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Run the Pipecat Context Hub through the Pipecat CLI. pipecat context-hub install registers the hub as an MCP server with your coding agent and builds the local index; the query commands print the same JSON the MCP tools return, for one-shot lookups from a shell.

Installation

pipecat context-hub ships with the CLI, so uv tool install "pipecat-ai[cli]" is all it takes. The hub also runs standalone, without the Pipecat CLI — see the Context Hub reference for that path, the tool list, and custom sources. It adds roughly 195 MB on top of the cli extra. Bot runtimes are unaffected: cli is optional, so a deployment image that doesn’t install it stays lean.
If pipecat context-hub isn’t recognized, your CLI predates the command. Upgrade it with uv tool upgrade pipecat-ai.
Every command below also works as pipecat ch, e.g. pipecat ch status.

context-hub install

Register the MCP server with a coding agent and build the index. Configures every detected client CLI (Claude Code, Codex) unless --client is given, then runs the first refresh. Clients that ship their own CLI are configured through it, so they own the edit to their config file. For clients configured by hand (Cursor, VS Code, Zed) the command prints the JSON and where it goes rather than writing a file it doesn’t own. Re-running it converges rather than skipping: an entry that already matches is left untouched, and one that doesn’t is replaced. Exit codes: 0 when a client was configured, 1 when a client CLI rejected the registration, 3 when nothing was configured automatically and the config was printed to paste instead — the path Cursor, VS Code, and Zed always take, along with any machine that has no client CLI installed — and 4 when replacing a mismatched entry failed and the previous registration couldn’t be restored either, leaving that client with nothing registered. Usage:
Options:
string
Client to configure: claude-code, codex, cursor, vscode, or zed. Repeatable. Defaults to every detected client CLI.
flag
Skip building the index. Run pipecat context-hub refresh before your first query.
flag
Only print the MCP config and the server command; change nothing.
MCP servers load when your coding tool starts a session, so run this before opening the session you want to use it in.

context-hub refresh

Rebuild the index, skipping unchanged sources when possible. The first run clones the indexed repositories, downloads local embedding models, and embeds roughly 17,000 records — upwards of three minutes and about 900 MB of disk. Later runs re-ingest only the sources whose contents moved, so they usually take one to two minutes. Usage:
Options:
flag
Force a full refresh, ignoring cached state.
flag
Delete local index state before rebuilding. Use this when the persisted index is unhealthy.
string
Pin the framework repo to a specific git tag. Defaults to the newest release tag, so results match the release your project runs. Pass a specific tag (e.g. v1.7.0), latest (same as the default), or head to track the default branch instead — the right choice when developing Pipecat itself or building against unreleased code. Also settable with PIPECAT_HUB_FRAMEWORK_VERSION.

context-hub status

Report index health: freshness, record counts, the pipecat version the index was built from, and reranker state. Prints JSON. Usage:

context-hub serve

Start the MCP server over stdio. pipecat context-hub start is an alias. You rarely run this by hand — your coding tool starts it, using the config pipecat context-hub install wrote. Exits 2 if the index is empty or cannot be opened, rather than starting against an index that would answer every query with nothing. Usage:

context-hub search-docs

Semantic search over the indexed Pipecat docs. Usage:
Arguments:
string
required
What to search for. Use + or & to search several concepts at once, e.g. "TTS + STT" — each is searched separately and the results interleaved.
Options:
string
Docs path prefix, e.g. guides or server/services.
integer
default:"10"
Maximum hits to return (1-50).

context-hub search-api

Search framework internals: classes, signatures, frames, inheritance. Usage:
Arguments:
string
required
What to search for.
Options:
string
Module path prefix, e.g. pipecat.services.
string
Class name prefix, e.g. DailyTransport.
string
One of module_overview, class_overview, method, function, type_definition.
flag
Only dataclass types.
string
Methods yielding a frame type.
string
Methods calling a specific method.
string
Score results for compatibility with this pipecat-ai version.
flag
Exclude results requiring a newer version. Needs --pipecat-version.
integer
default:"10"
Maximum hits to return (1-50).

context-hub search-examples

Find working Pipecat examples for a capability. Usage:
Arguments:
string
required
The capability to find examples for.
Options:
string
Filter by repo slug, e.g. pipecat-ai/pipecat-examples.
string
python or typescript — the only parsed languages.
string
backend (Python bot/pipeline code), frontend (JS/TS client), config, or infra.
string
Capability tag. Repeatable.
string
local or cloud, inferred from capability tags.
string
Score results for compatibility with this pipecat-ai version.
flag
Exclude results requiring a newer version. Needs --pipecat-version.
integer
default:"10"
Maximum hits to return (1-50).
string
Legacy filter, deprecated. Only pre-reorg examples carry it, so filtering on it silently excludes new-layout examples. Prefer --domain and --tag.

context-hub get-doc

Fetch a full docs page, or one section of it, by ID or path. Use after search-docs. Usage:
Options:
string
Chunk ID from a search-docs hit.
string
Docs path, e.g. /guides/telephony/overview.
string
Return only this section heading.

context-hub get-example

Fetch the full source files of an example. Use after search-examples. Usage:
Arguments:
string
required
Example ID from a search-examples hit.
Options:
flag
Skip the example’s README content.

context-hub get-code-snippet

Get a targeted code snippet by symbol, by intent, or by path and line range. Usage:
Options:
string
Symbol name, e.g. DailyTransport.send_dtmf.
string
Intent description; searches example code.
string
File path. Combine with --line-start for a range lookup.
integer
First line of the range.
integer
Last line of the range.
string
Module path prefix filter, in symbol mode.
string
Class name prefix filter, in symbol mode.
string
source for framework code, code for examples.
string
Score results for compatibility with this pipecat-ai version.
integer
default:"100"
Maximum lines to return (1-500).

context-hub check-deprecation

Check whether a module path, class, or method is deprecated. The fastest way to catch a symbol that moved or was replaced. Usage:
Arguments:
string
required
Module path, class, or method, e.g. PipelineTask or pipecat.services.grok.llm.
Options:
string
Evaluate the symbol’s lifecycle at this version, e.g. 2.0.0. A symbol can be current, deprecated, or removed at different versions. Defaults to the version the index was built from.

Examples

Next Steps

Pipecat Context Hub

What the hub indexes, the MCP tool list, custom sources, and setup without the Pipecat CLI