14 posts carrying this tag.
The objection to compiling a codebase into a verifiable IR is always cost. It sounds like Opus pricing across every file. It isn't. At open-source-model rates it runs about $13.30 per 1,000 files, you pay it once, and per-file diffing means you only ever re-pay for what changed. Here is the real economics of the verifiable context layer, and why the expensive thing is not building the IR but living without one.
The claim that a verifiable IR beats vector search and GraphRAG only matters if the numbers hold up. So here is the run. 46 Kubernetes-ecosystem repositories, 150,000 files, 8 GB of code, measured end to end. What we tested, how we scored it, and why feeding the model 22x more context made it cheaper and more accurate at the same time.
Every tool that feeds your codebase to an AI coding agent picks one of four representations. AST parsing, vector embeddings, code graphs, or a verifiable intermediate representation. Here is what each one keeps, what each one throws away, and why the first three are features of the fourth.
A code graph takes a whole, coherent program and shreds it into a bag of symbols and edges. It is genuinely useful, but it is a teardown, and the meaning never survives the pieces. A verifiable intermediate representation is the opposite move. It lifts your code into a higher layer that keeps the intent intact, then checks every change against it. Here is the difference between shredding and preserving, and why it decides everything downstream.
Everyone building code intelligence ends up at a graph, and then they start calling it a context graph because plain code graph stopped feeling like enough. But adding the word context does not add meaning. A graph of symbols and a graph of meaning are different objects. Here is the line between them, and why crossing it requires a verifiable code IR, not more edges.
Context graph is a term people understand and reach for. But most things called a context graph are one-way extractions you can read and never check anything against. The version worth wanting is the one you can verify code against, and that single requirement is what separates an index from a verifiable code IR. Here is what verification demands, and why it is the only honest test of a context graph.
Vector embeddings treat code like english prose. AST parsers see structure but not meaning. Raw LLMs forget everything every session. Here is why the LLM compiler pattern with a persistent semantic graph is the only approach that actually works for cross-repository code intelligence, and why open source models at $7 per 1000 files make it practical today.
Your team uses Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, and Windsurf, and each one rebuilds an understanding of your codebase from scratch and shares nothing with the others. MCP is the standard that lets you stop doing that. Compile your repos once into a verifiable IR and serve it to every tool over one MCP endpoint. Here is why the context layer belongs outside the tool, and what changes when it does.
A technical note on what 'verifiable' actually means in a verifiable code IR. Not a machine that rebuilds your code from a document, but a derived contract that every change gets checked against. Here is what a single verification check consists of, why round-trip is a signal and never a promise, and the honest boundary of what it can and cannot catch.
Semantic code search keeps getting better at finding the right code, and it keeps disappointing teams who expected better answers from their AI tools. The reason is that those are two different problems. Finding code is retrieval. Understanding code is representation. Better retrieval over a poor representation has a ceiling, and here is why a verifiable code IR raises it.
Move beyond keyword matching with semantic code search. Learn how embeddings, function-level understanding, and knowledge graphs transform code discovery—plus why citations matter for enterprise teams who can't afford hallucinated answers.
Vector search finds relevant code but misses the blast radius. Learn how combining lightweight code graphs with RAG creates cross-repository context that makes code changes across 50+ repositories predictable—without heavy graph infrastructure.
Specs and code drift apart the day after you write the PRD, because they are two separate documents that nobody keeps in sync. A verifiable context layer derives the spec a codebase actually implements and then continuously checks the code against it. Here is how spec-driven development works on a brownfield codebase, and why it needs a verifiable code IR that checks code against intent.
