# kythe/kythe

Kythe is a pluggable, (mostly) language-agnostic ecosystem for building tools that work with code.

Repository: https://github.com/kythe/kythe
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/kythe
Homepage: https://kythe.io
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-07-16T05:48:24+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 86/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 92, release rhythm 69, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4250, "days_push": 48, "days_rel": 48, "gap_med": 125.0, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: no_readme
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2147, forks 273 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:18.994893+00:00)

## What it is
Kythe is a pluggable, mostly language-agnostic ecosystem for building tools that work with code, providing a standard schema and interchange format for semantic code information. It includes indexers for C++ and Java, compilation extractors, a verifier, and a cross-reference service.

## Use cases
- build a code search and cross-reference service for a large codebase
- index C++ and Java sources to power go-to-definition and find-references in editors
- share semantic code analysis data between build systems, compilers, and static analysis tools
- write a custom language indexer against a standard schema
- verify that an indexer produces correct code graphs
- extract compilation information from javac, Maven, cmake, Go, and Bazel builds

## When to choose
- you need language-agnostic code intelligence infrastructure across a large, multi-language codebase
- you want to build custom code navigation, cross-reference, or static analysis tooling
- you need a standard interchange format (Kythe schema, kzip) for code analysis data

## When to avoid
- you just need simple IDE navigation for a single language - a language server is simpler
- you need a turnkey hosted code search product with minimal setup
- your project is small and does not justify running an indexing pipeline

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: active
- function: search-engine, parser, developer-tools, documentation
- domain: developer-tools, parsers, programming-languages, apis
- platform: go, cpp, jvm, cross-platform
- tags: code-indexing, cross-references, static-analysis, code-navigation, language-agnostic, code-intelligence, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- kythe/kythe (main) score 86

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:18.994893+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:51:08.336707+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - homepage: https://kythe.io (fetched 2026-08-29T10:31:04.907388+00:00, sha f8135ecc5b98)
  - site_page: https://kythe.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T10:31:04.916283+00:00, sha eaee3d18c456)
  - site_page: https://kythe.io/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T10:31:04.918002+00:00, sha 30f65cc62b20)
  - site_page: https://kythe.io/docs/kythe-overview.html (fetched 2026-08-29T10:31:04.919993+00:00, sha 98b967ab3b81)
  - site_page: https://kythe.io/docs/schema (fetched 2026-08-29T10:31:04.921970+00:00, sha aa38691c5fad)
  - site_page: https://kythe.io/docs/kythe-verifier.html (fetched 2026-08-29T10:31:04.925794+00:00, sha 04581f1ec46b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.