Offline semantic search for any documentation. Embeddings are generated locally at build time. The browser runtime is pure math — no model weights, no cloud APIs, no data leaving the user’s machine.

Zero config

Run npx docmd-search ./docs in any folder with Markdown files. No setup, no API keys, no config file needed.

How it works

Build time (Node.js)                    Search time (Browser, <3KB)
───────────────────                     ──────────────────────────
 Crawl files                             Load manifest.json
   → Chunk by heading                      → Load batch 000 (instant)
     → Embed via ONNX                        → Background-load rest
       → Quantize Float32 → Int8               → Keyword + cosine
         → Compress (ternary/PQ)                 → Ranked results
           → Save multi-batch index

All embedding computation happens at build time using ONNX Runtime on your machine. The browser receives only pre-computed integer vectors and performs keyword matching + cosine similarity — no neural network inference, just arithmetic.

Key capabilities

Offline by default

All embeddings generated locally with ONNX Runtime. No data leaves your machine. No cloud API keys needed.

Instant search

Progressive indexing means search is available from the first batch. Incremental re-indexing only processes changed files.

Tiny client

Browser runtime under 3KB gzipped. No model weights shipped to the browser. Hybrid keyword + vector scoring.

Resumable

Interrupted indexing resumes from the last checkpoint. Batch-based output means partial indexes are always usable.

Quick start

Install

npm install -g docmd-search

Install embedding dependencies

npm install -g @huggingface/transformers onnxruntime-node

Index your docs

docmd-search ./docs

On first run, a setup wizard lets you choose an embedding model. After that, files are crawled, chunked, embedded, and an interactive terminal search opens automatically.

What’s next

Page Description
Getting Started Installation, first run, and model selection
Configuration Global, project, and CLI configuration options
How It Works Architecture, chunking, compression, and scoring
CLI Reference All commands, flags, and examples
Programmatic API Use docmd-search in scripts and CI pipelines
Browser Client Integrate search into any web page

Part of the docmd ecosystem

docmd-search works standalone with any documentation project. It also integrates with docmd as a semantic search plugin.

Tool What it does
docmd Zero-config documentation generator
docmd-search Offline semantic search engine
next Getting Started