Alcove
About
Alcove gives AI coding agents on-demand access to your private project documentation — without dumping everything into the context window.
Explore
- On-demand doc retrieval — agents search, nothing pre-loaded into context
- BM25 ranked search (tantivy) with automatic grep fallback
- One doc-repo for multiple projects, organized by project folder
- Single setup works with any MCP-compatible agent
- Auto-detects project from current working directory
- Scoped access — each project only sees its own docs
- Cross-project search with scope: "global"
- Standardized doc structure enforced via policy.toml
- Document validation against team policy
Setting up with Highlight
This MCP is not yet compatible with Highlight’s one-click setup. However, you can still use it with Highlight by following these steps:
- Download and install Highlight from highlightai.com/download
- Navigate to the plugins tab and select "Add Custom Plugin"
-
Configure the plugin with the settings below
Plugin Name
AlcoveCommand (node, npx, python, etc.)Please refer to the README for specific instructions on how to obtain API keys or other required environment variables.
- Enable "Start Automatically" if you want the plugin to start when Highlight launches
From the repository
cargo binstall alcove
alcove uninstall # remove skills & config
cargo uninstall alcove # remove binary
```
get_project_docs_overview
List all docs with classification and sizes
search_project_docs
Smart search — auto-selects BM25 ranked or grep, supports `scope: "global"` for cross-project search
get_doc_file
Read a specific doc by path (supports `offset`/`limit` for large files)
list_projects
Show all projects in your docs repo
audit_project
Cross-repo audit — scans doc-repo and local project repo, suggests actions
init_project
Scaffold docs for a new project (internal + external docs, selective file creation)
validate_docs
Validate docs against team policy (`policy.toml`)
rebuild_index
Rebuild the full-text search index (usually automatic)
check_doc_changes
Detect added, modified, or deleted docs since last index build
| Tool | What it does |
|------|-------------|
| get_project_docs_overview | List all docs with classification and sizes |
| search_project_docs | Smart search — auto-selects BM25 ranked or grep, supports scope: "global" for cross-project search |
| get_doc_file | Read a specific doc by path (supports offset/limit for large files) |
| list_projects | Show all projects in your docs repo |
| audit_project | Cross-repo audit — scans doc-repo and local project repo, suggests actions |
| init_project | Scaffold docs for a new project (internal + external docs, selective file creation) |
| validate_docs | Validate docs against team policy (policy.toml) |
| rebuild_index | Rebuild the full-text search index (usually automatic) |
| check_doc_changes | Detect added, modified, or deleted docs since last index build |
Claude Desktop / Cursor
Paste into your MCP client config file to install this server.
{
"mcpServers": {
"alcove": {
"alcove": {
"command": "alcove",
"args": []
}
}
}
}McpServers
{
"alcove": {
"command": "alcove",
"args": []
}
}How Alcove solves this
Alcove doesn't inject your docs. Agents search for what they need, when they need it.
~/projects/my-app $ claude "how is auth implemented?"
→ Alcove detects project: my-app
→ BM25 search: "auth" → ARCHITECTURE.md (score: 0.94), DECISIONS.md (score: 0.71)
→ Agent gets the 2 most relevant docs, not all 12
~/projects/my-api $ codex "review the API design"
→ Alcove detects project: my-api
→ Same doc structure, same access pattern
→ Different project, zero reconfiguration
Switch agents anytime. Switch projects anytime. The document layer stays standardized.
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