Install Polaris

1. Install the binary

The one-line installer downloads the latest release for your platform (macOS, Linux, or Windows) and places the polaris binary on your PATH.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/girard-g/polaris/main/install.sh | bash

Already installed? Run polaris update to upgrade in place. The first run downloads the embedding model (~137 MB) to a shared cache.

2. Set up your project

Run polaris setup in your project root. It auto-configures everything your agent needs:

• .mcp.json — points your agent at the Polaris MCP server
• .gitignore — excludes the database file
• CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / GEMINI.md — adds a nudge telling agents to prefer polaris.search over grep
• .claude/settings.json — installs a PostToolUse hook that reindexes docs automatically on every edit (learn more)

polaris setup            # wire into current project
polaris index ./docs     # index your markdown
polaris serve            # MCP server for Claude Code / Cursor / Codex

3. The MCP config

polaris setup writes this to .mcp.json. Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex all discover the MCP server through this file automatically.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "polaris": {
      "command": "/path/to/polaris",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

Supported agents

Polaris works with any MCP-compatible coding agent. Tested and documented for:

• Claude Code — auto-setup with auto-index and optional auto-search hooks
• Cursor — discovered via .mcp.json, zero config
• Codex — stdio MCP, AGENTS.md nudge written automatically