CLI Reference

contxt suggest

Retrieve the most relevant memory entries for a task. The same relevance engine used by the MCP contxt_suggest tool — available directly from the terminal.

Usage

$ contxt suggest --task "add Stripe webhook handler"

Example output

Relevant context for: "add Stripe webhook handler"

[decision]  JWT in httpOnly cookies (stateless, refresh rotation)  score: 0.91
[pattern]   API routes: Zod schema → validate → handler → typed response  score: 0.87
[decision]  Use Prisma for ORM (better TS support than Drizzle)  score: 0.74
[context]   Currently building user onboarding flow. Blocked on Stripe webhook integration.  score: 0.68

Flags

FlagDefaultDescription
--taskrequiredNatural language description of the task to find context for
--limit5Maximum number of results to return
--min-score0.6Minimum relevance score (0–1). Results below this threshold are omitted
--typeallFilter by memory type: decision, pattern, stack, context
--jsonfalseOutput results as JSON

Relevance scoring

On Pro plans, relevance is computed with vector similarity — each entry is embedded at write time and compared against the task embedding at query time. On the Free plan, full-text search is used instead (keyword matching, no embedding).

Scores range from 0 to 1. A score of 0.8+ indicates strong relevance; below 0.6 is typically noise. The default --min-score 0.6 filters most irrelevant results without being too aggressive.

Relation to MCP

When an AI editor calls the contxt_suggest MCP tool, it runs the same query under the hood — the CLI exposes the same engine for scripting and debugging. You can use contxt suggest to preview exactly what context your AI will receive before starting a session.

# Preview what your AI will see for a given task
$ contxt suggest --task "refactor auth middleware" --limit 10