigms composable	✓	✗ FS-only
Session state (persistent CWD)	✓	✗
Vector-backed grep	✓ Configurable	✓ Chroma-backed
Writable workspace	✓	✗ EROFS
Multi-source	✓ Config-driven	✗ Single collection
Feedback collection	✓ Collect tools	✗
Zero-infra mode	✓ Bash-only	✗ Needs Chroma+Redis
Open source	✓ MIT	✗ Proprietary
Auto-refresh on webhook	✓	~ Manual reingestion

PathfinderAgentic docs retrieval for AI agents