About Laika Orbit recall
Laika Orbit recall is a local file-retrieval MCP server for developers, especially Claude Code users. It finds a relevant section and its source without making a model call or sending files over the network.
Key features
- 01Search Markdown and text files
- 02Return matching section and source
- 03Read files with get
- 04Check service status
- 05Build and lint indexes via CLI
Use cases
- 01Find deployment guidance in project notes
- 02Retrieve a relevant section without reading whole files
- 03Search a local documentation folder
MCP support
The server exposes recall, get, and status tools to Claude Code and other MCP clients. It operates on local files and makes no network calls.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
npx -y laikaorbitBRAIN_ROOTThe folder to recall from (default: the working directory)Local servers need a runtime on your machine (e.g. Node.js 18+). Config file locations differ by client; see your client’s docs.
Tools
3Saved tool list · updated 2w ago
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| question | string | Yes | a plain-English question |
Details
From the project READMELaika Orbit recall
Zero-model recall over your files. Ask a question, get back the exact section that answers it and the file it came from, in about a millisecond, without calling a model. Built for Claude Code: as an MCP server it replaces grep-and-read-whole-files with one call, using far fewer tokens.
The retrieval engine inside Laika Orbit, published on npm as laikaorbit.
Use it with Claude Code
claude mcp add laikaorbit -- npx -y laikaorbit mcp
Claude Code starts the server in your project folder and gets three tools: recall (answer a
question with the matching section and its source), get (read a file) and status. To point it
at another folder, add --root <dir> after mcp.
Use it from the terminal
npx laikaorbit index # build the index for this folder
npx laikaorbit recall "how do we roll back a deploy"
npx laikaorbit lint # check router files for dangling pointers
npx laikaorbit ask "…" # print the packed prompt for a model
Every command takes --root <dir>; otherwise the corpus is BRAIN_ROOT, then the working directory.
How it finds the answer
Seven steps, none of them a model call: tokenise the question on word boundaries, score it against
an inverted index, keep the top five with a confidence margin, open only the winner, slice out the
matching ## section, follow at most one pointer, and pack the result.
It works on any folder of Markdown and text. It works best with router files: short typed
pointer lists in brain/routers/*.md that say where things are, written the way questions are
asked:
## 1 — deploys
- Files: notes/deploy.md — how production deploys are rolled back
- Rules: notes/freeze.md — no deploys on Fridays after 2pm
Which folders are indexed, and how, is set in brain/index.config.json (optional). .docx, .rtf
and .odt are read with macOS textutil, and PDFs with pdftotext when it's installed.
Requirements
Node 22 or newer. Nothing leaves your machine: it reads local files and makes no network calls.
Licence
MIT © Laika Dynamics Limited
Comments
New to MCP?
From what the protocol is to installing your first server, these answers cover most first questions.
An open protocol that defines how AI applications connect to external tools and data in a uniform way. Clients talk to the model; MCP servers provide tools, resources and prompt templates. They exchange standard messages, so one server can be reused by many clients.