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Codebase Chat

Codebase Chat lets you ask product and technical questions directly from ProdE — powered by the Knowledge Layer built from your connected repositories.

How It Works​

Once your repositories are connected and indexed, you can open a chat and start asking questions. ProdE uses the Knowledge Layer to find relevant code, patterns, and documentation across your entire codebase to answer your questions.

Ask Anything About Your Code​

Ask any product or technical question and get answers grounded in your actual codebase — not generic documentation.

Examples:

  • "How does the authentication flow work across our services?"
  • "Which repositories handle payment processing?"
  • "What API endpoints does the order service expose?"
  • "How are feature flags configured in the frontend?"

Cross-Repository Questions​

Questions aren't limited to a single repository. ProdE can search across all your connected repositories to give you a complete picture — especially useful when features span multiple services or teams.

Examples:

  • "How does user data flow from the signup API to the analytics pipeline?"
  • "Which services depend on the shared auth library?"
  • "How do the frontend and backend validate the same form fields?"

Select Specific Repositories​

By default, ProdE identifies the most relevant repositories automatically. If you want to narrow the scope, you can select specific repositories to focus the search. This is optional — ProdE handles repo selection well on its own — but useful when you know exactly where to look.

Assign Chat to a Project​

Link a chat to an existing Project to give ProdE access to the full project context — requirements, documents, artefacts, and planning stages. This means your questions can factor in not just the codebase but also the intent and specifications behind the work.

Examples:

  • "Based on the requirements, which services need changes for the new checkout flow?"
  • "Are there any gaps between the PRD and what's currently implemented?"

Create Documents from Chat​

Ask ProdE to create a document for you — a PRD, a technical spec, a research summary, or anything else — and it will generate it directly within the chat. Just describe what you need, and ProdE drafts the document using your codebase and project context.

Examples:

  • "Create a PRD for adding SSO support"
  • "Write a technical design doc for the new notification service"
  • "Draft a research summary of how our current caching layer works"

Once created, documents appear alongside the chat and support:

  • Manual editing — open the document and edit the content directly in ProdE's editor
  • Versioning — every edit creates a new version, so you can track changes over time
  • AI-assisted updates — ask ProdE in the chat to update or refine specific sections of an existing document
  • Download — export as PDF or DOCX for sharing outside ProdE
  • Tags — documents can be tagged (e.g., idea, PRD, research, engineering) to keep them organized

Use Cases​

For Product Managers​

  • Understand how existing features are implemented before writing specs
  • Identify which teams and services are affected by a proposed change
  • Get quick answers about system capabilities without waiting for engineering

For Developers​

  • Understand how unfamiliar repositories work when onboarding or debugging
  • Resolve cross-team issues by understanding dependencies across services
  • Quickly find relevant code patterns, API contracts, and shared utilities

For Engineering Leads​

  • Get a broad view of system architecture across repositories
  • Identify shared dependencies and potential impact areas for changes
  • Answer technical due-diligence questions with codebase-backed evidence
Use ProdE in your editor

You can also access ProdE's codebase understanding directly from your coding agent via the Codebase Understanding MCP server. Set it up in Cursor, GitHub Copilot (VS Code), Windsurf, or Claude Code.

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