Onboarding a Codebase

You just joined a team, picked up a ticket in a service you have never touched, or need to work against another team's repository. The traditional path is to read through the code for hours or wait for someone to walk you through it. ProdE gives you a faster route: a structured, always current understanding of the repository that you can read and question directly.

This guide takes you from "I have never seen this codebase" to "I know where to make my change."

Step 1: Start with the Repo Wiki Overview

Open the Documentation page in ProdE and select the repository you are working in. Every connected repository has a Repo Wiki: a navigable hierarchy generated from the source code and kept in sync as the code changes.

Begin at the top-level Repository Overview. In a few minutes it tells you what the repository does, the role it plays in the wider system, and how it is organized. This is the context a new engineer usually spends a week assembling.

Step 2: Drill Into the Feature Groups That Matter

The wiki groups related functionality into Feature Groups (for example "Authentication" or "Payment Processing"), each with child Feature Pages. Find the group closest to your task and read its summary, then open the individual feature pages.

Each feature page tells you:

• What the feature does
• The specific code symbols (functions, classes) that implement it
• How it connects to other parts of the system

By the time you finish the relevant feature pages, you know roughly where your change belongs and which symbols you will be touching.

Step 3: Ask the Specific Questions

Reading gets you oriented. For the precise questions that follow, switch to ProdE Chat. The answers are grounded in the actual code, so you are not guessing.

Good onboarding questions to ask:

• "Walk me through what happens when a request hits the orders endpoint."
• "Where is the database schema for users defined, and what migrations touch it?"
• "What conventions does this repo follow for error handling and logging?"
• "Which configuration or environment variables does the payment module depend on?"

You do not need to know the repository name in advance. ProdE picks the most relevant repositories automatically, and you can narrow the scope to a specific repository when you already know where to look.

Step 4: Understand How It Connects to Other Services

Real features rarely live in one repository. When your work touches a service boundary, ask cross-repository questions so you understand the full path before you change anything:

• "How does data flow from the signup API into the analytics pipeline?"
• "Which services depend on the shared auth library, and how do they call it?"
• "What does the frontend expect from the orders service response?"

ProdE searches across every connected repository to give you the complete picture, which is exactly what you need when a feature spans multiple teams.

Step 5: Bring It Into Your Editor

Once you start writing code, you do not have to leave your IDE to keep asking. ProdE's MCP server gives your coding agent the same Knowledge Layer, so it can answer "where is this implemented?" and trace symbol usages while you work. If it is not connected yet, set it up for Cursor, GitHub Copilot (VS Code), Windsurf, or Claude Code.

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Related: Once you know the codebase, see Debugging and Impact Analysis for tracing behavior and scoping changes, or Building with Your Coding Agent when you are ready to implement.