A step-by-step guide. Take your time — none of this is a race.
First time here? You're going to set up Redis (we handle that), download a CLI, run one command, and start asking questions about your codebase. The CLI walks your commits in seconds each; the heavy processing happens server-side, so you can close your laptop and let it run overnight if needed. We'll tell you what to expect at every step.
If you haven't already created an account, sign up. Otherwise sign in. The dashboard is where you'll provision Redis, download the CLI, generate API keys, and watch ingestion progress.
Sign up → Sign in →DevLoops stores your codebase intelligence in a private Redis Cloud database — one per organization, fully isolated. From the dashboard, scroll to the REDIS SETUP section, pick a plan (the free tier works fine to start), and click "Provision Redis."
We handle the entire setup. You don't need a Redis account. You won't see a credit card prompt unless you choose a paid tier.
While you're in the dashboard, also add your LLM API key (the LLM SETUP section). DevLoops runs all inference through your own key with the provider of your choice — ingestion and queries won't run without one.
Open dashboard →The CLI is what walks your git history and ships symbol metadata to our backend. Download it from the dashboard's CLI section. No Node.js, no npm, no Docker — the only requirement is Python 3.
After downloading, make it executable and run setup once (installs Python dependencies and pre-downloads the code parsers):
chmod +x devloops.sh
./devloops.sh setup./devloops.sh setup finishes with "Setup complete".Grab your JWT token from the dashboard (the API ACCESS section, "Your JWT token" — click show then copy). Then run:
./devloops.sh bootstrap \
--repo /path/to/your/repo \
--token YOUR_JWT_TOKEN \
--commits 50 \
--compositesStart with --commits 50 for a small sample so you can see things working before committing to a full ingestion. Once you're confident, drop the flag to ingest everything. --composites groups related symbols into higher-level mechanisms — recommended.
Other flags: --since <commit-hash> starts the walk from a specific commit instead of the repo root. --resume continues an interrupted or stopped run from the server-side resume point — you can stop a run from the dashboard at any commit boundary and pick it up later.
Big repos can take hours. The CLI shows progress per commit. You can close your terminal and the dashboard shows a live progress bar — server-side processing keeps going.
Open the chat interface and ask anything about your code. Try:
How does authentication work in this codebase?
What are the main entry points?
Walk me through how X works.Questions run in Deep mode — a full tool-assisted investigation grounded in your actual code, not a one-shot retrieval.
Open chat →From the dashboard's API KEYS section, click "Generate new API key." Save the key immediately — it's shown only once.
Then call the API from anywhere:
curl -X POST https://www.devloops.ai/api/v1/query \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"question": "How does the auth flow work?",
"mode": "standard"
}'Returns JSON with the answer and the source skills used to generate it. Use this to integrate DevLoops into Claude Code, Cursor, custom agent workflows, or anything else that can make HTTP requests.
Generate API key →DevLoops watches your git commits, extracts the structure of your code (functions, classes, mechanisms), describes each one in natural language, and stores the result as a queryable graph in your private Redis Cloud database. Any AI agent — Claude Code, Cursor, your own scripts — can then ask architectural questions about your codebase via our API and get grounded temporal answers in seconds, not minutes.
| Mode | Best for | Per query |
|---|---|---|
| Deep | Security reviews, cross-cutting analyses | ~$0.03 - $0.06 |
Ingestion costs are billed separately based on tokens used. Typical commit ingestion runs $0.01-0.05 per commit depending on number of changed symbols. Redis Cloud costs are paid directly to Redis (free tier available, paid plans start at ~$5/mo).