---
title: Your First Graph
description: Build an index and run your first queries against it.
---

Once CodeGraph is installed, building and exploring a graph takes a few commands.

## Index a project

```bash
cd your-project
codegraph init
```

`codegraph init` creates the `.codegraph/` directory and builds the full graph in the same step — one command, done. From there a native file watcher keeps the index in sync on every change, so you rarely need to rebuild by hand. When you do want to:

```bash
codegraph index          # full re-index
codegraph sync           # incremental update of changed files
```

## Check it worked

```bash
codegraph status
```

This reports the node/edge/file counts, the active SQLite backend, and the journal mode — a quick health check that the index is ready.

## Run a query

Reach for `codegraph explore` first — a natural-language question or a bag of symbol names returns the relevant source plus the call paths between those symbols in a single shot (the same output the `codegraph_explore` tool gives your agent):

```bash
codegraph explore "how does login work"
```

For narrower, scriptable lookups there are focused commands:

```bash
codegraph query UserService          # find symbols by name
codegraph callers handleRequest      # what calls a function
codegraph callees handleRequest      # what a function calls
codegraph impact AuthMiddleware      # what a change would affect
```

These four each accept `--json` for machine-readable output. See the full [CLI reference](/codegraph/reference/cli/).

## Hand it to your agent

With a `.codegraph/` directory present and an agent configured (see [Installation](/codegraph/getting-started/installation/)), your agent uses the [MCP tools](/codegraph/reference/mcp-server/) automatically — no extra step.