How-To Guides

Task-oriented guides for common Canopy workflows. Each guide covers one specific goal with copy-pasteable steps, expected output, and common pitfalls.

Editor setup

canopy setup wires every detected MCP editor automatically — for most users that one command is the whole setup. These guides cover the manual config recipe for each editor and how to verify the single canopy_answer tool is connected.

Set Up Canopy with Claude Code — Add Canopy to .mcp.json and verify canopy_answer appears in Claude Code
Set Up Canopy with Cursor — Wire Canopy through Cursor’s MCP settings
Set Up Canopy with Zed — Add Canopy as a context server in Zed’s settings
Set Up Canopy with VS Code + Continue — Connect Canopy to the Continue extension for VS Code

CI integration

Run Canopy health checks automatically on every pull request.

GitHub Actions Integration — Surface P0/P1 findings as PR annotations
GitLab CI Integration — Publish findings as a Code Quality report on merge requests
CI Cached Indexes (Team tier) — Skip re-indexing on every run with managed R2 or your own S3 bucket

Repo configuration

Tune Canopy for your specific repository structure.

Configure Monorepo — Set entry points, ignored paths, and workspace config for monorepos
Multi-Language Repo — One unified index across 55+ languages and formats
Team Shared Configs — Commit .canopy/team.yml so all developers use consistent rules

Extending Canopy

Add project-specific rules and integrate with other tools.

Write a Custom Health Check — Define YAML plugins for project-specific patterns
Migrate from Sourcegraph — Map Sourcegraph search and navigation onto canopy_answer questions
Use Canopy Alongside GitHub Copilot — Combine structural answers with Copilot completions

Debugging

Diagnose and fix common Canopy problems.

Debug Slow Indexing — Find what’s taking time and fix it with ignored_paths and size limits
Debug Symbol Resolution Issues — Fix missing symbols and incomplete answers with question shapes, canopy doctor, and canopy index --full

For problems not covered here, see the Troubleshooting section or email support@gulfshieldtech.com with the output of canopy doctor attached.