Incremental Update

Usage

iw index update [options]

Re-indexes only files whose content has changed since the last build. Typical update time: < 1 second.

Options

Option	Default	Description
-v	off	Show what changed

How It Works

CARI tracks a SHA-256 content hash for every indexed file. When you run iw index update, it:

1. Scans the workspace for files
2. Computes the current hash for each file
3. Compares against the stored hash in .iw/index.db
4. Re-indexes only files that changed

Unchanged files are completely skipped — no AST parsing, no keyword extraction, no git analysis.

Example

# After editing src/auth/service.ts:
iw index update -v

# Updated 1 file:
#   src/auth/service.ts (content changed)
# Skipped 263 files (unchanged)
# Time: 0.3s

When to Use Update vs Build

Scenario	Command
First time	iw index build
After editing a few files	iw index update
After changing depth mode	iw index build --depth full
After pulling lots of changes	iw index build
In CI (fresh checkout)	iw index build

Next Steps

• Build the Index — full build options
• CI Drift Check — pair with incremental updates

Programmatic API

import { CariIndex } from "@intentweave/index";

// Equivalent to: iw index update -v
await CariIndex.update({
  workspaceRoot: process.cwd(),
  verbose: true,
});

// Or: load existing index and inspect freshness
const index = CariIndex.load(".iw/index.db");
const report = index.report();
console.log(`${report.staleCount} stale files`);
index.close();

CariIndex.update() uses the same SHA-256 content-hash comparison as iw index update. Only files whose hash differs from the files table entry are re-processed through the AX → KWX → COX → Annotate stages.