How do I stop my AI coding agent from rereading the same files every session?
Give the agent a single canonical answer per query instead of raw files to sift. Index your repo's markdown once, then serve the agent the one current doc that answers a question — a path:line pointer with a freshness marker — rather than letting it reread files to guess which is canonical. That cuts the cost to about 60% fewer tokens per lookup, because the agent reads one current section instead of the top few stale candidates.
Why does the agent reread files in the first place?
Because nothing tells it which doc is authoritative. When several markdown files mention the same topic — a runbook, an ADR, an old wiki page — the agent has no signal for which is current, so it opens them and reasons over the pile. It does this every session, for every agent, paying the same tokens to re-answer "which file is the source of truth?" each time.
What actually fixes it?
Three things, together:
- Route the query to one doc. Return the single canonical file that answers, not a candidate list — so the agent stops sifting.
- Mark freshness. Tag each result canonical, stale, or duplicate, so the stale and duplicate copies never reach the agent's context.
- Read at the section level. Serve the paragraph that answers, not the whole file, so a short answer costs short-answer tokens.
How trovex does it
trovex is an open-source, local-first MCP server that does exactly this. It indexes your repo's markdown, answers a query with the one canonical doc (down to the section, with a freshness marker), and lets agents write back what they learn so the next agent reads it instead of re-deriving it. It runs on your machine — vectors in SQLite, ONNX embeddings, no cloud or API keys — and shows you the tokens it saved. trovex is in private beta — request access; once you're in, setup is about a minute:
Stop paying to reread the repo.
Point trovex at your docs and serve your agents one current answer per query.
Open source. No cloud, no API keys. Your docs never leave your machine.