arm-code-mcp

An MCP server that helps AI assistants optimize Linux workloads on Arm64. It parses perf report output, recommends NEON SIMD intrinsics for hot loops, and audits Python dependency manifests for arm64 wheel availability — all offline, all structured, all callable from Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Codex.

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What's inside

• analyze_perf_output — parse perf report --stdio into a ranked list of hot symbols
• suggest_neon_intrinsic — semantic + keyword search over 110 curated NEON intrinsics
• check_arm64_deps — flag packages in requirements.txt, pyproject.toml, or Dockerfile that lack arm64 wheels or require special handling

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Prerequisites

• Docker
• An MCP-compatible AI assistant (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex)

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Quick start

docker pull jeannjohnson/arm-code-mcp:latest

Add to your MCP client config (e.g. ~/.claude/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "arm-code-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "jeannjohnson/arm-code-mcp:latest"]
    }
  }
}

Restart your client. All three tools are now available.

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Tools

analyze_perf_output

Parse raw perf report --stdio output and return the top hot symbols, ranked by overhead.

analyze_perf_output(
    perf_report_text: str,          # raw stdout of `perf report --stdio`
    top_n: int = 10,                # max symbols to return
    min_overhead_pct: float = 0.5,  # ignore symbols below this %
) -> dict

Example response:

{
  "summary": {
    "total_samples": 5432100,
    "total_events": null,
    "command": "myapp"
  },
  "hot_symbols": [
    {"overhead_pct": 24.17, "samples": 1245, "command": "myapp",
     "module": "myapp", "symbol": "process_buffer"},
    {"overhead_pct": 12.34, "samples": 636, "command": "myapp",
     "module": "libc-2.31.so", "symbol": "__memcpy_avx_unaligned_erms"}
  ],
  "warnings": []
}

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suggest_neon_intrinsic

Recommend NEON intrinsics for a hot loop using hybrid semantic + exact-name retrieval over a curated knowledge base of 110 intrinsics.

suggest_neon_intrinsic(
    operation_description: str,    # e.g. "32-bit float multiply-accumulate"
    target_arch: str = "armv8-a",  # "armv8-a" | "armv8.2-a" | "armv9-a"
    top_k: int = 5,
) -> dict

Example response:

{
  "matches": [
    {
      "intrinsic": "vmlaq_f32",
      "signature": "float32x4_t vmlaq_f32(float32x4_t a, float32x4_t b, float32x4_t c)",
      "header": "<arm_neon.h>",
      "min_arch": "armv8-a",
      "description": "Multiply-accumulate: a + (b * c), lane-wise, 4x f32.",
      "score": 0.9142
    }
  ],
  "notes": "Filtered to armv8-a. KB contains 110 entries (103 compatible)."
}

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check_arm64_deps

Scan a dependency manifest and flag packages with known arm64 compatibility issues. Fully offline — no network calls, fast, deterministic.

check_arm64_deps(
    file_content: str,                    # raw text of the manifest
    file_type: str = "requirements.txt",  # "requirements.txt" | "pyproject.toml" | "Dockerfile"
) -> dict

Example response:

{
  "checked": ["numpy", "tensorflow", "cupy-cuda12x", "faiss-cpu", "requests"],
  "issues": [
    {"package": "cupy-cuda12x", "severity": "error",
     "message": "GPU-only package with no arm64 wheel. Use cupy with ROCm or a CPU fallback."},
    {"package": "tensorflow", "severity": "warning",
     "message": "Official TensorFlow PyPI wheels are x86-only before 2.10; use tensorflow-aarch64 or build from source."},
    {"package": "faiss-cpu", "severity": "warning",
     "message": "No official arm64 wheel on PyPI; build from source or use the conda-forge package."},
    {"package": "numpy", "severity": "info",
     "message": "arm64 wheels available from PyPI since 1.21.0. Ensure version >= 1.21.0."}
  ],
  "summary": "Checked 5 package(s): 1 error(s), 2 warning(s), 1 info(s)."
}

Severity levels:

Level	Meaning
error	No arm64 wheel exists (e.g. GPU-only packages)
warning	Wheel exists but requires a workaround or alternative source
info	Wheel available; version constraint or system-lib note applies

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Configuration

All env vars are optional. The server works with no configuration.

Variable	Default	Description
ARM_CODE_MCP_LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Log verbosity: DEBUG, INFO, WARNING
ARM_CODE_MCP_KB_PATH	bundled JSONL	Override path to neon_intrinsics.jsonl
ARM_CODE_MCP_CACHE_DIR	~/.cache/arm-code-mcp	Embedding cache directory

Pass env vars to the container:

docker run --rm -i \
  -e ARM_CODE_MCP_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG \
  jeannjohnson/arm-code-mcp:latest

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Evaluation

suggest_neon_intrinsic is evaluated against 15 hand-curated (query, expected intrinsic) pairs using the real all-MiniLM-L6-v2 embedding model. Current baseline:

Metric	Score
hit@1	0.667
hit@3	0.933
hit@5	1.000
MRR	0.817

The regression guard exits non-zero if hit@3 drops below 0.70.

Run the eval harness locally:

uv sync
make eval

See eval/README.md for methodology and known limitations.

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Development

git clone https://github.com/jean-johnson-zwix/arm-code-mcp
cd arm-code-mcp
uv sync
make test    # 78 tests
make lint    # ruff check + format
make eval    # real model, 15 gold queries

Makefile targets:

Target	Description
make setup	uv sync + pre-commit install
make test	Run the full test suite
make lint	ruff check + ruff format --check
make eval	Run the NEON retrieval eval harness
make docker-build	Build arm-code-mcp:dev locally
make docker-run	Run the local dev image over stdio

Multi-arch images (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64) are built and pushed automatically by .github/workflows/release.yml on v*.*.* tags.

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Knowledge base maintenance

The NEON intrinsics knowledge base lives in src/arm_code_mcp/kb/data/neon_intrinsics.jsonl (110 entries). To add intrinsics or refresh after a model upgrade, see docs/kb-refresh.md.

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Roadmap

Tools

• parse_flamegraph — extract hot paths from Linux perf flamegraph SVG
• suggest_sve2_intrinsic — extend retrieval to SVE2 intrinsics (Neoverse V2, Cortex-X4)

Eval

• Multi-query paraphrase expansion for each gold pair
• Reranking pass over semantic candidates
• Larger gold set (50+ queries) for lower metric variance

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Demo

Coming soon.

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Contributing

Stars, forks, and issues are welcome. Open a PR or file an issue on GitHub.

Good first issues:

• Add more NEON intrinsic entries to kb/data/neon_intrinsics.jsonl
• Add gold eval queries for SVE2 intrinsics
• Add parse_flamegraph tool for Linux perf flamegraph SVG files

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License

Apache 2.0 — same as arm/mcp.