DevCouncil

Code intelligence and verification components for AI development.

Explore the Interactive Architecture & Code Graph Showcase (devcouncil.vbcr.dev) →

"DevCouncil should not merely generate code. It should make AI-generated work prove that it satisfied the original intent."
Evidence, not model confidence, is the final authority.

DevCouncil is components and modules for AI-assisted software development. It ships independently installable binaries and libraries — code intelligence (devmap), task and lease state (dcstore), deterministic verification (dcverify), ignore-aware search (dcgrep), and a Go host (devcouncil / dev) — so a harness or an app can take only the pieces it needs and update them one at a time.

See repository input and verification boundaries for executable selection, filesystem protections, resource limits, and the difference between unavailable evidence and a passing check.

Manvi wraps these components into a coding-agent harness (turn loop, providers, policy, TUI, manvi serve). GitPulse uses Manvi for policy, workbench, and agent hosting, and DevCouncil components for code intelligence and related analysis. DevCouncil does not replace coding agents; it sits beside Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and others as selectable modules.

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Architecture & Components

DevCouncil's core runtime is a set of standalone, compiled native modules. Each binary is useful on its own, sits on PATH, and can be spawned or linked by a host that wants that one job:

Binary	Language	Role & Ownership
devcouncil / dev	Go	Host orchestrator: Stdio MCP server (mcp), multi-host agent integration (integrate), engineering skills distribution (skills), task verification (verify), and devmap forwarding (map, graph, ast).
devmap	Rust	Code intelligence engine: Language-aware tree-sitter extraction and explicit fallback/coverage reporting, symbol resolution, blast-radius calculation, dead-code analysis, workspace guides (AGENTS.md), and DevMap MCP server (devmap mcp).
dcstore	Rust	State & lease store: SQLite-backed task repository, mutual-exclusion leases for concurrent agent building, evidence records, and gap tracking.
dcverify	Rust	Deterministic verification: Unified-diff parsing, planned file scope classification, anti-laziness/stub gates, test coverage evaluation, and typed next_actions repair signals.
dcgrep	Rust	Code search: Ripgrep-powered ignore-aware search engine with optional trigram indexing (tgrep-core).

flowchart TD
    subgraph Consumers["AI Agents & Host Harnesses"]
        Agent["Coding Agents (Cursor / Claude / Codex / Antigravity / Warp)"]
        Manvi["Manvi (Agent Loop & Policy Harness)"]
        GitPulse["GitPulse (Workbench & Git Host)"]
    end

    subgraph Orchestration["Go Host Layer"]
        DevCouncil["devcouncil / dev (Go Host CLI & Stdio MCP)"]
    end

    subgraph NativeModules["Native Rust Engines"]
        DevMap["devmap (Code Intelligence & AST Graph)"]
        DCStore["dcstore (Task & Lease SQLite Store)"]
        DCVerify["dcverify (Rigor, Stubs & Diff Verification)"]
        DCGrep["dcgrep (Ignore-Aware Ripgrep Engine)"]
    end

    subgraph Storage["Persistent State"]
        GraphDB[(".devmap/devmap.sqlite (Code Graph)")]
        TaskDB[(".devcouncil/state.sqlite (Tasks & Leases)")]
    end

    Agent -->|"Code Navigation MCP"| DevMap
    Agent -->|"Task & Policy MCP"| DevCouncil
    Manvi -->|"Stdio JSON IPC"| DevCouncil
    Manvi -->|"Stdio JSON IPC"| DevMap
    GitPulse -->|"In-process / CLI"| DevMap
    GitPulse -->|"Workbench state"| DCStore

    DevCouncil -->|"Forward map/graph/ast"| DevMap
    DevCouncil -->|"Task lease coordination"| DCStore
    DevCouncil -->|"Rigor gate execution"| DCVerify

    DevMap --> GraphDB
    DCStore --> TaskDB

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How hosts consume the modules

• Manvi wraps the components: it drives the agent loop, provider routing, policy ladder, and TUI, and reaches each binary over JSON on stdio. A host that wants a harness embeds Manvi rather than reimplementing it.
• GitPulse uses both for their respective jobs: Manvi (manvi serve) for policy, workbench, and agent hosting; selected DevCouncil crates and the devmap CLI for in-process code intelligence. It does not have to take every module.
• Other apps pick the same way — devmap alone, dcverify alone, the Go host MCP, or the full set. Updating one module does not require shipping the rest.

Note

DevCouncil is built entirely as native compiled Go and Rust binaries; legacy Python orchestration has been retired (see docs/PHASE7_LONG_TAIL.md).

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Benchmarks: DevMap vs Graphify, Gortex, GitNexus, CodeGraph, and codebase-memory-mcp

Six code-graph tools plus a ripgrep text baseline, measured on four repositories (595 to 4,335 files, mixing Rust, Go, TypeScript, Python and Swift) on one Apple M5 Pro. Every timing is a minimum or median from a reproducible run with the raw evidence committed beside it — not a marketing estimate. Head-to-head breakdown: DevMap vs GitNexus, CodeGraph, Graphify, Gortex, and codebase-memory-mcp. Full method, caveats, and raw output: benchmark report.

DevMap 0.2.2 was fastest on most of what was measured: cold indexing and unchanged refresh on all four repositories, the lowest median in all six symbol-query cells, and 5/5 source-inspected caller pairs — matched only by codebase-memory-mcp.

Detailed table on the 1,098-file DevCouncil corpus, where the correctness and query campaign also ran:

Tool	Cold index	Unchanged refresh	Single-file edit	Definition lookup	Peak RSS	Caller pairs found
DevMap 0.2.2	2.012 s	0.089 s	0.816 s	9.7 ms	678 MiB	5/5
CodeGraph 1.6.0	3.294 s	0.235 s	0.512 s	101–106 ms	2430 MiB	3/5
codebase-memory-mcp 0.10.8	9.357 s	5.726 s	8.894 s	~3.94 s	—	5/5
Graphify 0.9.59	14.989 s	5.080 s	4.883 s	557–572 ms	3417 MiB	3/5
GitNexus 1.6.9	33.689 s	0.699 s	31.841 s	792–808 ms	3355 MiB	3/5
Gortex 0.64.3	16.5 s to query-ready	—	—	92–104 ms	—	4/5

Where DevMap won. Fastest cold index on all four corpora (1.6–21× the competitors' time) and fastest unchanged refresh on all four (2.2–107×). Lowest median in all six query cells — definition lookups at 9.7 ms, ~10× faster than CodeGraph and ~82× faster than GitNexus. Lowest sampled peak memory on three of four corpora. All five source-inspected caller pairs, and a clean result on both index-staleness probes.

Where DevMap lost. CodeGraph re-indexes a single edited file faster on every corpus — DevMap takes 1.08× its time on the smallest and 3.61× on GitPulse. That is the one stage where a competitor is consistently ahead. DevMap's store is 1.6–2.0× CodeGraph's and 2.8–4.7× Graphify's, and Graphify used less memory than DevMap on the largest repository (1,458 MB vs 1,725 MB). Against v0.2.1, unchanged refresh regressed ~12% on the smallest corpus.

What these numbers are not. Four repositories, one machine, three-to-five repetitions, three symbols, and five inspected caller pairs. They do not establish general graph accuracy, persistent-MCP latency, or coding-agent task success. Tool output scopes differ, so equal latency is not equal analysis. DevMap itself reports 106,217 unexplained call-attribution sites on this corpus. The report states every limit explicitly and keeps the failures in — including GitNexus serving a deleted symbol through two ordinary refreshes until a forced rebuild.

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Get started

Build just DevMap from source, then map a project:

git clone https://github.com/bharathvbcr/DevCouncil.git
cd DevCouncil
bash scripts/install.sh --only=devmap
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

cd /path/to/your/project
devmap build --manifest --guides
devmap paths --json
devmap status --json
devmap explore MyFunction --json

Git and Rust/Cargo are required. To include the Go host and full analysis suite, run bash scripts/install.sh; the host needs the toolchain declared in go.mod, currently Go 1.26.6. On Windows use .\scripts\install.ps1 -Components devmap, or omit -Components for the suite. The npm package is a lightweight launcher for native binaries, not a bundled runtime. Complete installation guide.

Use the paths returned by devmap paths: new repositories default to .devmap, existing .devcouncil layouts remain supported, and explicit configuration can override either. --guides requests managed workspace guides separately from the map export. Check freshness, coverage gaps and result truncation before using graph answers as evidence. If first-time guide creation leaves status stale, run devmap build --manifest once more to index the new guides.

Connect an agent

devmap integrate cursor --dry-run
devmap integrate cursor
devmap integrate cursor --check

Substitute claude, codex, antigravity, opencode or warp for cursor. Integration can update user-level MCP settings as well as project assets. Inspect the receipt and complete host reload/trust steps. For task tooling, add the Go-host integration described in coding CLI integration.

Verification is opt-in

For an existing task in an initialized .devcouncil/state.sqlite:

devcouncil verify TASK-001 --mode enforce --json

flowchart LR
    A["Acquire Task Lease<br/>(devcouncil_checkout_task)"] --> B["Implement Changes<br/>(Within Planned Scope)"]
    B --> C["Verify Task<br/>(devcouncil verify / dcverify)"]
    C --> D{"Rigor Gates<br/>& Scope Clean?"}
    D -->|"Gaps Found"| E["Self-Repair<br/>(Typed next_actions)"]
    E --> B
    D -->|"All Gates Passed"| F["Release Task Lease<br/>(devcouncil_release_task)"]

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Read gate mode, skipped reasons and coverage metadata. The Go host invokes dcverify for rigor checks; changed-line coverage requires a profile supplied through --coverage PATH. The default gate mode is off. Task leases and MCP policy results coordinate participating clients; retired lifecycle hooks do not intercept arbitrary shell commands or editor writes. The sandbox selector does not implement Docker/Nix isolation. See the task loop contract.

Documentation

Start at the documentation index.

Topic	Guide
Installation and first query	Quickstart
Components and state ownership	Architecture
Symbols, impact and evidence limits	Code graph
Editor setup and hooks	Integration
Commands and flags	CLI reference
Task workflow	Workflow and MCP loop
Implementation and migration limits	Project status
Native development	Rust workspace

Apache 2.0. The Python CLI, its release lineage and its historical workflow certifications are retired; current native source and installed binary identities must be checked separately.