ragtag-mcp: a local RAG setup for AI tools

Hacky MVP for local RAG search.

How to install

Clone repo

Clone this repo

cd /Users/suhdude/repos
gh repo clone weston-barger/ragtag-mcp

Pull down the codebases and documentation you want to index

You'll need local copies of the content you want to search. Example:

cd /Users/suhdude/repos
gh repo clone holoviz/param
gh repo clone holoviz/panel
gh repo clone bokeh/bokeh

Set up your rag_config.json file

Set up your rag_config.json to look like this

{
  "indices": [],
  "dbStoragePath": "/Users/suhdude/repos/ragtag-mcp/db",
  "model": {
    "embedding": "nomic-embed-text:latest",
    "llm": "qwen3:latest"
  }
}

the dbStoragePath is where your vector database for searching will live.

Set up vitrual environment and install requirements

You'll want to set up a python venv for this repo. Run

python3 -m venv .venv
source ./.venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -r requirements.txt --upgrade

Install Ollama + accompanying models

The main.py has a command that will help you do this on OSX. Run

python main.py osx_install

NOTE: you'll want to re-run the osx_install command if you change the embedding or llm models in the config.

Create your RAG search indices

Now fill our the indices section of your rag_config.json file. There is an example in example_rag_config.json. Then run

python main.py build

This may take a a bit. See python main.py build --help to see how to build one index at a time.

Claude instructions

Install the MCP server in your Claude project

Add

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "RAG": {
      "command": "/Users/suhdude/repos/ragtag-mcp/.venv/bin/python3",
      "args": [
        "/Users/suhdude/repos/ragtag-mcp/main.py",
        "serve"
      ]
    }
  }
}

to your .mcp.json file for your project.

Check install

Open claude an issue /mcp. You should see RAG!

Optional: Tell Claude to use the RAG search to get context

Add something to your CLAUDE.md file to tell it to use RAG to get context

(My project) relies on packages pkg1, pkg2, pkg3. Use the RAG search MCP server to understand how to use packages pkg1, pkg2, pkg3 when planning code changes.