Reference

Formats and files grove reads and writes.

Symbol id

Every result across the whole surface carries a stable symbol id you can pass from one tool to the next (outline / symbols / map → source / callers / definition):

<lang>:<relpath>#<name>@<line>

• lang — the grammar name (rust, python, typescript, …).
• relpath — the file path relative to the working directory.
• name — the symbol’s name.
• line — the 1-based line of the name.

Example: rust:core/src/ops.rs#symbols@153.

1-based lines & columns

Lines and columns are 1-based everywhere grove reports or accepts them (the editor / grep -n convention) — including definition --at file:line:col. This is a deliberate normalization; tree-sitter’s own points are 0-based.

.grove/config.json

The single, versioned source of truth for a project’s grove integration, written by grove init and read by grove serve, grove-explore serve/config/tap, and grove doctor (see ADR 0002).

{
  "version": 1,
  "mode": "mcp-llm",
  "explore": {
    "provider": "ollama",
    "base_url": "http://localhost:11434/v1",
    "model": "qwen2.5-coder:7b",
    "steering": "standard",
    "allowed_tools": ["grove", "rg", "grep", "find"],
    "tap": false,
    "trace_retain": 50
  }
}

• mode — the integration mode (mcp · skill · both · mcp-llm · grammars), the harness-reconciliation key for init/doctor. grove serve is unconditionally the 7-tool structural surface regardless of mode — mode no longer selects a serve surface. mode: mcp-llm means “init registers both grove and grove-explore in the harness (.mcp.json, CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md)”; grove-explore is its own MCP server binary with its own always-on explore surface, composable alongside grove serve.
• explore — present when mode is mcp-llm; read by grove-explore:
  • provider — ollama or llamacpp (both speak the OpenAI-compatible wire protocol).
  • base_url, model — the inference endpoint and model id.
  • steering — the steering arm: standard (merit), balanced (plan-first), or strict (grove-first).
  • allowed_tools — the tools the inner explorer may invoke.
  • tap — record per-session traces under .grove/traces/ (browse with grove-explore tap).
  • trace_retain — how many trace sessions to keep (0 = keep all).

grove config / grove tap still work as deprecated forwarding shims to grove-explore config / grove-explore tap — they print a one-line note and forward to the sibling binary. Use the grove-explore spelling directly.

The legacy .grove/explore.json is migrated forward to config.json on first load; grove doctor flags it until you remove it.

grove.lock

Written by grove lock (and grove init), pinning the grammars a project needs by version + wasm sha256, so a checkout resolves the same grammars every time. See Languages & grammars.